Mako Promoted to Associate Professor of International Relations
Congratulations to Professor Shamiran Mako, who was recently promoted to Associate Professor of International Relations with tenure at Boston University’s Pardee School of Global Studies! In his announcement, Dean Scott Taylor acknowledged her impactful scholarship, teaching, and service in the field of international relations.
Awarded the Gitner Family Prize for Faculty Excellence at Pardee’s 2025 convocation, she has been applauded by faculty and students alike, being described as “a visionary educator” whose “teaching emphasizes class activities and student engagement over lectures.”
Her expertise in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) has profoundly shaped the breadth of Pardee overall, bringing a wealth of both knowledge and empathy to conversations regarding policy, politics, and lived experiences of regional communities.
Her contributions to MENA scholarship and her valued analytical insights expand beyond the classroom. In 2025, she spoke at the Iraqi Research Leaders Forum in Baghdad, Iraq, became a member of the Steering Committee for the Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS), co-authored an article on U.S.–Iraq tensions amid the Maliki Nomination, and in 2026, was a central figure in the panel discussion; Beyond the Headlines: The U.S.–Israeli War on Iran and Regional Spillover.
This news coincided with her attendance of the Atlantic Council’s 2026 Iraq Dialogue Conference in Washington, D.C., held May 12–13. In her time at the conference Mako contributed her expertise to a high-level discussion on rebuilding Iraqi state capacity. The conference, themed “Iraq in a New Middle East,” convened Iraqi officials, U.S. policymakers, and regional experts to address the country’s political stability, economic reform, and evolving role in a shifting regional landscape.
On a panel dedicated to state capacity, Mako focused on the structural challenges facing Iraq’s institutional development, highlighting in particular the limitations of its power-sharing system and the stagnation of its democratization trajectory. Mako’s remarks underscored the importance of meaningful institutional reform in advancing governance and long-term stability in Iraq. Engaging alongside leading policymakers and scholars, she contributed to a broader conversation aimed at generating actionable policy recommendations and strengthening U.S.–Iraq cooperation. Reflecting on the experience, Mako noted the timeliness of these discussions amid ongoing regional transitions.
Please join us in congratulating Professor Shamiran Mako in her promotion! We look forward to seeing what she will accomplish next.
Shamiran Mako is an associate professor of international relations and political science at the Pardee School of Global Studies. Her scholarship dives deep into the historical and contemporary drivers of inter- and intra-state conflicts that engender weak and fragile states across the Middle East and North Africa region. She is the author of the upcoming book Structuring Exclusion: Institutions, Grievances, and Ethnic State Capture in Iraq (Oxford University Press, 2025) and After the Uprisings: Progress and Stagnation in the Middle East and North Africa, with Valentine Moghadam (Cambridge University Press, 2021). To read more about her work and accomplishments, visit her faculty profile.