Faculty Profiles

Program Director

Clarence Lusane

Professor

Dr. Clarence Lusane is the program director for Comparative and Regional Studies. He teaches courses in comparative race relations, modern social movements, comparative politics of the Americas and Europe and jazz and international relations. He is a... [More]

202-885-1674
SIS - School of International Service

CRS Core Faculty

Akbar Ahmed

Professor

Ambassador Akbar Ahmed is the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at American University in Washington, D.C. and Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. He is a Visiting Professor and was First Distinguished Chair of Middle East & Is... [More]

202-885-1641
SIS - School of International Service

Adam Diamond

Professorial Lecturer

Adam Diamond holds a PhD in geography from Rutgers University. Prior to coming to SIS, he worked for the United States Department of Agriculture, where he conducted applied research on local food system development as a strategy for enhancing small a... [More]

202-885-6226
SIS - School of International Service

Kristin Diwan

Assistant Professor

Kristin Smith Diwan is Assistant Professor of Comparative and Regional Studies at the American University School of International Service. She holds regional expertise in the politics and policies of the Arab Gulf, and functional expertise on Islamic... [More]

202-885-1640
SIS - School of International Service

Michelle Egan

Associate Professor

Professor Michelle Egan teaches a variety of undergraduate and graduate courses including: The European Union, Relations of West European Nations, International Relations of Europe, Comparative European Politics, Economics, and Society, Transatlantic... [More]

202-885-1764
SIS - School of International Service

Pek Koon Heng-Blackburn

Assistant Professor

Dr. Pek Koon Heng teaches courses on International Relations and International Political Economy in Southeast and East Asia. She also directs SIS’s summer graduate program on “Globalization and Regionalism in East Asia” in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. In ... [More]

202-885-1688
SIS - School of International Service

Ji-Young Lee

Assistant Professor

Dr. Ji-Young Lee’s research and teaching focus on East Asian security, Korean politics and foreign policy, East Asian diplomatic history and international relations theory. Prior to AU, she was an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Politics and ... [More]

202-885-6561
SIS - School of International Service

Carl LeVan

Assistant Professor

LeVan focuses on comparative political institutions, democratization, and African security. His influential critique of power sharing in Africa appeared in the January 2011 issue of "Governance," and his he has also published articles on the Departm... [More]

202-885-2457
SIS - School of International Service

Linda Lucia Lubrano

Professor

Linda Lucia Lubrano teaches a wide range of courses that bridge the humanities with the natural and social sciences. Her classes draw upon film, literature, and philosophy, for example, and she combines political theory with the comparative study of ... [More]

202-885-1654
SIS - School of International Service

James Mittelman

University Professor

James Mittelman is University Professor of International Affairs, and was the founding Chair of Comparative and Regional Studies at American University. He has also been named Honorary Fellow at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies. Previously... [More]

202-885-1643
SIS - School of International Service

Molly O'Neal

Instructor

Molly O’Neal teaches courses on the domestic politics, economics, state-building and foreign relations of post communist Russia and Eurasia. Her Foreign Service Career spanned two decades and concentrated on the post-communist transition in Europe a... [More]

SIS - School of International Service

Randolph Persaud

Associate Professor

Dr. Persaud is the author and editor of books, articles, and journals, and is currently working on a study of the nuances of American hegemony.

202-885-1757
SIS - School of International Service

Rachel Robinson

Assistant Professor

Dr. Robinson’s research focuses on the politics of population, reproductive health, and HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa, and she also studies the determinants of birth timing in the United States. Her most recent work on Africa explored the process of... [More]

202-885-1636
SIS - School of International Service

Cathy Schneider

Associate Professor

Cathy Lisa Schneider writes and teaches on social movements, political violence, criminal justice, race, ethnicity and immigration in Europe, the United States, and Latin America. Her publications include, among others, the books Shantytown Protest i... [More]

202-885-1666
SIS - School of International Service

Quansheng Zhao

Professor

Dr. Quansheng Zhao is Professor of international relations and Director of Center for Asian Studies at American University; serving as Director of the Division of Comparative and Regional Studies for three terms (1999-2008). Zhao received his B.A. fr... [More]

202-885-1662
SIS - School of International Service

CRS Scholar in Residence

Maina Chawla Singh

Scholar in Residence

Dr. Maina Singh has lectured widely at international institutions including Oxford, Cambridge, Yale, Cornell, Michigan, Indiana, Brandeis, and at the Library of Congress. She was Scholar-in-Residence, Haddasah-Brandeis Institute(2008); Fellow at Schu... [More]

(202) 885-1603
SIS - School of International Service

J. Ann Tickner

Distinguished Scholar in Residence

J. Ann Tickner joined SIS in September 2012 as a Distinguished Scholar in Residence. She is also a Professor Emerita at the University of Southern California where she taught for fifteen years before coming to American University. Her principle areas... [More]

SPA Affiliate Faculty

Todd Eisenstadt

Professor

Professor Eisenstadt's research focuses on the intersection of formal institutions and laws with informal institutions and practices, mostly in democratizing countries. Co-editor of Latin America's Multicultural Movements and the Struggle Between Com... [More]

202-885-6493
SPA - Government

Susan Glover

Assistant Professor

Professor Glover teaches and does research in the field of comparative politics, with a concentration on Africa. Her past work has focused on democratic transition and consolidation in multi-ethnic states. She has lived and worked in southern Africa,... [More]

202-885-2674
SPA - Government

Eric Hershberg

Director, Center for Latin American and Latino Studies

Eric Hershberg is Director of the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies and Professor of Government at American University. From 2007-2009 he was Professor of Political Science and Director of Latin American Studies at Simon Fraser University,... [More]

202-885-6172
Center for Latin American/Latino Studies

Adrienne LeBas

Assistant Professor

Adrienne LeBas (PhD, Columbia University) joined the Department of Government in the fall of 2009. Prior to joining AU, LeBas was a Prize Research Fellow at Nuffield College, University of Oxford, and Assistant Professor of Political Science and Afri... [More]

202-885-6229
SPA - Government

Jie Lu

Assistant Professor

Dr. Lu studies local governance, the political economy of institutional change, public opinion and political participation. He works extensively with standardized sampling survey data and qualitative evidence compiled following the anthropological tr... [More]

202-885-6281
SPA - Government

Saul Newman

Associate Professor

Saul Newman is an associate professor in the Department of Government in the School of Public Affairs at American University in Washington, DC. He received his PhD in 1989 from the Department of Politics, Princeton University. Since then he has taugh... [More]

202-885-6240
SPA - Government

Diane Singerman

Associate Professor

Dr. Singerman is an Associate Professor and comparativist whose research interests focus on political change from below, particularly in the Middle East, and more specifically Egypt. Her work examines the formal and informal side of politics, gender,... [More]

202-885-2362
SPA - Government

CAS Affiliate Faculty

Laura Beers

Assistant Professor

Professor Beers's research focuses on modern Britain. She is particularly interested in the ways in which politics both influences and is shaped by cultural and social life, and in the role of the mass media in modern society. Her first book, Your Br... [More]

202-885-6379
CAS - History

Eric Lohr

Director of Initiative for Russian Culture and Associate Professor

Eric Lohr is a historian of Russia and East Europe with an affiliate appointment in the School of International Service. He directs the AU Initiative for Russian Culture. He received his M.A. in Russian Studies and Ph.D. in History from Harvard Unive... [More]