Carola Weil serves as Associate Dean for Planning and Strategic Initiatives at the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication, a position she has held since November 2007. She also has a research faculty appointment in international relations and public diplomacy. Previously, she served as senior program officer at the United States Institute for Peace, where she led the institution's grant initiative in Pakistan and in Colombia, among a broader grantmaking portfolio in higher education, media assistance and training, conflict resolution, and humanitarianism worldwide.

Her current research addresses the evolution of international protection norms and the use of armed force in complex humanitarian emergencies, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa (Rwanda, DRC and Sudan). She has written and taught on issues of regional and international security, humanitarian intervention and forced migration, international relations theory, and conflict resolution. She has served as a visiting assistant professor of international relations at several universities and received post-doctoral fellowships to Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the John F. Kennedy School of Government among other appointments. Weil is the former executive director of the Center for International Development and Conflict Management at the University of Maryland and former executive director of Women in International Security. She previously served as Program Officer with the US offices of the Friedrich-Ebert Foundation, a German operational foundation. She brings to USC two decades of experience in NGO and university program and grants management, problem solving and strategic planning. Carola Weil, a dual citizen of Germany and the U.S., holds a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Maryland, College Park.