Leonard Wantchekon is a Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University, as well as Associated Faculty in Economics. A scholar with diverse interests, Wantchekon has made substantive and methodological contributions to the fields of Political Economy, Economic History and Development Economics, and has also contributed significantly to the literatures on clientelism and state capture, resource curse and democratization.

In addition to being the Pan-African Scientific Research Council's founder, Wantchekon is the Founder and President of the African School of Economics, which opened in Benin in 2014. Wantchekon’s academic initiatives and research projects have been covered by major international media outlets such as Financial Times, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Jeune Afrique, BBC, Voice of America and Radio France International, among others.

Wantchekon is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Fellow of the Econometric Society and a member of the Executive Committee of the International Economic Association. He previously served as professor at New York University and at Yale University, and he holds a PhD in Economics from Northwestern University.