Elliott School Professors Martha Finnemore and Michael Barnett were listed as the No. 1 and No. 11 scholars, respectively, who produced the most interesting scholarship in the past five years in the 2011 Teaching, Research and International Policy (TRIP) survey, which included responses from 1,582 international relations faculty members.
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Part-time and Adjunct Faculty
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Hector Salazar: Lecturer
Hector Salazar received his M.A. (1990) and Ph.D. (1991) in Regional Science from University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Salazar also has a M.A. in Urban Development from El Colegio de Mexico, where he worked as a full time faculty member from 1981 and 1986 teaching graduate courses in urban and regional economics. Dr. Salazar has a 20-year experience in Latin America development problems related to his work as staff of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), multilateral institution that he joined in 1991. He has worked with a wide range of LAC countries and sectoral themes, in charge of preparing country strategies, leading the design of projects in urban and municipal development and housing, and also of programs for reforming social security systems and improving institutional capacity of sub-national governments. Dr. Salazar has served as Advisor to the Executive Vice-President of the IDB (1999-2003) and as Division Chief of the Division of Social Programs for Central Americ a, Mexico, Dominican Republic and Haiti (2005-2007). He is currently Principal Advisor of the Social Sectors Department at the IDB. His main scholar interest is in the field of economic geography, and within this field his current interest is in studying globalization issues and their impact on urban and regional development patterns and policies. Dr. Salazar may be reached at hectorsa@gwu.edu or at hectorsa@iadb.org.
Holger Schmidt: Professorial Lecturer
Professor Schmidt received his B.A. from the Johann Wolfgang Goethe Universität in Frankfurt, his M.A. in International Relations from The Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and his Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University. Before coming to the Elliott School in the fall of 2006, Prof. Schmidt held a full-time appointment at the College of William and Mary, and has also taught classes at Georgetown University.
Professor Schmidt's research and teaching interests include the origins, prevention and management of violent conflict, the role of the United Nations in international security affairs, and quantitative methods. His current research focuses on developing a statistical model designed to forecast the severity of internal armed conflict in an effort to help improve the theory and practice of early warning and preventive intervention. Together with Kyle Beardsley (Emory University), Professor Schmidt has compiled a new dataset on UN conflict management efforts in international crises that provides detailed, event-level information about all UN intervention efforts in militarized international crises between 1946 and 2002. Initial results from this project are presented in a research article in the March 2012 issue of International Studies Quarterly. Professor Schmidt served as an advisor for the International Peace Institute's project on "Understanding Compliance with Security Council Demands in Post-Cold War Civil Wars," as well as for a forecasting project undertaken by the Fund for Peace, producer of the "Failed States Index" published annually by Foreign Policy Magazine.
John R. Schmidt: Professorial Lecturer
John R. Schmidt is a 30-year veteran of the U.S. Foreign Service who has served in many key positions at the State Department and at the NSC. His expertise covers a diverse range of geographical and functional issues. As one of the leading NATO experts in the U.S. government, he has headed the NATO office at State and served as NATO director at the NSC. He was Chief of the Balkan Conflict Group during the height of the war in Bosnia and founding Deputy Coordinator for Security and Governance in the civilian stabilization and reconstruction office at State. His favorite posting was in Islamabad where he served as Political Counselor during the three years running up to 9/11. He continues to follow developments in Pakistan closely and has organized and moderated high-level roundtables at the State Department on the future of Pakistan and on the radical Islamic threat. He is an expert on the Pakistani political class, the Pakistan Army, the Kashmir dispute, and the rise of radical Islam in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Despite his busy career, he has managed to find time to write articles on topics drawn from his Foreign Service experience in Survival, The Washington Quarterly, Orbis and The World Today. You can contact Mr. Schmidt for course information at jmgradon@hotmail.com.
Leonard Sekelick: Lecturer
Dr. Sekelick received his PhD in Hispanic Languages and Literatures from the University of Pittsburgh in 1996. In addition to teaching Spanish at the Elliott School of International Affairs, he works as a language specialist in Romance languages for the U.S. government and as a consultant for the Educational Testing Service in Princeton, NJ. Dr. Sekelick may be contacted at sekelick@gwu.edu.
Christina Sevilla: Lecturer
Christina Sevilla received her Ph.D. in Political Science from Harvard University in 1998. Dr. Sevillas is Director for Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Liaison at the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR), Executive Office of the President. She is responsible for USTR's consultations and outreach with states and localities on trade policy issues, including matters pertaining to the World Trade Organization (WTO), the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and other agreements. She also manages USTR's private sector trade advisory committee system established by Congress to advise the USTR, the President, and other Executive Branch agencies on trade issues. In this capacity, she assists in coordinating the activities of 31 advisory committees in conjunction with five federal agencies. Under the Bush Administration in 2002, she was named the United States Head of Delegation for the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) Civil Society Committee, a committee tasked by Trade Ministers of the 34 FTAA countries with improving communication with business, labor, environment, consumer interests, sub-federal governments, and private citizens throughout the Western Hemisphere regarding the FTAA negotiations. She may be contacted at csevilla@ustr.gov.
David Shinn: Adjunct Professor of International Affairs
Ambassador Shinn received his BA (1963), MA (1964), and PhD (1980) from George Washington University. He has a certificate in African studies from Northwestern University. He served for thirty-seven years in the US Foreign Service with assignments at embassies in Lebanon, Kenya, Tanzania, Mauritania, Cameroon, Sudan and as ambassador to Burkina Faso and Ethiopia. He has been teaching in the Elliott School since 2001 and serves on a number of boards of nongovernmental organizations.
An expert on the Horn of Africa, Dr. Shinn speaks at events around the world. He is the coauthor of Historical Dictionary of Ethiopia and has authored numerous articles and book chapters. He is working on a book concerning China-Africa relations. His research interests include China-Africa relations, East Africa and the Horn, terrorism, Islamic fundamentalism, conflict situations, U.S. policy in Africa, and the African brain drain.
Email: dhshinn@gwu.edu
download Ambassador Shinn's CV 
Rhea Siers: Professorial Lecturer
Rhea Siers has worked in the Intelligence Community for over 20 years in a variety of positions ranging from intelligence analysis to and legal and policy issues. Ms. Siers was named a 2005 Senior Fellow at the GW Homeland Security Policy Institute. Her areas of interest include Information Sharing and Collaboration, Counterterrorism, and Network Analysis. She is also involved in research involving the nexus between crime and terrorism, particularly in the area of Intellectual Property Crime.
Ms. Siers graduated from Barnard College (Columbia University) and received a Masters degree in International Affairs from the London School of Economics. She was a Dean's Fellow in Criminal Law at the Washington College of Law (American University) where she received her law degree. Ms. Siers was an honors graduate fellow at the Elliott School of International Affairs where she received a Master's degree in International Policy and Practice with a concentration in Transnational Security issues. She may be contacted at rdsiers@gwu.edu.
Mike Skuja: Lecturer
Mike Skuja is a human geographer with broad experience in wildlife conservation, sustainable development, poverty alleviation, and rural livelihoods impacts. He has lived and worked in the Caribbean, Central America, East Africa, South Asia and Europe. Mike has analyzed social and environmental problems from both grass-roots and policy angles, having worked at the United Nations Environment Programme-World Conservation and Monitoring Centre, National Geographic Society, the Nature Conservancy, Defenders of Wildlife, Gads Hill Community Development Center, and the Peace Corps (Panama). Mike founded his own nonprofit organization in 2007: the Center for Rural Empowerment and the Environment.
Some of Mike Skuja's past experiences include efforts towards reducing human-lion conflict in Tanzania, facilitating alternative protein sources and ecotourism ventures in Panama, and reconciling reconstruction efforts with environmental imperatives post-Tsunami in Sri Lanka. He has both marine and terrestrial experience and utilizes his expertise in facilitating projects which span the coast of Guyana to the dry lands of Tanzania. Mike has undergraduate degrees in Zoology and Geography from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an MSc in Biodiversity, Conservation, and Management from the University of Oxford. He speaks fluent Spanish and is proficient in both Swahili and Portuguese.
Email: mskuja@gwu.edu
Paulo Sotero Marques: Lecturer
Paulo Sotero Marques is the Director of the Brazil Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars. Prior to joining the Wilson Center in 2006, Mr. Sotero served as the Washington correspondent for O Estado de S. Paulo, a leading Brazilian newspaper for 17 years. Additionally, he has served as a BBC Radio correspondent and regularly contributes to a variety of leading news outlets. Mr. Sotero holds a BA in History from the Catholic University of Pernambuco as well as a MA in Journalism and Public Affairs from the American University. At the Elliott School, he teaches IAFF 6358 - Brazil in the Global Arena.
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