New Faculty and Research Scholars 2020-21

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Each year new scholars, practitioners, and researchers bring their expertise to the SIPA faculty. We highlight below some of our additions for 2020-21, including two new full-time lecturers and several visiting professors and senior research scholars. Welcome to all!

Rumela Sen, a former postdoctoral scholar in the Political Science Department, joins SIPA as a full-time lecturer. She will teach the course Politics of Policymaking, a core requirement for MPA students, and an additional course on political development within the Economic and Political Development concentration. Sen’s research focuses on civil conflict, post-conflict governance, and state building. She received her PhD from Cornell.

Harold Stolper MPA ’06 is an economist who has analyzed the differential impact of public policy on low-income and minority groups, among other issues. As a full-time lecturer, Stolper will teach courses on data analysis and quantitative analysis. He earned his PhD at Columbia and before his appointment served as senior economist at the Community Service Society of New York.

As distinguished member of the U.S. Foreign Service for 33 years, Ambassador Christopher Hill served at the forefront of U.S. foreign policy across multiple regions, including Asia, Europe and the Middle East. He helped negotiate the end of wars in both Kosovo (in 1999) and Bosnia (in 1995) and went on to become assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs. After retiring from the State Department, Hill became the dean of the University of Denver’s Josef Korbel School of International Studies. As the George W. Ball Adjunct Professor for spring 2021, Hill will teach a course on diplomacy and deliver the annual George W. Ball Lecture, among other activities.

The physicist and best-selling author Varun Sivaram, a leading expert on clean energy technology, has joined SIPA as a senior research scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy. Varun previously was the chief technology officer of ReNew Power, India’s largest clean energy company. He has also been the director of the Program on Energy Security and Climate Change at the Council on Foreign Relations.

The adjunct assistant professors Janee Potts and Natalie Vanatta will co-teach the course Cyber Risks and Vulnerabilities. Each is a deeply experienced cyber expert with extensive service in the U.S. military, including positions at the Army Cyber Institute at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point.

The Columbia-Harvard China and the World program welcomes the postdoctoral fellow Weiwen Yin. Weiwen's research and teaching interests include comparative and international political economy, international law and organizations, economic history, and quantitative methods, with a regional focus of East Asia. He recently completed his PhD in political science at Texas A&M University.