Nancy W. Collins teaches courses on Modern Europe and advises graduate and undergraduate students in European Studies. Her current research project is An Indispensable Ally: The Rise of European Studies in Postwar America. Collins will soon commence a second book project, Seeing through the Iron Curtain: A History of America's First Russian Institute.

She serves as the Research Director of Columbia's European Institute as well as the Chair of the Columbia Seminar on Modern Europe, a faculty colloquium devoted to key transformations in the region. She is the Editor of the European Studies Forum, a journal devoted to showcasing original scholarship in the field. Collins previously served as the Director of the Council for European Studies at Columbia University in which she led the center’s interdisciplinary programs dedicated to the further advancement of the field.

She is a member of the American Council on Germany, Aspen Institute Society of Fellows, Council on Foreign Relations, Foreign Policy Association, National History Center, and the United States Commission on Military History.

Collins earned her B.A. from Georgetown University and M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of London. She has received fellowships and grants from the Institute of Historical Research, Huntington Library, Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy, London Central Research Fund, Rockefeller Foundation, Royal Historical Society, Society for the Study of French History, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and Yale University.