Nancy Snow is a Professor Emeritus of Communications at California State University, Fullerton, and Pax Mundi (“Distinguished”) Professor of Public Diplomacy, at Kyoto University (2016-2022). She has lived mostly in Tokyo, Japan since 2012, first as a Fulbright Professor at Sophia University followed by an Abe Fellowship and Visiting Research Professorship at Keio University (2013-2015). In 2020 Snow held the Walt Disney Faculty Chair in Global Media and Communication in the Schwarzman Scholars Program at Tsinghua University where she taught “Public Diplomacy and Global Pandemic: The Search for Trust in a Time of Chaos.” In AY 2022/2023, Snow returned to Schwarzman College as a Visiting Distinguished Professor of Strategic Communications and Faculty Advisor. 

Snow has held visiting faculty appointments at two of the leading master of public diplomacy programs, Syracuse and USC. She was an Associate Professor of Public Diplomacy at Syracuse University's Newhouse School of Public Communications and served as an adjunct professor of public diplomacy at the USC Annenberg School for Communication for ten years. At USC Annenberg she was a principal faculty consultant in the establishment of the USC Center on Public Diplomacy and became the Center’s first senior research fellow. Dr. Snow is a former USIA and State Department official in the Presidential Management Fellows Program during Bill Clinton’s first presidential term. She is the author, editor, or co-editor of 15 books available in seven languages, including Korean, Chinese, Portuguese, Arabic, Japanese, and Persian, hundreds of scholarly articles and reviews, and several hundred popular media articles and blogs. Her current book projects are the lead author (with Garth Jowett and Victoria O’Donnell) of the 8th edition of Propaganda and Persuasion (2025) and the author of Battleship Diplomat: The Enduring Soul of the Mighty Mo in US-Japan Relations (Naval Institute Press, under contract). Snow is a contributing writer to Nikkei and its English-language partner, Nikkei Asia. She is affiliated with NATO’s journal, Defence Strategic Communications, OIST Foundation, Kreab Tokyo, and Temple University Japan’s Institute for Contemporary and Asian Studies.

Snow’s doctoral studies in the School of International Service at American University focused on international communication, intercultural communication, and peace and conflict resolution. Snow holds lifetime memberships in the Fulbright Association and Public Diplomacy Council of America and is a three-time Fulbright recipient (Germany, Japan, Greece). She remains a strong advocate for exchange diplomacy and gender diplomacy.