Professor Lipson's most recent work deals with the problems of forging international cooperation after the Cold War. He is currently writing about the sources of international order in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Charles Lipson was born and raised in Marks, Mississippi (a town of 2,000, about ninety minutes south of Memphis, Tennessee). After high school in Marks, he graduated from Yale College and received his M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University, where he won the Chase Prize in International Relations. He has been a visiting scholar at the London School of Economics and at Harvard.

As a faculty member at the University of Chicago, he has held a number of research posts and has won awards for his distinguished teaching. His courses on international politics and modern history are among the most popular in the College. Dr. Lipson has served as chairman of University's Committee on International Relations, where some 50 students a year earn Master's degrees in international affairs. Within the department of political science, he has served as director of graduate studies and is currently director of undergraduate studies.

Professor Lipson has chaired several major programs at the University and is the founding director of PIPES, the Program on International Politics, Economics, and Security.  Faculty, students, and policymakers from around the world come to PIPES to study international cooperation and conflict. Indeed, PIPES has helped make the University of Chicago one of the world's leading institutions for understanding international politics—a center recognized for its excellence.

Dr. Lipson has also been an officer of the American Political Science Association and editorial board member of two leading journals, International Organization and World Politics. He is a member of the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, the Chicago Committee, the Royal Institute of International Affairs, the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, the British-American Project, and other organizations.

Dr. Lipson frequently gives public talks on international issues and consults with senior government officials, diplomats, and corporate leaders. He often writes editorials on foreign policy issues and appears regularly on radio and television. He is a frequent guest on Extension 720 with Milt Rosenberg (WGN in Chicago), Beyond the Beltway with Bruce DuMont (nationally syndicated), and Chicago Tonight (WTTW, PBS in Chicago). He appears often on cable news networks and has served as a foreign affairs analyst for NBC5 in Chicago.

Dr. Lipson actively supports policies to encourage international trade, including NAFTA and the World Trade Organization. He also supports programs to encourage regional peace and security, as well as greater tolerance, in the Middle East.