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Robertson Spring 2024
News March 12, 2025
Princeton SPIA Faculty React to President Trump’s Trade War
The Princeton School of Public and International Affairs (Princeton SPIA) has released new faculty reactions to President Donald Trump’s latest trade policies, which include tariffs on key imports. As the administration moves forward with these measures, Princeton SPIA scholars are weighing in on the economic consequences, potential risks to international trade relationships, and broader geopolitical impacts. Faculty comments address concerns about rising costs for American consumers, potential retaliation from trading partners, and the long-term effects on global markets.Alan Blinder, Gordon S. Rentschler Memorial Professor of Economics and Public…
in covids wake
News March 10, 2025
Five Years Later, Princeton Researchers Assess the Political Failures of the COVID Response
In March 2020, Princeton University, like thousands of other higher education institutions around the country, sent home students, faculty, and staff to reduce the risk of infections from the novel coronavirus that was just beginning its catastrophic global rampage.One of those faculty members, Frances Lee, recalled thinking that measures hurriedly enacted in response – such as school closures – were likely to fail.“I had doubts about whether the policies that were being implemented would work,” said Lee, a professor of politics and public affairs and co-director of Princeton SPIA’s Center for the Study of Democratic Politics. “I could see the how…
LISD Event in Singapore - credit Heather Carmichael '00, President
News March 10, 2025
Students Test Policy Skills During Visit to Taiwan and Singapore
In early January, 20 Princeton undergraduates were watching events unfold from across the world. In a weeklong visit to Taiwan and Singapore, they had the opportunity to ask high-level officials – including current and former heads of state – international journalists, and more than 100 Princeton alumni their thoughts on how changing politics in the United States could reshape the Asian Pacific.The students visited the two nations as International Policy Associates, a selective foreign policy program run by the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs. In past years, associates have visited Poland, Germany, France, Belgium and Austria.The…
Multicolor illustration of a women
News March 06, 2025
Resilience Amidst Oppression: Honoring Afghan Women’s Strength During Women’s History Month
To commemorate Women’s History Month, the Afghanistan Policy Lab (APL) at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA) has once again sought to highlight the situation and living conditions of women in Afghanistan. Afghan women, who continue to endure the Taliban’s restrictive rule, deserve the utmost admiration—not only for their strength to survive but for their resilience in navigating immense challenges and refusing to give up.Each year, APL has been deeply moved by the stories of Afghan women from different parts of the country—women whose courage and determination embody true heroism. Their voices must be heard, their stories…
SPIAction Newsletter
News March 05, 2025
SPIAction Newsletter
Dear Princeton SPIA community,I recently shared with alumni, students, faculty, and staff the many ways the School is assisting those affected by recent changes at the federal level. This includes career-focused programming, in-person networking for students and alumni, and events where students can engage with SPIA faculty for insights on navigating change. Just last week, more than 300 students and alumni met at the SPIA in D.C. Center for an evening of fellowship and conversation.At the same time, we continue to engage in the activities that make this a special and unique place: world-class teaching from an unparalleled faculty and ground-breaking…
Individuals sitting around a table in discussion
News March 05, 2025
Geopolitical Brunch Series Create Space for Candid Global Conversations
A lifetime after setting aside an early contemplation to become a priest, Wolfgang Danspeckgruber has finally found a different vocation centered on Sunday mornings.Since 2023, he has taught a regular Sunday seminars series held at Princeton SPIA’s Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination (LISD). Known as Geopolitical Sunday Brunches, these seminars foster an environment of conceptual analysis, trust, and candor for students (both undergraduate and graduate), faculty, and distinguished guests who want to explore complex global issues in depth.“No one in Europe believes me when I say I teach to a full house on a Sunday,” said Danspeckgruber, a…
Simon Jäger
News March 04, 2025
Fill in the Blanks with Simon Jäger
If you run into Simon Jäger on the towpath with his Vizsla, you may not know that he is a globally recognized economist whose work on labor markets and inequality is helping reshape our understanding of modern work. He may strike you as someone deeply interested in communicating with his canine, perhaps a dog whisperer. But that’s another life.In this one, Jäger studies competition in the labor market and the institutional and psychological factors that impact it. He has explored, for example, what happens when you give workers the right to participate in their firm’s decision making, or how low-wage workers may undervalue what they could earn from…
Paul Starr
News March 03, 2025
Research Record: The Multiracial Complication: The 2020 Census and the Fictitious Multiracial Boom
Princeton SPIA’s Research Record series highlights the vast scholarly achievements of our faculty members, whose expertise extends beyond the classroom and into everyday life.If you’d like your work considered for future editions of Research Record, click here and select “research project.”
From left to right: Alexandra Amon, Jason Klusowski, Lue Pan and Maria Micaela Sviatschi
News February 28, 2025
Economist Maria Micaela Sviatschi Wins Sloane Research Fellowship
The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation has announced that four Princeton professors — Alexandra Amon, Jason Klusowski, Lue Pan and Maria Micaela Sviatschi — have been selected as 2025 Sloan Research Fellows.“The Sloan Research Fellows represent the very best of early-career science, embodying the creativity, ambition and rigor that drive discovery forward,” said Adam Falk, president of the foundation, in a press release. “These extraordinary scholars are already making significant contributions, and we are confident they will shape the future of their fields in remarkable ways.”The fellowship recognizes creative early-career researchers in seven scientific…
Aleksandra Korolova
News February 27, 2025
Princeton SPIA’s Aleksandra Korolova Receives Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers
As artificial intelligence technology continues to enter the mainstream, Princeton SPIA’s Aleksandra Korolova has been behind the scenes researching the societal impacts of machine learning and AI. Her dedication to her craft has resulted in a prestigious designation: Korolova, an assistant professor of computer science and public affairs, has been awarded the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers — the highest honor given by the U.S. government to early-career scientists and engineers.“My first reaction was disbelief,” Korolova said about winning the award. “The first people I told were my close family, as they have been my…
abstract planets
News February 26, 2025
Princeton SPIA Experts Contribute to Global Report on AI Safety
A recently released U.K. government report on artificial intelligence (AI) safety draws on contributions from 100 AI experts across 33 countries and intergovernmental organizations—including members of the Center for Information Technology Policy (CITP) at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs.Billed as “the world’s first comprehensive synthesis of current literature of the risks and capabilities of advanced AI systems,” the report outlines how AI could exacerbate risks such as the manipulation of public opinion, biological and chemical attacks, environmental impact, copyright infringement, and loss of privacy.While it stops short…
group of students
News February 26, 2025
Sachs Scholarship to Princeton SPIA Senior, Incoming Visiting Graduate Student
Princeton seniors Noah James and Ethan Sample and University of Oxford student Farzana Salik have been named recipients of the Daniel M. Sachs Class of 1960 Graduating Scholarship(Link is external), one of Princeton University’s highest awards.
Righting Wrongs by Ken Roth book cover
News February 25, 2025
Princeton SPIA Faculty Member Reflects on 30 Years of Fighting for Human Rights
In most countries governed by the rule of law, a strong, independent judicial branch makes for the most effective enforcement of human rights.But it’s all too easy for judges to be corrupted, compromised, or even murdered.What then?“Deploying the public’s sense of right and wrong to pressure the political branches of government to respect rights can be remarkably effective,” Ken Roth answers.Roth, the Charles and Marie Robertson Visiting Professor and a visiting lecturer at Princeton SPIA, would know. In the three decades he spent as the director of Human Rights Watch, he guided the organization “to increase the price of oppression, to shift a…
A book cover that says "Tides of Fortune" against a red backdrop
News February 24, 2025
Zack Cooper authors “Tides of Fortune: The Rise and Decline of Great Militaries”
Zack Cooper’s exploration of the ascent and fall of the world’s greatest militaries is chronicled in his debut book “Tides of Fortune: The Rise and Decline of Great Militaries” (Yale University Press).“What initially drew me to the topic was this puzzle about why China would abandon a military strategy that seemed to be working in favor of one that they had shown was vulnerable to new technologies,” Cooper said. “There were many explanations in the literature, but none explained the timing of China’s move.”Cooper, a lecturer at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs (Princeton SPIA), began working on the book for his dissertation…
Kathryn J. Edin
News February 21, 2025
Research Record: Understanding the Relationship Between Intergenerational Mobility and Community Violence
Princeton SPIA’s Research Record series highlights the vast scholarly achievements of our faculty members, whose expertise extends beyond the classroom and into everyday life.If you’d like your work considered for future editions of Research Record, click here and select “research project.”