Profile | Ambassador Robert P. Finn

Mavi Boncuk

Ambassador Robert P. Finn
Ertegun Visiting Professor in the Near East Studies
Email: finn@princeton.edu

Ambassador Robert P. Finn is currently the Ertegun Visiting Professor in the Near East Studies Department of Princeton University. He served as the United States Ambassador to Afghanistan from March 2002 until August 2003. He had also been the Ertegun Professor at Princeton from September 2001 until January 2002, following service as the U.S. Ambassador to Tajikistan from 1998 until July of 2001. His other diplomatic postings include Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir in Turkey, Lahore in Pakistan and Zagreb, Croatia. He opened the U.S. embassy in Baku, Azerbaijan in 1992. He has received numerous awards from the U.S. government, including one for heroism. Ambassador Finn’s poems and translations have appeared in the United States, Turkey, France and Pakistan. His book, The Early Turkish Novel, is published in both English and Turkish. He has a B.A. in American literature and European history from St. John’s University, an M.A. in Near Eastern Studies from New York University, and an M.A. and Ph.D in Near Eastern Studies from Princeton University. He also was a Fulbright Scholar at Istanbul University. At Princeton, he has taught seminars on Central Asia and the Turkish novel and lectured extensively on Afghanistan and Central Asia in the U.S. and abroad.

"Afghanistan: Where Do We Stand?"
On January 22, 2004 Mr. Robert P. Finn, who was the United States ambassador to Afghanistan from March 2002 until August 2003, presented the lecture "Afghanistan: Where Do We Stand?" at Indiana University Bloomington. In his lecture Ambassador Finn discusses changes in Afghanistan since September 11, 2001.