Henry R. Nau

Henry R. Nau is professor of political science and international affairs at Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University. He is the author of a theory of American foreign policy known as conservative internationalism and a book by the same name.

Nau was born in 1941. He holds a B.S. degree in economics, politics and science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an M.A. from the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University. He received a Ph.D from the same institution in 1972 with a thesis "Politics and peaceful technology in Western Europe: case study of nuclear reactor cooperation."

He was assistant professor at Williams College (1971–73) before coming to George Washington, and has also been visiting professor at Johns Hopkins SAIS, Stanford, and Columbia Universities. During his tenure at the George Washington University, Nau has established a reputation as one of the institution’s leading conservative academics with respect to international relations.

Since 1989 he has directed the longest standing Congressional parliamentary exchange program with foreign countries, semiannual meetings between Members of the US Congress, Japanese Diet, and Korean National Assembly.

From 1975 to 1977 he was special assistant to the undersecretary for economic affairs in the U.S. Department of State. From January 1981 to July 1983 in President Reagan's administration, he worked on international economic affairs as a senior staff member of the National Security Council. He was the White House's personal representative, or sherpa, for the G-7 Economic Summits at Ottawa (1981), Versailles (1982), and Williamsburg (1983) and a special summit with developing countries at Cancun, Mexico (1982). ^{[citation needed]}