News & Stories

All News Research Newsmakers SPIA Reacts Community Profiles
Elke Weber
News February 15, 2022
Weber Named Director of Fung Global Fellows Program
Elke Weber will be the next director of the Princeton Fung Global Fellows Program, an international effort based at the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies. She will serve a two-year term, effective July 1, 2022. The Fung Global Fellows Program brings together international research scholars around a common topic. Under Weber’s directorship, the theme will be “sustainable futures.” As director, Weber will be responsible for helping to select the 2022-23 cohort of scholars. She will also help to organize a celebration of the program’s 10th anniversary in spring 2023. “The Fung Global Forum has been making an important and…
Janet and Biden
News February 14, 2022
Currie Briefs White House on Lead Remediation
Janet Currie briefed President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and members of the President's economic team at a Feb. 8 meeting focused on the economics of infrastructure investments. Currie, the Henry Putnam Professor of Economics and Public Affairs, focused her remarks on the effects of lead exposure on outcomes for children. Both the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the President’s Build Back Better framework include historic investments to reduce lead exposure. Janet Currie meets with President Joe Biden in the Oval Office. (Photo courtesy of the White House) Currie highlighted two studies that both used data from Rhode…
visiting lecturers
News February 09, 2022
Welcome, Visiting Professors and Lecturers!
Each semester, the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA) invites visiting professors and lecturers to the School, who share their real-world expertise in the classroom. These scholars and practitioners focus on some of today’s most pressing national and global policy challenges — from national security and human rights to technology, health care, and the economy. This semester, we extend a warm welcome to: Sahar Aziz is a visiting professor whose scholarship examines the intersection of national security, race, religion, and civil rights with a focus on the adverse impact of national security laws and policies on racial,…
Callout
News February 07, 2022
Q&A: Defining the Age: Daniel Bell
The sociologist Daniel Bell was described as one of the leading American intellectuals of the post-war era. He acutely defined the structural forces behind the transformation of the United States and other advanced societies in the 20th century. Bell’s ideas continue to provide profound insights in today’s world. This is what led Paul Starr and Julian E. Zelizer, both based at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, to edit a collection of essays about his influence: “Defining the Age: Daniel Bell, His Time and Ours,” published in February 2022 by Columbia University Press. The book brings together a group of distinguished…
Hanjatiana Nirina Randrianarisoa and Chris Buckley
News February 03, 2022
Data Science Program Provides Analytical Tools to Newly Minted College Students From Diverse Backgrounds
In fall 2021, Princeton’s Empirical Studies of Conflict Project (ESOC), with support from the School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA) and the Data-Driven Social Science Initiative, launched the ESOC Fellowship for Data-Driven Research, a program that prepares recent college graduates from underrepresented backgrounds to conduct data-driven research. The inaugural fellows are Hanjatiana Nirina Randrianarisoa, a graduate of Trinity College, and Chris Buckley, a graduate of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, who are both already at Princeton actively pursuing their research projects. Both Randrianarisoa and Buckley are participating…
Hooked, by Markus Prior, book cover
News January 24, 2022
Hooked: How Politics Captures People’s Interest (Markus Prior)
“Good citizenship” is often a consequence of political interest, and early adulthood may be the most formative time to develop political passion, according to a new book by Markus Prior, a professor of politics and public affairs at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs. As people take a greater interest in politics, they are likely to become more partisan, too. In an accessible account, “Hooked: How Politics Captures People’s Interest” explains the underpinnings of political interest. Using data from three decades in four Western democracies, Prior reveals why political interest matters — and where and when it’s most present. …
Keith Wailoo
News January 24, 2022
“Pushing Cool” by Wailoo Named a Finalist for 2021-22 Book Prize by the Association for the Study of African American Life and History
“Pushing Cool: Big Tobacco, Racial Marketing, and the Untold Story of the Menthol Cigarette,” a book written by Henry Putnam University Professor of History and Public Affairs Keith Wailoo has been announced as a 2022 Book Prize finalist, on behalf of the 2021-2022 Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH). Published by The University of Chicago Press, “Pushing Cool” tells the story of menthol cigarettes and how targeted racial marketing and persuasive tactics shaped the menthol buying habits and racial markets that exist across America today. Wailoo also reveals the reasoning behind continued menthol cigarette sales…
Layna Mosley
News January 12, 2022
Mosley to Serve as Co-Editor-in-Chief of International Organization
Political scientist Layna Mosley joins Brett Ashley Leeds of Rice University to serve as co-editor-in-chief of International Organization (IO), a leading peer-reviewed journal covering the field of international affairs. They will begin their five-year term on July 1, 2022. Mosley is professor of politics and international affairs at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs. Her research explores the connections between domestic politics and the global economy as well as international relations more generally. She teaches courses at Princeton on the politics of the global economy, global political risk analysis, and qualitative…
Sara McLanahan
News January 06, 2022
Sara McLanahan, ‘Towering Figure’ in the Study of Family Structure and Inequality, Dies at 81
Sara McLanahan, a prominent sociologist whose work played a foundational role in the understanding of single parents and their children, died of cancer Dec. 31. She was 81. Described by Princeton colleagues and students as a gracious and fair-minded scholar, McLanahan focused her teaching and research on societal gaps, guided by a profound curiousity about why some children fared better than others and how family structure played a role. She passed on this curiosity — and a deep appreciation for collecting robust data — to the network of scholars she mentored and supported throughout her career. McLanahan’s greatest academic legacy is the Fragile…
Sebastien
News January 05, 2022
Philippe Nominated For 2021 ‘Arms Control Person of the Year’
Sébastien Philippe, associate research scholar in the Program on Science and Global Security (SGS) at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA) has been nominated as a 2021 “Arms Control Person of the Year” by the Arms Control Association, an independent, non-governmental, nonpartisanship membership organization that works to increase the public understanding and support of effective arms control policies. According to the organization, the 2021 “Arms Control Person of the Year” award is given to “individuals and institutions who advanced effective arms control, nonproliferation, and disarmament solutions and raised awareness of…
Zia Mian
News December 16, 2021
Zia Mian Appointed to UN Secretary-General’s Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters
Zia Mian, a physicist and co-director of Princeton University’s Program on Science and Global Security (SGS), has been appointed to the U.N. Secretary-General’s Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters. Established in 1978, the Board advises the U.N. Secretary-General, currently António Guterres, on matters concerning arms limitation and disarmament, including studies and research. Some of the topics discussed by the Board in recent years concern nuclear and conventional disarmament issues as well as emerging weapons technologies, armed unmanned aerial vehicles, and cyber warfare and security. The U.N. Secretary-General chooses the 15 members of the…
SINSI Summer 2022 Cohort
News December 14, 2021
Princeton Students Named Scholars in the Nation’s Service During Initiative’s 15th Year
Fourteen students at Princeton University have been selected to join the Scholars in the Nation’s Service Initiative (SINSI), which funds graduate fellowships and undergraduate summer internships within federal government agencies. The 2022 SINSI cohorts were selected during the initiative’s 15th year at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA). The students hail from 10 states plus the District of Columbia, and they represent seven areas of academic study at Princeton, including Near Eastern studies, sociology, history, SPIA, civil and environmental engineering, mechanical and aerospace engineering, and philosophy. They join a…
John Ikenberry
News December 10, 2021
Book by G. John Ikenberry Named Among ‘Best of the Year’ by Foreign Affairs
A book written by international relations theorist G. John Ikenberry has been named among Foreign Affairs’ “Best of the Year.” It was also a finalist for the 2021 Arthur Ross Book Award. G. John Ikenberry (Photo courtesy of Ikenberry) “A World Safe for Democracy: Liberal Internationalism and the Crises of Global Order,” published by Yale University Press, tells the story of liberal internationalism from its late 18th century roots through the upheavals of the 20th century to today’s fractured political moment. Ikenberry, Albert G. Milbank Professor of Politics and International Affairs and co-director of Princeton’s Center for International…
End of World
News December 09, 2021
Virtual Reality Project on Nuclear Threats to Premiere at Sundance Film Festival
A virtual reality project executive produced by researchers at Princeton University’s Program on Science and Global Security (SGS) and Games for Change will premiere its first chapter at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival in January 2022. Created by Emmy Award-winning creators of Archer’s Mark and Atlas V, “On the Morning You Wake (To the End of the World)” explores the real and imminent risk of nuclear disaster through the firsthand experience of people in Hawaii who, on Jan. 13, 2018, received a false missile alert on cell phones across the state. The project uses innovative documentary storytelling and unprecedented virtual production techniques to…
Miji Bell
News December 07, 2021
Miji Bell Named Associate Dean for Public Affairs and Communications at SPIA
Miji Bell, a seasoned communications leader, is joining the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA) as associate dean for public affairs and communications, effective Jan. 24. Bell joins the School from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C., where she led marketing and communications efforts and a community engagement portfolio — including diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives and external partnerships. “We are extremely fortunate and excited to have Bell join the SPIA leadership. She brings to SPIA extensive experience leading communication policy efforts, public…