Laura Belmonte

Laura Belmonte, a history professor, serves as dean of the Virginia Tech College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences.

A specialist in the history of U.S. foreign relations, she is author of Selling the American Way: U.S. Propaganda and the Cold War and numerous articles on cultural diplomacy. Her most recent book, The International LGBT Rights Movement: A History, was published by Bloomsbury in 2020.

Belmonte served on the national council of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations and the editorial board of its official journal, Diplomatic History. From 2009 to 2019, she served on the U.S. Department of State’s Advisory Committee for Historical Diplomatic Documentation, a group that participates in ongoing debates over transparency and declassification and the intersections between historical events and contemporary diplomacy.

Belmonte holds a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Georgia and a master’s degree and doctorate from the University of Virginia.