Dr. Juliana Geran Pilon is a Senior Fellow at the Alexander Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization, where she directs AHI's Washington Program on National Security. Her books include: An Idea Betrayed: Jews, Liberalism, and the American Left (2023), The Utopian Conceit and the War on Freedom (2019), The Art of Peace: Engaging a Complex World (2016); Soulmates: Resurrecting Eve (2012); the anthology Cultural Intelligence for Winning the Peace (2009); Why America is Such a Hard Sell: Beyond Pride and Prejudice (2007), the anthology Every Vote Counts: The Role of Elections in Building Democracy, which she co-edited with Richard Soudriette (2007); The Bloody Flag: Post-Communist Nationalism in Eastern Europe -- Spotlight on Romania (1991); and Notes From the Other Side of Night (1979, 1994, 2014).
The author of over two hundred fifty articles and reviews on international affairs, human rights, literature, and philosophy, she has made frequent appearances on radio and television. Her writings have recently appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Law & Liberty, the Jewish News Syndicate (JNS), Academic Questions, InFocus, Starting Points, DocEmet Productions, The American Mind, and The Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs, among others. She serves on the International Board of the Israel Council of Foreign Affairs.
Born in Romania, she emigrated with her family and arrived in the U.S. as a teenager. After receiving her B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Chicago, she held post-doctoral fellowships in international relations at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and at the Institute of Humane Studies, and subsequently taught at several universities including the National Defense University, George Washington University, and the Institute of World Politics where she was Director of the Center for Culture and Security. She currently teaches at American University, serves as faculty advisor for AU’s Alexander Hamilton Society chapter, and is a regular lecturer for the Common Sense Society in the U.S. and Europe.
In the 1980s, she was a Senior Policy Analyst at the Heritage Foundation where she founded the United Nations Assessment Project which exposed the organization’s corruption and politicization. In 1988, as Executive Director and then Vice President of the National Forum Foundation, she oversaw a Visiting Fellows program for young professionals from the newly liberated Soviet bloc. During the 1990s she became Vice President for Programs at the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), where she designed, conducted, and managed projects related to a wide variety of democratization projects. Upon her departure from IFES, on Sept. 10, 2002, the Board of Directors passed a resolution in gratitude “for her many years of distinguished service and her tremendous contributions to [IFES’] cause,” commending her “for her efforts in demonstrating that freedom and democratic ideals matter and that they are the primary tools needed to achieve a more peaceful and democratic world.”