Described by Forbes as “a powerful crusader for U.S foreign policy as well as human rights and democracy” when it named her one of the “World’s 100 Most Powerful Women,” Samantha Power has been recognized as a leading voice internationally for principled American engagement in the world. She was the youngest-ever U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, served as the Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development, and won a Pulitzer Prize for her book A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide. Included in Foreign Policy’s list of the “Top 100 Global Thinkers” and twice named one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People, she is currently the Anna Lindh Professor of the Practice of Global Leadership and Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and the William D. Zabel ’61 Professor of Practice in Human Rights at Harvard Law School.

Praised as “absorbing, heartfelt, and remarkably candid” (Secretary of State Madeline Albright) and as “gripping and revelatory” (Booklist, starred review) Power’s most recent book, The Education of an Idealist: A Memoir, was a New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today bestseller. It was selected as one of the best books of the year by publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Economist, National Public Radio, Time, Audible, Vanity Fair, and The Christian Science Monitor.

“Samantha Power’s captivating memoir is a rare and intimate revelation of the inner workings of international diplomacy as well as a heartening beacon of a book for young women and men everywhere. Its stories of dignity, kindness, empathy, and inclusiveness are needed today as never before.”

—Doris Kearns Goodwin, presidential historian and Pulitzer Prize–winning author

Power began her career as a journalist, reporting from places such as Bosnia, East Timor, Kosovo, Rwanda, Sudan, and Zimbabwe. It was the experience of covering some of the world’s most intractable conflicts which inspired A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide. An impassioned critique of America’s repeated failure to stop genocides around the world, the book won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, and the Raphael Lemkin Award. The New Republic called it “an angry, brilliant, fiercely useful, absolutely essential book.”

“Disturbing … engaging and well written … will likely become the standard text on genocide prevention.”

―Foreign Affairs

During the Obama administration, Power served on the National Security Council staff, then as the 28th U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations. During her time at the UN, Power rallied countries to combat the Ebola epidemic, ratify the Paris climate agreement, and develop new international law to cripple ISIS’s financial networks. She worked to negotiate and implement the ambitious Sustainable Development Goals, helped catalyze bold international commitments to care for refugees, and advocated to secure the release of political prisoners, defend civil society from growing repression, and protect the rights of women and girls. President Obama called her “one of our foremost thinkers on foreign policy,” saying that “she showed us that the international community has a moral responsibility and a profound interest in resolving conflicts and defending human dignity.”

When President Biden named her USAID Administrator, he described Power as “one of our country’s most respected voices on humanitarian issues,” adding, “there is simply no one better to ensure our development agenda is a core pillar of our foreign policy.” In running the world’s premiere development and humanitarian agency, Power oversaw USAID efforts to respond to Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine as it helped repair energy infrastructure and build new export pathways for Ukrainian agriculture. She launched substantial new efforts to help vulnerable communities prepare for climate-induced extreme weather events. In the wake of COVID-19, she expanded the agency’s involvement in strengthening global health security capabilities in order to avert future pandemics. And she oversaw agency responses to dozens of humanitarian emergencies, including those in Afghanistan, DRC, Gaza, Haiti, Myanmar, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.

Power immigrated to the United States from Ireland at the age of nine. She earned a B.A. from Yale University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.

For more information on Samantha Power, please visit her at https://samanthapower.com/