Who is Nicholas Burns, the man Rahul Gandhi is interviewing next?

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi will be holding an interactive session on the impact of COVID-19 with former US diplomat Nicholas Burns.

Nicholas Burns is a university professor, columnist, lecturer and a former American diplomat. Currently, Burns is the Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy and International Relations at the Harvard Kennedy School. The 64-year-old from New York is also the founder and director of the Future of Diplomacy Project and Faculty Chair of the Project on the Middle East, and India and South Asia.

Burns served in the US government for twenty-seven years. During his service in the US government, Burns was also State Department Spokesman (1995-1997), Ambassador to Greece (1997-2001), and US Ambassador to NATO (2001-2005). 

Between 2005 and 2008, he was the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, which led negotiations on the US-India Civil Nuclear Agreement. He also led the negotiation on Iran’s nuclear program. The professor was a member of Secretary of State John Kerry’s Foreign Affairs Policy Board from 2014-2017.

Burns has received 15 honorary degrees, including the Presidential Distinguished Service Award, the Secretary of State’s Distinguished Service Award, the 2017 Ignatian Award from Boston College, etc.

He is married to Elizabeth Baylies and has three children. Burns has a BA in History from Boston College (1978), an MA in International Relations from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (1980), and also earned the Certificat Pratique de Langue Francaise at the University of Paris-Sorbonne in 1977.