The Ford School is pleased to announce that the very distinguished Allan C. Stam has accepted its offer to join the faculty. Al is a professor of political science here at the U-M, and will move 50% of his appointment to the Ford School starting in fall 2012.
In addition, Al will take over as director of the International Policy Center starting July 1, 2012. The Ford School expects that Al will build on the excellent base created by the faculty, students, and staff who have been affiliated with the IPC since its launch in 2005. Allan will share his vision for the future of the IPC as he assumes his leadership role this summer.
Al joined the U-M faculty in 2007. Prior to that, he held faculty appointments at Dartmouth (where he was the Daniel Webster Professor), Harvard, Yale, and American University. He earned his PhD from Michigan in 1993. Al is the recipient of a number of distinguished teaching and research awards. Al served in the U.S. Army Special Forces from 1983-1986 and the Army Reserves from 1988-2002 until he retired from the service as a Captain.
Al's research focuses on the dynamics of armed conflict between and within states. His current projects include developing a GIS model of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, investigating political leaders' family structure and social development and their concomitant effects on leaders' willingness to take risks once in office, and modeling the interactive effects of military training and combat trauma on veterans' propensity to engage in post-service criminal behavior.
The Ford School would like to thank Alan Deardorff for his service as interim IPC director this semester and Dean Yang, who took the lead on the Economic Development and Transition Seminar.