Dr. Jorge I. Dominguez was born in 1945 in Havana, Cuba.  He left the island with his family for the United States in 1960.  He attended Belen Jesuit Preparatory School in Miami, Florida, and in 1963 graduated from Fordham Preparatory School, in the Bronx in New York City. In 1967, he received his B.A. from Yale University. He went on to receive his M.A. (1968) and Ph.D. (1972) from Harvard University.

Domínguez began his teaching career at Harvard in 1972, and by 1979 was granted tenure.  He was the Antonio Madero Professor for the Study of Mexico at Harvard until his retirement in June 2018.

From 1995 to 2006, he served as director of Harvard’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. From 2006 to 2015, he served as Harvard’s first Vice Provost for International Affairs in the Office of the Provost, and as Senior Advisor for International Studies to the Dean of the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Prior to his retirement, he also chaired the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies, and also as an associate of Harvard’s David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, and an associate of Harvard’s Leverett House.

He is the author of U.S. Cuba Relations in the 1990s; Cuba: Order and Revolution; Economic Issues and Political Conflict: U.S.-Latin America Relations.