Joseph Ledford is assistant professor of security studies at the Clements Center for National Security at UT Austin where he serves as Director of Research. Ledford is also a Griffin Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. A historian of U.S. foreign relations, his research examines the individuals and institutions responsible for the exercise of American power in the world, particularly in the Western Hemisphere, and the domestic politics of foreign policy, broadly construed.

He is the co-editor of History’s Dead-Hand Grip: Politics, Statecraft, and “Lessons” of the Past and the author of a forthcoming book on the Iran-Contra affair. In addition to his historical research, he frequently provides analysis on US foreign policy for popular and policy outlets.

Ledford received his PhD in history from the University of California–Berkeley. He was previously an America in the World Consortium (AWC) Postdoctoral Fellow at the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and an AWC Predoctoral Fellow at the Clements Center for National Security at the University of Texas at Austin.