Francis J. Gavin is the Giovanni Agnelli Distinguished Professor and the inaugural director of the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. In 2013, Gavin was appointed the first Frank Stanton Chair in Nuclear Security Policy Studies and Professor of Political Science at MIT. Before joining MIT, he was the Tom Slick Professor of International Affairs and the Director of the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas. In 2021-22, he was the Ernest May Senior Visiting Fellow in Applied History at Harvard University.

Gavin is the author of Gold, Dollars, and Power: the Politics of International Monetary Relations, 1958-1971, Nuclear Statecraft: History and Strategy in America's Atomic Age; Nuclear Weapons and American Grand Strategy; The Taming of Scarcity and the Problems of Plenty; and Thinking Historically: A Guide to Statecraft and Strategy.