New faculty leadership roles

After serving for two years as director of the Development Studies concentration program, Visiting Professor of International and Public Affairs Patsy Lewis, a faculty fellow at the Watson Institute and an expert in Caribbean regionalism and small states development, now serves as interim director of the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies. CLACS’s director, Jessaca Leinaweaver, is on sabbatical. The center’s first event is a teach-in about fires in the Amazon, led by Cogut Visiting Professor Estevão Fernandes.

For the 2019-2020 academic year, Geri Augusto, Gerard Visiting Associate Professor of International and Public Affairs and Africana Studies, will serve as interim director of the Development Studies concentration program and as director of the Development track in Watson’s new concentration, International and Public Affairs. Augusto is a preeminent scholar of development with particular expertise in indigenous knowledges and science and the social movements of Afro-descendant and indigenous communities. She has done extensive work in Brazil, Tanzania, South Africa, and Angola.

Finally, the Watson Institute welcomes Ivan Arreguín-Toft as director of the International Relations concentration program, which was led by Nina Tannenwald for five years, and as director of the Security track in Watson’s new concentration, International and Public Affairs. Ivan previously served as fellow at the University of Oxford’s Oxford Martin School and as associate director of the school’s Global Cybersecurity Capacity Building Centre. He has taught international relations and security studies courses at Harvard University, Boston University, Wellesley College, and the University of Chicago.