My History
Dr. Ian Lekus (he/him) is an internationally recognized historian, writer, and human rights expert. Across grassroots movements, the nonprofit sector, and academia, Ian has advocated for and researched LGBTQI+ justice, peace, and human rights for more than 25 years.
Currently, he works on policy and communications strategies for the Council for Global Equality, a coalition of 40 organizations working to make U.S. foreign policies and programs fully LGBTQI+-affirming and inclusive. His work at the Council includes coordinating its international partnerships to fight the anti-rights/anti-gender movement and leading its work to support LGBTQI+ refugees. He is also the principal for the coaching and consulting firm, Delta Changemakers, LLC.
International POLICY EXPERIENCE
Ian has also been an LGBTQI+ Thematic Specialist at Amnesty International USA since 2013, where he serves as the LGBTQI+ working group’s point person for lobbying on Capitol Hill, its specialist for supporting LGBTQI+ asylum cases, and its lead for addressing human rights issues along the U.S.-Mexico border, in Latin America, and across Eurasia and Sub-Saharan Africa. He has also served on the Advisory Board of the Sexuality, Gender, and Human Rights Program at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Carr Center for Human Rights and as the founding host/producer of the Radio Free Qtopia podcast.
EDUCATION & TEACHING
Ian received his B.A. in History from Cornell and his M.A. and Ph.D. in History, with a Graduate Certificate in Women’s Studies, from Duke.
He has held full-time faculty positions at Harvard, Tufts, and the University of Georgia. Since moving to the Washington, D.C. area, Ian has taught on urban politics and social justice at the Cornell-in-Washington Program and on LGBTQI+ studies at the University of Maryland. He has also held a fellowship at the Center for Transatlantic Relations at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).
OTHER ADVOCACY EXPERIENCE
Ian has also served as the Board Chair of GLSEN’s Raleigh-Durham chapter and of the LGBTQ+ History Association, the professional organization for LGBTQI+ historians in North America; as a longtime Board member of the Peace History Society; as a Research Analyst for Fund the People; as a Philanthropy Research Fellow at the University of North Carolina Wilmington; and as a fundraiser for Community Resource Initiative, a Boston-based nonprofit for HIV drug research, treatment, and prevention.
BEYOND THE WORK
Beyond his work, his passions include soccer, sci-fi, puns, and weight training. He lives in the Washington, D.C. area with a loving brother-sister pair of chaos demons poorly disguised as cats. They run the show.