Founding Director of Yale’s International Leadership Center and 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 served as political advisor to the Commander-in-Chief of U.S. Forces in Iraq and political advisor to the U.S. Security Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process.

She served as Kirkuk Provincial Coordinator for the Coalition Provisional Authority and is the author of the book "Collapse: High Hopes and Missed Opportunities in Iraq" (2015), which revealed the challenges of nation-building and how the removal of authoritarian regimes can plunge nations into conflict and disagreement.