Leonard Wantchekon is a James Madison Professor of Political Economy and Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University. He previously was a faculty member at New York University and Yale University and a 2019 Kellogg Institute Visiting Fellow. Wantchekon's research centers on political and economic development in Africa, focusing on human capital investment, democratization, clientelism, and redistributive politics, the resource curse, and the long-term social impact of slavery. He has written numerous articles for leading academic journals including the American Economic Review, the American Political Science Review, and the Quarterly Journal of Economics. Wantchekon is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a fellow of the Econometric Society, and has served as secretary of the American Political Science Association and on the Ibrahim Index Technical Committee. He is the founder and president of the African School of Economics in Benin. He holds a PhD in economics from Northwestern University.