Saadia M. Pekkanen is the Job and Gertrud Tamaki Endowed Professor at the University of Washington in Seattle. In addition to this appointment in The Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, she is Adjunct Professor in the Department of Political Science, and Adjunct Professor at the School of Law where she also teaches courses. She earned Master’s degrees from Columbia University and Yale Law School, and a doctorate from Harvard University in government.
At the University of Washington, she is the founding director of the Program on Strategy, Policy, and Diplomacy Research (SPDR) at The Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, the founding director of the Space Law, Data and Policy Program (SPACE LDP) at the School of Law, and the Founding Co-Director of the Space Policy and Research Center (SPARC) with the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics. She works at the intersection of international relations and international law, specializing in the commercial, legal, and security policies shaping outer space affairs. Her regional expertise is in the foreign affairs of Japan and Asia, engaging broader themes of states, industrial policy, strategy and grand strategy, alliances, and governance in the world order.
Her mentors instilled in her a passion for bridging the academic-policy divide, and she too is inspired to connect and advance scholarship on technology and international security in the public interest.
She is a member of the International Institute of Space Law (IISL) and a lifetime member of the Council of Foreign Relations (CFR).
