Emma Sky

Emma Sky is the founding Director of Yale’s International Leadership Center, which oversees the Maurice R. Greenberg World Fellows Program. She is a lecturer at the Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs where she teaches great power competition and cooperation, global affairs, grand strategy and refugees, and Middle East politics. She is the author of the highly acclaimed The Unravelling: High Hopes and Missed Opportunities in Iraq (2015) and In a Time of Monsters: Travelling in a Middle East in Revolt (2019). 

Emma served as political advisor to the Commanding General of US Forces in Iraq; as development advisor to the Commander of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan; as political advisor to the US Security Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process; and as Governorate Coordinator of Kirkuk for the Coalition Provisional Authority.

Prior to that, Emma worked in the Palestinian territories for a decade, managing projects to develop Palestinian institutions; and to promote co-existence between Israelis and Palestinians. In addition, Emma has provided technical assistance on poverty elimination, human rights, justice public administration reform, security sector reform, and conflict resolution in the Middle East, South Asia and Africa.