hover or click for email addresses
- Department Head: Professor Alan Jacobs
- Requests for meetings with the Head of Political Science should be made to Jeff Yupitun. Professor Jacobs will not respond directly to new meeting requests.
- Department Associate Head: Associate Professor Katharina Coleman
- Department Administrator: Téa M. Tankurt
- Undergraduate Program Director (from July 1, 2023): Associate Professor Carey Doberstein
- Undergraduate Program Advisor: Jillian Read
- Graduate Program Director: Associate Professor Arjun Chowdhury
- Graduate Program Coordinator: Chris Fernandez
- Graduate Program Assistant: Josephine Calazan (on leave)
- Communications and Social Media Specialist
UBC POLITICIAL SCIENCE DIRECTORY
Faculty by Field: Political Theory | Comparative Politics | Canadian Politics | International Relations | US Politics
Adjunct Faculty
Alex Butterfield
Alex Butterfield
Adjunct Professor
emailabutterf@mail.ubc.ca
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 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
George Hoberg
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
phone604-822-4687
location_onC.K. Choi 367
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
Wendy Wong
emailw.wong@ubc.ca
Wendy H. Wong studies human rights, global governance, and technology. Wong has written three books and dozens of articles and book chapters. She is also a regular contributor to public media, such as the CBC, Globe and Mail, and The Conversation.
Please see her website (www.wendyhwong.com) for a full profile....Read more
Full time Faculty
Afsoun Afsahi
emailafsoun.afsahi@ubc.ca
location_onBuchanan C310
I am an Assistant Professor of Political Theory at the University of British Columbia. Before joining UBC, I was a Justitia Amplificata Postdoctoral Fellow at Goethe Universität Frankfurt and Freie Universität Berlin (2017-2018) and an Assistant Professor of Political Theory and Gender at the Univ...Read more
Alan Jacobs
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
Allen Sens
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, peace operations, nuclear weapons and arms control, European security, and Canadian foreign and ...Read more
Andrew Owen
Andrew Owen
Associate Professor of Teaching
emailandrew.owen@ubc.ca
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.
ON LEAVE
Until December 2023
Anna Jurkevics
Anna Jurkevics
ON LEAVE
Until December 2023
Assistant Professor
location_onBuchanan C308
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
location_onBuchanan C417
Carey Doberstein (PhD UofT) is Associate Professor of Political Science with training and research in Canadian politics, public policy, and public administration.
His research has focused on the governance and policy innovations and challenges associated with homelessness, affordable housing, drug...Read more
Christopher Kam
Christopher Kam
Professor
emailchris.kam@ubc.ca
phone604 822 6606
location_onBuchanan C410
Research Area
Canada | Comparative Politics | Europe | Legislative and judicial politics | Methods: QuantitativeChristopher 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
Research Area
Canada | Comparative Politics | Europe | Legislative and judicial politics | Methods: Quantitative
ON LEAVE
On leave until August 2024
Fred Cutler
Fred Cutler
ON LEAVE
On leave until August 2024
Associate Professor
emailfred.cutler@ubc.ca
phone604 441 3641
location_onBuchanan C408
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
Gerald Baier
Gerald Baier
Associate Professor
emailgerald.baier@ubc.ca
phone604 827 5560
location_onLiu Institute for Global Issues 208
Gerald Baier (Ph.D, Dalhousie) joined the department in 2003. His teaching and research interests are in Canadian politics with a focus on the Constitution, federalism and public law. He is a regular commentator on federal politics in national and local media. His past research has explored the role...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
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
Research Area
Conflict, security, and peacekeepingJenny 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
Research Area
Conflict, security, and peacekeeping
Kai Ostwald
Kai Ostwald
Associate Professor
emailkai.ostwald@ubc.ca
phone604 822 8723
location_onC.K. Choi 224
Research Area
Asia | Comparative Politics | Democratic theory and practice | Ethnic and cultural politics | Federalism and local politics | Methods: Experimental and causal inference | Methods: Quantitative | Methods: Survey research | Non-Democratic Regimes | Political economy of development | Public opinion, parties, and electionsI 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
Research Area
Asia | Comparative Politics | Democratic theory and practice | Ethnic and cultural politics | Federalism and local politics | Methods: Experimental and causal inference | Methods: Quantitative | Methods: Survey research | Non-Democratic Regimes | Political economy of development | Public opinion, parties, and elections
Katharina Coleman
phone604 822 6032
location_onBuchanan C405
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 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
emailkurt.huebner@ubc.ca
phone604 822 9439
location_onC.K. Choi 321
Research Area
Climate and environmental politics | Comparative Politics | Europe | Political economy | Public policyJean 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
Research Area
Climate and environmental politics | Comparative Politics | Europe | Political economy | Public policy
ON LEAVE
On Leave
Laura Janara
Laura Janara
ON LEAVE
On Leave
Associate Professor
emaillaura.janara@ubc.ca
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
Associate Professor
location_onC.K. Choi 325
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
Maxwell Cameron
Maxwell A. Cameron specializes in comparative politics (Latin America), constitutionalism, democracy, and political ethics. He is the author or editor of a dozen academic books as well as over sixty peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. His books include: Democracy and Authoritarianism in Peru,...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 defense policy. He is the co-director of the Outer Space Institute (OSI), a globa...Read more
Nazmul Sultan
Nazmul Sultan
Assistant Professor
emailnazmul.sultan@ubc.ca
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
Professor
location_onBuchanan C420
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
ON LEAVE
On Leave
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 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
Sally Sharif
Sally Sharif (PhD City University of New York, 2021) focuses on state-society relations during and after war, explaining why civil wars begin or recur. She is especially interested in peacebuilding; post-conflict state consolidation; and disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) programs....Read more
Samuel LaSelva
Samuel LaSelva (D.Phil., Oxford) works on political theory, legal philosophy, and constitutional thought and his publications fall within these areas. His research includes The Moral Foundations of Canadian Federalism as well as essays on J.S. Mill in Political Studies and on the Charter of Rights i...Read more
ON LEAVE
On Leave
Sheryl Lightfoot
Sheryl Lightfoot
ON LEAVE
On Leave
Professor, Political Science and First Nations and Indigenous Studies
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
Sophie Borwein
Sophie Borwein
Assistant Professor
location_onBuchanan C418
Sophie Borwein is an Assistant Professor of Political Science, with training in Canadian and comparative politics.
Stewart Prest
Stewart Prest teaches political science as a lecturer with the department of political science. He teaches and researches in a a variety of areas of the discipline, ranging the comparative study of democratic institutions, to international relations, to the study of contentious politics.
ON LEAVE
On Leave until Dec 2023
Xiaojun Li
Xiaojun Li
ON LEAVE
On Leave until Dec 2023
Associate Professor
emailxiaojun.li@ubc.ca
phone604 822 4436
location_onBuchanan C305
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
ON LEAVE
On Leave
Yves Tiberghien
Yves Tiberghien
ON LEAVE
On Leave
Professor
location_onBuchanan C416
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
Postdoctoral Fellow
emailcjtenove@mail.ubc.ca
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
Research Area
Conflict, security, and peacekeepingIbrahim 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.
Research Area
Conflict, security, and peacekeeping
Simon Lambek
Simon Lambek
Postdoctoral Fellow
emailsimon.lambek@ubc.ca
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 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
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