People

Faculty
Adjunct Faculty

Alex Butterfield

Alex Butterfield

Adjunct Professor

Mr. Alex Butterfield is currently serving as an Adjunct Professor of Political Science at the University of British Columbia.  From 2012 to 2018, he was a member of the Defense Intelligence Agency Senior Executive Service with duties as Senior Defense Intelligence Advisor to U.S. Pacific Command. ...Read more

Hani Faris

Hani Faris

Adjunct Professor

phone604 970 4744
Hani A. Faris is Adjunct Professor in the Department of Political Science and a Faculty Associate in the Institute of Asian Research at the University of British Columbia. He served on the faculty of various academic institutions including the Political Science Department at Kuwait University; the...Read more
Associate Faculty

Erin Baines

Erin Baines

Associate Faculty

phone604 822 4579

George Hoberg

George Hoberg

Associate Faculty

phone604 822 3728
Dr. Hoberg is a political scientist by training. He taught public policy and American politics at UBC for 13 years before joining the Faculty of Forestry. His research interests include environmental and natural resource policy, especially energy and forest policy, policy and institutional design, t...Read more

Kristen Hopewell

Kristen Hopewell is Canada Research Chair in Global Policy in the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs at the University of British Columbia. Her research specializes in international trade, global governance, industrial policy and development, with a focus on emerging powers. Dr. Hopewell ...Read more
Full time Faculty

Afsoun Afsahi

Dr. Afsoun Afsahi is an Assistant Professor of Political Theory at the University of British Columbia. From September 2018 to June 2021, she was an Assistant Professor of Political Theory and Gender at the University of Amsterdam (Tenured in December 2020). Prior to this, she held a Justitia Amplifi...Read more

Alan Jacobs

Alan Jacobs

(He/His)

Professor and Head of the Department

phone604 822 6830
location_onBuchanan C318
Alan M. Jacobs (Ph.D. Harvard, 2004) is Head of Department and a Professor of Political Science specializing in the comparative political economy of advanced industrialized democracies, the politics of public policy, political behavior, and qualitative and mixed methodology. He currently teaches und...Read more

Allan Tupper

Allan Tupper

Professor

phone604 827 3387
location_onBuchanan C418

Research Area

Canada | Public policy
Allan Tupper is Professor, and former Head of Department. He was educated at Carleton University (BA, DPA and MA) and Queen’s University (PhD). His major teaching and research interests are Canadian Politics and Government, Comparative Public Management and Public Policy . He has published widely ...Read more

Research Area

Canada | Public policy

Allen Sens

Allen Sens

Professor of Teaching

phone604 822 6127
location_onBuchanan C430
Allen G. Sens (Ph.D, Queen's) specializes in international relations, with a research and teaching focus on international security. He has a particular interest in armed conflict and conflict management, especially peace operations, nuclear weapons and arms control, European security, and Canadian ...Read more

Andrew Owen

Andrew Owen

Associate Professor of Teaching | Undergraduate Director

phone604 822 4550
location_onBuchanan C320
Andrew Owen (PhD Princeton) conducts research on policy making in Canada. Andrew’s secondary interests include research design, quantitative methods and experimental research in political psychology.

Anna Jurkevics

Anna Jurkevics (PhD Yale, 2017) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science. Her research is in the fields of critical theory, democratic theory, and the history of German political thought. In her work, she investigates themes related to territory, land, and migration. She also...Read more

Antje Ellermann

I am Professor (she/they) of Political Science (Comparative Politics) and Founding Director of the Centre for Migration Studies at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. My research focuses on the politics of migration and citizenship in liberal democracies. I am particularly interested in...Read more

Arjun Chowdhury

Arjun Chowdhury

Associate Professor | Graduate Program Director

phone604 822 1480
location_onBuchanan C312
Arjun Chowdhury (Ph.D. Minnesota) joined the department in 2010. He teaches introductory, intermediate and graduate classes in International Relations and Security Studies. You can find information about his research, teaching (including evaluations), and media contributions at his personal website....Read more

Barbara Arneil

Barbara Arneil (Ph.D, London) is interested in the areas of identity politics and the history of political thought. As the author of John Locke and America (OUP, 1996) and many related articles, she has a specialization in the intersection between liberalism and colonialism. She is also interested i...Read more

Bruce Baum

Bruce Baum (Ph.D. Minnesota) works in modern and contemporary political theory. His primary research and teaching interests are in the areas of critical social theory (including critical “race” theory, feminist theory, critical hermeneutics, and issues of cross-cultural interpretation); American...Read more

Carey Doberstein

Carey Doberstein's (PhD, UofT) various research interests are united by a focus in studying both the democratic and policy implications of collaborative forms of governance that include citizens and civil society actors in policy planning and decision-making, with a particular focus on urban or loca...Read more

Christopher Kam

Christopher Kam

Professor

phone604 822 6606
location_onBuchanan C410
Christopher Kam (Ph.D. Rochester, 2002) studies comparative political institutions.  Information on Prof. Kam's research and teaching activities, including a list of publications and replication data sets can be found at https://sites.google.com/site/kamchristopherj/home    

Fred Cutler

Fred Cutler (PhD Michigan 2000) specializes in Canadian Politics, Comparative Politics, Political Psychology, Public Opinion, and Elections. He teaches Quantitative Methods, Issues in Canadian Politics, and an Advanced Quantitative Projects course. He is founder of the EdTech startups WeVu.video and Prograds....Read more

Genevieve Bates

Genevieve Bates (she/her) is an Assistant Professor of International Relations at the University of British Columbia, specializing in transitional justice and the international and domestic politics of accountability for human rights violations. Dr. Bates will be on leave from July 2022 to June 2...Read more

Glen Coulthard

Glen Coulthard

Associate Professor, Political Science and First Nations and Indigenous Studies

phone604 822 2880
location_onBuchanan E263
Glen Coulthard is an associate professor in First Nations and Indigenous Studies and in the Department of Political Science. Glen has written and published numerous articles and chapters in the areas of contemporary political theory, indigenous thought and politics, and radical social and political ...Read more

Gyung-Ho Jeong

Gyung-Ho Jeong

Associate Professor

phone604 822 2831
location_onBuchanan C307
I am an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of British Columbia. My research interests include US Politics, Legislative Politics, Social Choice, Political Economy, and Legislative Politics in Korea. In particular, I am interested in how Congress makes decisio...Read more

Jenny Peterson

Jenny Peterson

Associate Professor of Teaching

location_onBuchanan C322
Jenny Peterson joined the department from the Humanitarian & Conflict Response Institute (Manchester) where she worked as a lecturer from 2009-2013. She is broadly interested in the politics of international aid with her past work analyzing process of liberal peacebuilding and critiques thereof....Read more

Kai Ostwald

I am an Associate Professor with a joint appointment in the Department of Political Science and the School of Public Policy & Global Affairs. I am also the Director of UBC’s Institute of Asian Research. I specialize in comparative politics, particularly the political economy of development ...Read more

Katharina Coleman

Katharina Coleman (Ph.D. Princeton) specializes in International Relations, with a focus on international organisations, international security/peace operations, and international rules, norms, and legitimacy. Her regional area of expertise is sub-Saharan Africa.

Kathryn Harrison

Kathryn Harrison

Professor

phone604 822 4922
location_onBuchanan C306
Kathryn Harrison is Professor of Political Science. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Western Ontario, Master’s degrees in Chemical Engineering and Political Science from MIT, and a PhD in Political Science from UBC. Dr. Harrison studies environmental,...Read more

Kurt Huebner

Kurt Huebner

Professor

phone604 822 9439
location_onC.K. Choi 321
Jean Monnet for European Integration and Global Political Economy Chair for German and European Studies Kurt Hübner came in 2006 to UBC as the director of the Institute for European Studies. In 2012 he became a member of the Department of Political Science. He received his PhD from the Free Uni...Read more

Laura Janara

Laura Janara

Associate Professor - On Leave

On leave, not available to take on student supervisions Laura Janara (Ph.D. Minnesota) is a political theorist who works through historical texts of Western political thought, especially early modern and modern, and through contemporary critical social and political theory. Her work is historically...Read more

Lisa Sundstrom

I joined the department in 2002 after completing my PhD at Stanford University. I teach courses in international relations and comparative politics. My regional area of expertise is Russia and the former Soviet Union, and my major research interests include democratization, human rights, gender poli...Read more

Matthew Wright

Matthew Wright earned his BA in political science and history from McGill University, and his PhD in political science from the University of California, Berkeley. Prior to joining UBC’s Department of Political Science, he was an Associate Professor of Government at American University in Washing...Read more

Michael Weaver

Michael Weaver

Assistant Professor

location_onBuchanan C415
Michael Weaver (PhD Yale) examines the politics of violence, in particular, contests over the legitimacy of state and non-state violence, how changes in these public norms constrain and enable violence, as well as the causes and consequences of ethnic violence. His current project, a book on the...Read more

Michael Byers

Michael Byers holds the Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law. His work focuses on Outer Space, Arctic sovereignty, climate change, the law of the sea, the laws of war, and Canadian foreign and defence policy. Dr. Byers has been a Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford University, ...Read more

Nazmul Sultan

Nazmul S. Sultan (PhD Chicago, 2020) is an Assistant Professor of Political Theory in the Department of Political Science. His research interests include the history of political thought (especially Indian and British), empire and anticolonial thought, popular sovereignty, and ideas of the global. ...Read more

Paul Quirk

Paul J. Quirk is Phil Lind Chair in U.S. Politics and Representation at the University of British Columbia. After receiving his Ph.D. at Harvard University (1978), he has taught at several U.S. universities, most recently, the University of Illinois, and has been a research associate at the Brooking...Read more

Peter Dauvergne

Peter Dauvergne is a professor of international relations, specializing in global environmental politics. His research covers the politics of social movements, consumption, technology, and corporations, especially the consequences for social inequality and ecosystem degradation in the global South. ...Read more

Richard Price

  2008-09 UBC Killam Teaching Prize Recipient Richard Price (Ph.D., Cornell) specializes in international relations. His research interests focus on the role of norms in world politics, particularly norms limiting warfare; constructivist international relations theory; normative internati...Read more

Robert Crawford

Robert Crawford

Associate Professor of Teaching, Political Science and Arts One

phone604 822 3009
location_onIBLC 374
For additional information about me and my work please click here.

Robert Farkasch

Robert Farkasch

Lecturer

phone604 822 7297
location_onBuchanan C304B
Robert Farkasch received his doctorate in political science from York University, master's degree in international political economy from the Norman Paterson School for International Affairs and bachelor's degree (hons) in economics and psychology. He is a faculty lecturer in the Political Science D...Read more

Sheryl Lightfoot

Sheryl Lightfoot is Anishinaabe, a citizen of the Lake Superior Band of Ojibwe, enrolled at the Keweenaw Bay Community. She is currently Vice Chair and North American Member on the United Nations Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (EMRIP). She is Canada Research Chair in Global Ind...Read more

Xiaojun Li

Xiaojun (pronounced "shee·ow ji·win") received his Ph.D. in Political Science from Stanford University and joined the department in 2013. He is currently Associate Professor of Political Science at UBC and non-resident scholar at the 21st Century China Centre at UC San Diego School of Global Polic...Read more

Yang-Yang Zhou

I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science. My pronouns are she/her. I study the political causes and consequences of migration. From 2021 through 2023, I will be on leave as a Harvard Academy Scholar and a CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholar. During this time, I will not be super...Read more

Yves Tiberghien

Yves Tiberghien (Ph.D. Stanford University, 2002; Harvard Academy Scholar 2006; Fulbright Scholar 1996) is a Professor of Political Science and Konwakai Chair in Japanese Research at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, Canada. He is also Director Emeritus of the Institute of Asian...Read more
Postdoctoral Fellows

Chris Tenove

Chris Tenove is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of British Columbia, and previously at the University of Toronto’s Centre for Ethics and the Munk School of Global Affairs.  He conducts research in the fields of political theory, political communication, and international rela...Read more

Ibrahim Muradov

Ibrahim Muradov

Postdoctoral Fellow

Ibrahim Muradov is a post-doctoral research fellow at UBC. Dr. Muradov has been a faculty member in the Department of International Relations and Audit at Dnipro University of Technology since 2020. His research covers armed conflicts in former Soviet republics, particularly Ukraine.

Simon Lambek

Simon Lambek is a political theorist whose research focuses on modern and contemporary political thought. His work explores rhetoric's ability to alter interpretive horizons and expand reflective judgment in political life. At present, Simon is working on a project investigating the constitutive eff...Read more
Sessional Instructors

Justin Alger

Justin Alger

Instructor

location_onLiu Institute for Global Issues 211
Justin Alger is a global environmental politics scholar, an instructor in the Department of Political Science, and the Academic Director of The Phil Lind Initiative at the University of British Columbia. His work examines the political economy of environmental problems and their solutions, with a...Read more

Kenny Ie

Kenny Ie

Sessional Lecturer

Research Area

Canada
Dr. Kenny William Ie is a Sessional Lecturer in the department of political science at the University of British Columbia, where he has been teaching since 2017. His research and teaching interests are in Canadian Politics, focusing on political leadership and executive institutions.

Research Area

Canada

Swaran Singh

Dr Swaran Singh is currently Visiting Professor, Department of Political Science, University of British Columbia (Vancouver Campus); Professor and former Chair, Centre for International Politics Organisation and Disarmament, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University (New Delhi) an...Read more