Robert Hutchings is Lecturer with the rank of Professor at Princeton University and Professor Emeritus at the University of Texas, where he was the Rostow Professor in National Security and Dean of the LBJ School of Public Affairs. Before going to UT, he was Diplomat in Residence at Princeton, where he had also served as Assistant Dean of its School of Public and International Affairs and faculty chair of its Master in Public Policy program. During a public service leave from Princeton in 2003-05, he was Chairman of the U.S. National Intelligence Council.

His combined academic and diplomatic career has included service as Fellow and Director of International Studies at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Director for European Affairs with the National Security Council, and Special Adviser to the Secretary of State, with the rank of ambassador. A graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, he received his Ph.D. from the University of Virginia.

He is author or editor of six books, including American Diplomacy and the End of the Cold War. His most recent books are Truth to Power: A History of the U.S. National Intelligence Council, co-edited with Gregory Treverton (Oxford, 2019), and Modern Diplomacy in Practice, co-authored with Jeremi Suri (Palgrave, 2020).