Born in 1948 in Santiago de Chile, Jorge Heine (PhD, Stanford) is the Ambassador of Chile to India. He was previously Professor of Political Science at Diego Portales University, Consulting Professor at Stanford University and Adjunct Professor at the University of Heidelberg. He has been a visiting fellow at St. Antony s College, Oxford, and has held post-doctoral fellowships from the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. He has been a consultant to the Ford Foundation and the United Nations, and is an associate member of the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) in London and an honorary research fellow of the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA) in Johannesburg. He is on the editorial board of the South African Journal of International Affairs, Latein Amerika Analysen, Estudios Internacionales, Perspectivas: Política, Economía y Gestión and Foro Chile 21.

He is the author, co-author or editor of eight books, including The Last Cacique: Leadership and Politics in a Puerto Rican City (University of Pittsburgh Press, Choice Magazine Outstanding Academic Book 1994). His articles have been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The International Herald Tribune and The Miami Herald and he is the author of over sixty articles published in journals or symposium volumes. He is the current president of the Chilean Political Science Association, and served as Chilean ambassador to South Africa from 1994 to 1999.