New Faculty and Research Scholars 2019-20

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Each year new scholars, practitioners, and researchers bring their expertise to the SIPA faculty. This year’s newcomers include distinguished experts in economics and political science, the United States’ former top diplomat in Havana, and the founder of a leading global risk consulting firm, among others.

We welcome all those professors joining the SIPA community in 2019-20, and highlight some of them below.

Sandra Black, an influential and accomplished labor economist, has joined the SIPA faculty as a professor of international and public affairs. Black, who will hold a joint appointment with the Department of Economics, comes to Columbia from the University of Texas at Austin, where she held an endowed chair. She was a member of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Barack Obama and has been a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Black received her PhD in economics from Harvard.

The political scientist Keren Yarhi-Milo, a leading scholar of decision-making in foreign policy, joins SIPA as a professor of international and public affairs. Formerly an associate professor with tenure at Princeton University, Yarhi-Milo has also been a fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies, both at Harvard University. She has written two books on decision-making in foreign policy and multiple articles. Yarhi-Milo earned her PhD at the University of Pennsylvania and her BA here at Columbia.

After the United States re-established diplomatic relations with Cuba in 2014, Jeffrey DeLaurentis MIA ’78 served as the first chief of mission for the new U.S. embassy in Havana. The longtime U.S. diplomat now joins SIPA as George S. McGovern Visiting Professor for fall 2019. Along with co-instructor Jorge Castañeda of NYU, DeLaurentis will teach a course in SIPA’s flagship Master of International Affairs program entitled U.S.-Latin American Relations: World War II to the Present.

The prominent economist Jong-Wha Lee, a professor and director of the Asiatic Research Institute at Korea University in Seoul, South Korea, will be a visiting professor of international and public affairs in spring 2020. Lee has been a senior adviser to then president Lee Myung-bak of South Korea and chief economist at the Asian Development Bank, among other positions. He has written and published extensively on topics relating to human capital, growth, financial crises, and economic integration. Lee has also taught at Australian National University, Peking University, and Harvard University, where he earned his PhD in economics.

Ian Bremmer, the president and founder of Eurasia Group, a leading global political risk research and consulting firm, joins SIPA as an adjunct professor of international and public affairs. He will teach Applied Geopolitics, a new course on political risk analysis, in spring 2020 for students enrolled in SIPA’s flagship Master of International Affairs program. Bremmer is a frequent speaker, television commentator, and writer on global geopolitics. He holds a doctorate in political science from Stanford University.

Daniel Naujoks has been appointed lecturer in discipline and interim director of SIPA’s specialization in International Organization & UN Studies. Naujoks, who served previously as an adjunct professor and taught a successful course on migration and development, has extensive experience working with UN agencies. He is an expert on international migration and development and homeland-diaspora relations.

Stephen Biddle will serve this year as co-director (with Richard Betts) of the International Security Policy concentration. An expert in security studies who specializes in great power conflict and U.S. defense policy, Biddle joined the faculty in fall 2018 as a professor of international and public affairs.

Shiv Someshwar has been appointed visiting professor and interim director of the MPA in Development Practice program for the fall semester, while Glenn Denning is on leave. Someshwar, who has taught for MPA-DP for several years as an adjunct professor, was previously director of climate policy and research scientist at the Earth Institute.