Key Facts
Career & Education
About
Michelle Ajami (née Saltmarsh) is an American media professional and former editor, best known as the widow of Fouad Ajami (1945-2014), the renowned Lebanese-American political scientist, author, and expert on Arab politics who directed the Middle East Studies program at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies and served as a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. The couple divided their time between residences in Silver Spring, Maryland, United States, and Gstaad, Switzerland, where Fouad Ajami passed away on June 22, 2014, from complications of emphysema. Following her husband's death, Michelle Ajami has largely remained out of the public eye while serving as a primary steward of his intellectual legacy, overseeing the posthumous publication of his unedited manuscripts and memoirs. Her efforts were instrumental in readying 'When Magic Failed: A Memoir of a Lebanese Childhood, Caught Between East and West' (2022) for publication, collaborating with editor Benjamin Kravitz and longtime friend Leon Wieseltier to bring the unedited text to print. She has maintained close ties with the Hoover Institution and other academic circles, supporting the release of her husband's final insights into Saudi politics in the book 'Crosswinds: The Way of Saudi Arabia' (2020). In honor of the couple's contributions to strategic studies, the Hoover Institution established the Fouad and Michelle Ajami Senior Fellowship, a prestigious position notably held by former National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster. Her role in these projects has been characterized by colleagues as that of a dedicated collaborator who assisted in assembling and updating his extensive collection of essays and strategic analyses during the final years of his life. Limited details are publicly available regarding her personal background or education beyond her editorial career and association with Fouad Ajami. No notable controversies, legal issues, financial details, or additional professional achievements are documented in major sources.