Faculty & Staff
Departmental Faculty
Miki Hirayama
Assoc Professor, A&S German Studies
4214 CLIFTCT
Professor Hirayama teaches courses on Japanese and Chinese art history.
Her research focuses on Japanese art criticism of the early twentieth century. Her recent publications include “Inner Beauty: Kishida Ryūsei (1891-1929)’s Theory of Realism.” Edited by Minh Nguyen. New Essays in Japanese Aesthetics: Philosophy, Politics, Culture, Literature, and the Arts. Lanham, MD: Lexington Press, 2017, “Ishii Hakutei and the Journal Hōsun.” Edited by Chris Uhlenbeck, Amy Riegle Newland, and Maureen de Vries. Waves of Renewal: Modern Japanese Prints, 1900-1960. Leiden: Hotei Publishing, 2015, “‘Fictionalized Truth’: Realism as the Vehicle for War Painting” in Art and War in Japan and Its Empire, 1931-1960 (2012), “From Art without Borders to Art for the Nation: Japanist (Nihonshugi) Painting by Dokuritsu Bijutsu Kyōkai during the 1930s” in Monumenta Nipponica (2010), and Reflecting Truth: Japanese Photography in the Nineteenth Century (co-editor, 2005).
She has delivered papers at venues such as the College Art Association conference, Association for Asian Studies conference, and Asian Studies Conference Japan. Hirayama's service to the field included serving as an anonymous reviewer for Art Bulletin and Ars Orientalis.
Her research focuses on Japanese art criticism of the early twentieth century. Her recent publications include “Inner Beauty: Kishida Ryūsei (1891-1929)’s Theory of Realism.” Edited by Minh Nguyen. New Essays in Japanese Aesthetics: Philosophy, Politics, Culture, Literature, and the Arts. Lanham, MD: Lexington Press, 2017, “Ishii Hakutei and the Journal Hōsun.” Edited by Chris Uhlenbeck, Amy Riegle Newland, and Maureen de Vries. Waves of Renewal: Modern Japanese Prints, 1900-1960. Leiden: Hotei Publishing, 2015, “‘Fictionalized Truth’: Realism as the Vehicle for War Painting” in Art and War in Japan and Its Empire, 1931-1960 (2012), “From Art without Borders to Art for the Nation: Japanist (Nihonshugi) Painting by Dokuritsu Bijutsu Kyōkai during the 1930s” in Monumenta Nipponica (2010), and Reflecting Truth: Japanese Photography in the Nineteenth Century (co-editor, 2005).
She has delivered papers at venues such as the College Art Association conference, Association for Asian Studies conference, and Asian Studies Conference Japan. Hirayama's service to the field included serving as an anonymous reviewer for Art Bulletin and Ars Orientalis.
Dinshaw Mistry
Professor, International Affairs & Asian Studies
Head, Department of Asian, East European, and German Studies,
A&S School of Public and International A
4215 CLIFTCT
Dinshaw Mistry is a Professor of International Affairs and Asian Studies at the University of Cincinnati, and Head of the Department of Asian, East European, and German Studies. He has also been a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center; the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University; and the Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University.
He specializes in international relations, security studies, Asian security, and technology and politics. Within these fields, his research covers two main areas: nuclear and missile proliferation, and South Asian security and US foreign policy in the region.
Dr. Mistry is author of two major books and co-author / editor of a third. The first, Containing Missile Proliferation, is a comprehensive study of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) and its impact on 14 missile programs; it also analyzes the supply-side approach to nonproliferation. The second, The US-India Nuclear Agreement, offers the most detailed analysis of nuclear negotiations with India; it highlights the impact of domestic politics on nuclear diplomacy. The third is an edited volume, Enduring and Emerging Issues in South Asian Security, where he authored the leading chapters on US foreign policy interests in South Asia, ranging from strategic issues to democracy and development, and regional challenges in these areas.
His additional writings appear in journals such as International Security, Security Studies, Asian Survey, Political Science Quarterly, Asian Security, and Arms Control Today, and in the International Herald Tribune, New York Times, and Washington Post.
His current research projects examine regional nuclear issues and the global arms control regime; the new dimensions of missile proliferation and missile defense; and US foreign policy in South Asia and its implications for Asian security.
He specializes in international relations, security studies, Asian security, and technology and politics. Within these fields, his research covers two main areas: nuclear and missile proliferation, and South Asian security and US foreign policy in the region.
Dr. Mistry is author of two major books and co-author / editor of a third. The first, Containing Missile Proliferation, is a comprehensive study of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) and its impact on 14 missile programs; it also analyzes the supply-side approach to nonproliferation. The second, The US-India Nuclear Agreement, offers the most detailed analysis of nuclear negotiations with India; it highlights the impact of domestic politics on nuclear diplomacy. The third is an edited volume, Enduring and Emerging Issues in South Asian Security, where he authored the leading chapters on US foreign policy interests in South Asia, ranging from strategic issues to democracy and development, and regional challenges in these areas.
His additional writings appear in journals such as International Security, Security Studies, Asian Survey, Political Science Quarterly, Asian Security, and Arms Control Today, and in the International Herald Tribune, New York Times, and Washington Post.
His current research projects examine regional nuclear issues and the global arms control regime; the new dimensions of missile proliferation and missile defense; and US foreign policy in South Asia and its implications for Asian security.
Noriko Fujioka-Ito
Professor-Educator and Director of Japanese Language and Culture Program , A&S German Studies
4211 CLIFTCT
Noriko Fujioka-Ito earned a Ph.D. and an M.A. in Foreign and Second Language Education with minors in Japanese Linguistics and Educational Research from the Ohio State University. She has been teaching and coordinating Japanese language courses at the University of Cincinnati. She has an extensive record of presentations and publications on a variety of areas, including developing 21st century skills, learning autonomy, distance learning education, feedback, interculturality, and Japanese for specific purposes. Additionally, she has been involved in professional services at large. For example, she currently serves as an ACTFL Assessment of Performance toward Proficiency in Languages (AAPPL) Quality Assurance Advisor, is on the Advisory Board of the International Journal of Instruction, and is a Board Member of the Japanese Language Literature Association of Korea.
Jade Yuh-Hwan Lin
Adjunct Instructor, A&S German Studies
726A Old Chemistry Building
Jade Yuhhwan Lin has been teaching modern Chinese language culture at the University of Cincinnati since year 2000. She serves as TAG (Transfer Assurance Guide) panel lead; also a member and regional coordinator for Ohio Association of Teachers of Chinese. She participates and organizes annual workshops with fellow Chinese teachers for professional developments. She teaches different levels of the target language including begining, intermediate, advance, and AP courses. She started the Chinese program at St. Xavier High School and taught there for many years. She serves as a co-chair of the Cincinnati and New Taipei City Sister City Committee. They lead high school students exchange program to Taiwan since 2012. She also volunteered being a guide and chaperone to groups of students visiting China. Her teaching pedagogy is using interactive instructional models to engage student learning, and using many online tools and authentic meterials from media. Her goal is to build students to become a lifelong learner and to reach their highest potential.
Junko Markovich
Asst Professor - Visiting, A&S German Studies
4212 CLIFTCT
Junko Markovich has been teaching Japanese at UC since 2009. She has served as a faculty advisor to UC's student organization, Japanese American Student Society (JASS) since 2013. JASS promotes cultural exchange between UC students, Japanese exchange students, and local Japanese communities through various events and activities. She has also been serving as Ohio Association of Teachers of Japanese (OATJ)'s president since 2022. The mission of OATJ is to promote and improve the study and teaching of Japanese in Ohio and offers professional development workshops twice a year for both K-12 and college teachers.
Affiliate Faculty
Stefan P. Fiol
Professor of Ethnomusicology, CCM Musicology
4246 Emery Hall
Stefan Fiol joined the CCM faculty in 2010 and is Professor of Ethnomusicology and Affiliated Faculty in Asian Studies. He researches music, dance, ritual practice, media and the histories of commercial and folkloric cultural representation the Uttarakhand Himalayas and North India. Professor Fiol’s monograph, Recasting Folk in the Himalayas: Indian Music, Media and Social Mobility, was published by University of Illinois Press in 2017 and received the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies Jim Fisher Book Award (Honorable Mention). His current research explores drumming as a historiographic tool in the central Himalayas, specifically through mapping drumming practice and reading shifts and continuities against insights from oral history, archaeology and sociolinguistics.
An emergent area of Fiol's research examines the role of music and mindfulness in stimulating memory, cognitive function, and experiences of awe and flow. Working with a team of music therapists and neurologists, Fiol has developed a service learning course that pairs music and medical students with individuals experiencing neurodegeneration, and their caregivers. Longitudinal analyses of data from this course will inform the optimal design of music and mindfulness interventions and will assess the relationship between artistic engagement with others and cognitive function.
Fiol's research has been published in Ethnomusicology, Journal of Asian Studies, Ethnomusicology Forum, Asian Music, Journal of South Asian Popular Culture and Yearbook for Traditional Music, as well as edited volumes including More than Bollywood (Oxford, 2014), This Thing Called Music (Rowman and Littlefield, 2015) and Music in Contemporary Indian Film (Routledge, 2017). His research has been funded by fellowships from Fulbright-Nehru, Wenner-Gren Foundation, American Institute of Indian Studies, National Endowment for the Humanities and the Arts Social Science and Humanities Faculty Research Program at the University of Cincinnati.
Fiol received his Ph.D. in Musicology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2008 after conducting two years of ethnomusicological research in India, and shorter fieldwork projects in Chile, Paraguay and Zimbabwe. Fiol has been a visiting scholar in the South Asia Program at Cornell University, and has previously taught at the University of Illinois (2002-04), the University of Notre Dame (2005-06) and the Eastman School of Music (2008-10). Trained in classical piano, Fiol currently studies and performs on the Indian sitar, the Zimbabwean mbira dzavadzimu and a range of central Himalayan percussion and melody instruments.
An emergent area of Fiol's research examines the role of music and mindfulness in stimulating memory, cognitive function, and experiences of awe and flow. Working with a team of music therapists and neurologists, Fiol has developed a service learning course that pairs music and medical students with individuals experiencing neurodegeneration, and their caregivers. Longitudinal analyses of data from this course will inform the optimal design of music and mindfulness interventions and will assess the relationship between artistic engagement with others and cognitive function.
Fiol's research has been published in Ethnomusicology, Journal of Asian Studies, Ethnomusicology Forum, Asian Music, Journal of South Asian Popular Culture and Yearbook for Traditional Music, as well as edited volumes including More than Bollywood (Oxford, 2014), This Thing Called Music (Rowman and Littlefield, 2015) and Music in Contemporary Indian Film (Routledge, 2017). His research has been funded by fellowships from Fulbright-Nehru, Wenner-Gren Foundation, American Institute of Indian Studies, National Endowment for the Humanities and the Arts Social Science and Humanities Faculty Research Program at the University of Cincinnati.
Fiol received his Ph.D. in Musicology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2008 after conducting two years of ethnomusicological research in India, and shorter fieldwork projects in Chile, Paraguay and Zimbabwe. Fiol has been a visiting scholar in the South Asia Program at Cornell University, and has previously taught at the University of Illinois (2002-04), the University of Notre Dame (2005-06) and the Eastman School of Music (2008-10). Trained in classical piano, Fiol currently studies and performs on the Indian sitar, the Zimbabwean mbira dzavadzimu and a range of central Himalayan percussion and melody instruments.
Elizabeth B. Frierson
Associate Professor , A&S History
340A ARTSCI
Professor Frierson came to the study of the Middle East and North Africa after beginning to see the wide gap between reality in the Middle East and U.S. perceptions of the region in the early 1980's. She took her B.A. in Comparative Religion from the University of Vermont and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Near Eastern Studies from Princeton University. She has published several articles on late-Ottoman politics and society, co-edited with Camron Amin and Benjamin C. Fortna The Modern Middle East: A Sourcebook for History (Oxford University Press), and is finishing a manuscript entitled Patriarchal Feminism for Syracuse University Press. She has received several fellowships and awards for research, development of teaching materials, and acquisition of library materials for UC, including from Fulbright, Fulbright-Hays, and the American Research Institute in Turkey, and has been an invited speaker and workshop participant in the U.S., Turkey, Israel, and Europe, as well as a visiting fellow at Middle East Technical University (Ankara), Hacettepe University (Ankara), Cornell University, UCSB, Princeton University. Her Ph.D. students have been Carole Woodall and Lerna Ekmekcioglu of NYU, Julia Phillips Cohen of Stanford, Ufuk Adak and Ali el-Tarhuni at the University of Cincinnati, and Harry Bastermajian of the University of Chicago. She has served on fellowship committees for the American Research Institute in Turkey, the Institute of Turkish Studies, the Social Science Research Council, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, and served for two years as a mentor to the Mellon-funded Minority Access to Research Careers summer program at Princeton. She speaks frequently to community groups and the media about the history of the Middle East and North Africa, and current events. Her current research focuses on refugee management in WWI, and the changes in science, personnel, and practices of pharmacology in the 19th and early 20th centuries in Europe and the Middle East.
Dana Gregory Griffith
Annual Adjunct Assistant Professor, A&S Judaic Studies
"Dr. G" has a Ph.D. in English and Comparative Literature from UC. He teaches "Understanding Religious Intolerance," "Suffering and Death," "Buddhism: History and Thought," "Intro. to the Study of Religions," and Yoga in its Hindu Matrix" in the Religious Studies Certificate Program, the Departments of Judaic Studies, English, and Asian Studies. His main interests are sacred and religious literature, Southeast Asian Religions, Hinduism and Buddhism, religious tolerance and intolerance, and Western/American manifestations of Hindu Yoga and Buddhism. In addition to his academic education, he is a practicing Buddhist and has received teachings from Zen Master Keido Fukushima Roshi, The Fourteenth Dalai Lama, Geshe Kuten Lama, Geshe Kunchok, Venenrable Jamyang Lama, and Zasep Tulku Rinpoche.
Robert J Haug
Associate Professor, Director of Undergraduate Advising, History, A&S History
331 ARTSCI
Prof. Haug received his BA in Geography and History from DePaul University in 1999, his MA in Modern Middle Eastern and North African Studies from the University of Michigan in 2002, and his PhD in Near Eastern Studies also from the University of Michigan in 2010. Prof. Haug came to the University of Cincinnati's History Department in 2010 where he has taught survey courses in World and Middle Eastern History as well as the history of Iran and a variety of upper level courses on the history of the Islamic World including courses on the `Abbasid Caliphate, the Crusades, the history of Afghanistan and Central Asia, and the interaction between nomadic and agrarian societies. His research interests focus on the history of the early Islamic World (7th-13th centuries) with a special interest on the Iranian World and Central Asia. He is the author of The Eastern Froniter: Limits of Empire in Late Antique and Early Medieval Central Asia, published by I.B. Tauris/Bloomsbury in 2019. His current research project focuses on representations of masculinity in medieval chronicles with special focus on accounts of the conquest of Iran and Central Asia.
Laura D. Jenkins
Professor of Political Science, Faculty Affiliate WGSS and Asian Studies , A&S School of Public and International A
CLIFTCT
Laura Dudley Jenkins' research focuses on social justice policies in the context of culturally diverse democracies, including India, Indonesia, South Africa, and the United States.
Her book Religious Freedom and Mass Conversion in India (Penn Press 2019) won the Hubert Morken Best Book Prize from the Religion and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association (APSA). A study of mass conversions to Christianity, Buddhism, and Judaism and ongoing efforts to prevent conversions, Jenkins reveals how "religious freedom" arguments and laws have actually undermined the religious freedom of women, lower castes, and religious minorities.
Jenkins' book Identity and Identification in India: Defining the Disadvantaged (Routledge, 2003, 2009) examines competing demands for affirmative action on the basis of caste, religion, class, and gender and the ways the government identifies recipients through the courts, census, and official certificates. Her research as a Fulbright New Century Scholar in South Africa and India resulted in Affirmative Action Matters: Creating Opportunities for Students Around the World, co-edited with Michele S. Moses (Routledge 2014).
In her articles, she analyzes religious freedom and conversion, competing minorities’ claims for affirmative action, colonial and contemporary government anthropology, the role of social science in anti-discrimination law, reserved legislative seats for women, and the role of culture and the arts in sustainable development.
Jenkins' book chapters examine anti-Muslim political communication in the US and India, religious family laws, mass religious conversion as protest, comparative affirmative action, minority rights, historically Dalit colleges, anxious secularism, women and development, regulation of religion, and methodological diversity in political science.
In addition to two Fulbrights, Dr. Jenkins has received fellowships from the Dartmouth Humanities Center and the United States Institute of Peace.
Religious Freedom and Mass Conversion in India. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019.
Hubert Morken Best Book Award
APSA Religion and Politics Section
Affirmative action matters: Creating opportunities for students around the world. (with Michele S. Moses). New York: Routledge, 2014.
Identity and Identification in India: Defining the Disadvantaged. London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon 2003, reissued in paperback by Routledge 2009.
Her book Religious Freedom and Mass Conversion in India (Penn Press 2019) won the Hubert Morken Best Book Prize from the Religion and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association (APSA). A study of mass conversions to Christianity, Buddhism, and Judaism and ongoing efforts to prevent conversions, Jenkins reveals how "religious freedom" arguments and laws have actually undermined the religious freedom of women, lower castes, and religious minorities.
Jenkins' book Identity and Identification in India: Defining the Disadvantaged (Routledge, 2003, 2009) examines competing demands for affirmative action on the basis of caste, religion, class, and gender and the ways the government identifies recipients through the courts, census, and official certificates. Her research as a Fulbright New Century Scholar in South Africa and India resulted in Affirmative Action Matters: Creating Opportunities for Students Around the World, co-edited with Michele S. Moses (Routledge 2014).
In her articles, she analyzes religious freedom and conversion, competing minorities’ claims for affirmative action, colonial and contemporary government anthropology, the role of social science in anti-discrimination law, reserved legislative seats for women, and the role of culture and the arts in sustainable development.
Jenkins' book chapters examine anti-Muslim political communication in the US and India, religious family laws, mass religious conversion as protest, comparative affirmative action, minority rights, historically Dalit colleges, anxious secularism, women and development, regulation of religion, and methodological diversity in political science.
In addition to two Fulbrights, Dr. Jenkins has received fellowships from the Dartmouth Humanities Center and the United States Institute of Peace.
Religious Freedom and Mass Conversion in India. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019.
Hubert Morken Best Book Award
APSA Religion and Politics Section
Affirmative action matters: Creating opportunities for students around the world. (with Michele S. Moses). New York: Routledge, 2014.
Identity and Identification in India: Defining the Disadvantaged. London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon 2003, reissued in paperback by Routledge 2009.
Man Bun Kwan
Associate Professor, A&S History
303 ARTSCI
Professor Kwan specializes in modern China, particularly its business, economic, legal, and social history. When traveling in China, he enjoys rummaging through local markets for land deeds and contracts. His "Salt Wars" has been published by Hawaii University Press, 2022.
Johanna W Looye
Associate Professor, DAAP School of Planning
6207 DAA Addition
Johanna Looye has over thirty-five years of experience in Latin American development. Her work in Brazil includes studies of small business in Ceará and throughout the Northeast. She has also conducted research on urban environmental issues in the City of Rio de Janeiro and in 1999 she was awarded a Senior Fulbright Fellowship to teach and conduct research at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. Dr. Looye has worked on micro-and small-business development in Brazil, Thailand (handicrafts and sustainable development), Crete (alternative economic development for Hersonissos), and the U.S. In Cincinnati, Looye has served on the Board of Directors for the Cincinnati Business Incubator. She has also worked with the City of Cincinnati to identify local capacity for developing microenterprises and with Smart Money Community Services to develop a 12-week training program for aspiring entrepreneurs from Over-the-Rhine and the Findlay Market area. Dr. Looye teaches urban and regional theory, international development planning and economic development, primarily at the graduate level. She also teaches quantitative and research methods.
Thomas G. Moore
Assistant Director, School of Public and International Affairs, and Affiliated Faculty, Asian Studies Program, A&S School of Public and International A
5115 CLIFTCT
Thomas G. Moore (Ph.D., Princeton University) teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on globalization, international political economy, U.S.-China relations, and the politics and international relations of East Asia. After earning a B.A. from Hamilton College, he received his M.A. and Ph.D. from the Department of Politics at Princeton University. Moore’s publications include China in the World Market (Cambridge University Press), as well as numerous book chapters and scholarly articles in journals such as The Washington Quarterly, The International Spectator, and The Journal of Contemporary China. These publications have focused on China's participation in the world economy, U.S. relations with East Asia, and Chinese foreign policy. Moore's research has been supported in the past by external awards from the U.S. Fulbright program and the Smith Richardson Foundation. His ongoing projects examine various aspects of international relations in an era of globalized economic production, with a particular emphasis on the nature of US-China economic interdependence and the implications of globalized production for Chinese economic power. For example, a current book project examines the extent to which multinational corporations from large developing countries such as China, India, Brazil, Mexico, Turkey, and South Africa have been able to break into the top echelon of global companies in key industries dominated since the end of World War II by the Group of Seven and other developed countries in North America, Western Europe, and the Asia-Pacific.
Shailaja D Paik
Taft Distinguished Professor of History and Affiliate Faculty in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and Asian Studies, A&S History
340 B ARTSCI
I am Charles Phelphs Taft Distinguished Research Professor of History and Affiliate in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Asian Studies. My research, writing, and teaching interests lie at the intersection of a number of fields: Modern South Asia; Dalit studies; women's, gender, and sexuality studies; social and political movements; oral history; human rights and humanitarianism. As a historian, I specialize in the social, intellectual, and cultural history of Modern India. My first book Dalit Women's Education in Modern India: Double Discrimination (Routledge, 2014 ) examines the nexus between caste, class, gender, and state pedagogical practices among Dalit ("Untouchable") women in urban India. My second book The Vulgarity of Caste: Dalits, Sexuality, and Humanity in Modern India (Stanford University Press, 2022 https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=34163) analyzes the politics of caste, class, gender, sexuality, and popular culture in modern Maharashtra. The book won the American Historical Association's 2023 John F. Richards Prize for "the most distinguished work of scholarship on South Asia" (https://www.historians.org/awards-and-grants/past-recipients/john-f-richards-prize-recipients) and the Association of Asian Studies 2024 Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy Prize (https://www.asianstudies.org/aas-2024-prizes/). I am working on several new book projects: Becoming "Vulgar": Caste Domination and Normative Sexuality in Modern India, Caste, Race, and Indigeneity in and beyond South Asia, and the Cambridge Companion to Dr. B.R. Ambedkar. My research is funded by the American Council of Learned Societies, Stanford Humanities Center, National Endowment for the Humanities, American Institute of Indian Studies, Yale University, Emory University, the Ford Foundation, and the Charles Phelps Taft Research Center, among others. I have published several articles on a variety of themes, including the politics of naming, Dalit and African American women, Dalit women’s education, new Dalit womanhood, and kissing and nationalism in prestigious international journals. My scholarship and research interests focus on anti-colonial struggles, transnational women’s history, women-of-color feminisms, and particularly on gendering caste and subaltern history. I co-organized the "Fifth International Conference on the Unfinished Legacy of Dr. Ambedkar" at the New School of Social Research and I direct the "Ambedkar-King Justice Initiative" at the University of Cincinnati.
Courses Developed and Taught
Courses Developed and Taught
- Gender, Sexuality, and Society
- Caste and Race
- Global Racisms
- Women in South Asia
- Gender and Empire
- World History
- Ambedkar and Gandhi
- South Asian Civilizations
- The Making of Modern India
- Indian Nationalism and Anti-colonialism
- Film and Empire
- Caste, Gender, and Nation
- Caste and Identity in India
- India on Film
Susanna T.Y. Tong
Professor, Director of 2+2 Program in Geography, A&S Geography and Environmental Studies, A&S Geography
400D Braunstein Hall
Applied Ecology, Urban Environment, Ecological Risk Assessment, Ecosystem Services, Global Changes, Watershed Management, Hydrologic and Water Quality Modeling, Land Use Modeling, Non-point Source Pollution Abatement, Wildfire, Heavy Metal Contaimination
Rina Williams
Associate Dean for Social Sciences; Professor of Political Science; Affiliate Faculty, Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Sociology, and Asian Studies, A&S College of Arts and Sciences
155A ARTSCI
Rina Verma Williams received her A.M and Ph.D. in Political Science from Harvard University, and B.A. (Political Science) and B.S. (Chemistry) from the University of California at Irvine. She is currently serving as Associate Dean for the Social Sciences in the College of Arts & Sciences. Her home department is the School of Public and International Affairs, with affiliate appointments in Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies; Sociology; and Asian Studies. Her areas of specialization include South Asian politics; women and gender; ethnicity and nationalism; religion and politics; and politics of the developing nations. She has published extensively in these areas, inlcuding numerous articles and two books with Oxford University Press. Before coming to UC, she taught at the University of Virginia and University of Houston.