Georgetown’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service (SFS) welcomed 13 new faculty members for the Fall 2023 semester.

The professors represent a variety of global disciplines ranging from Jewish civilization to international politics to international economics and centering on regions such as Southeast Asia.

SFS Dean Joel Hellman said the school selected new faculty members after a rigorous process. In interviews, prospective professors proposed their courses themselves and tailored those courses to fit their specialties. 

Hellman said the new SFS faculty members’ practical experience and research focuses will allow them to impact students immediately.

“We hope the new SFS faculty will bring their research expertise and life experience to excite SFS students about their respective areas of interest,” Hellman wrote to The Hoya.

Among the new faculty, professor Mary Hallward-Driemeier is teaching the “Practice of International Economics” to MSFS students this fall and plans to teach “AI Automation” and “International Development,” her research specialty, in the spring. 

Hallward-Driemeier said the SFS’s focus on preparing students in all disciplines related to international affairs, from history to business to political science, attracted her to the position.

“Bringing together economics and politics helps economists and political scientists truly understand how complicated some of the issues are and to think them through,” Hallward-Driemeier said in an interview with The Hoya. 

Hallward-Driemeier added Georgetown’s location in Washington, D.C., will enhance her students’ knowledge.

“It’s a real opportunity to be here. There are practical links in D.C. to what we’re studying with policymakers,” Hallward-Driemeier said. 

Hallward-Driemeier’s position in the SFS will be her first academic appointment. Previously, she was a senior economic advisor in charge of economic relations, trade and private sector development at the World Bank. She worked there for 25 years in over 60 countries, of which she said Vietnam was her favorite. 

Hallward-Driemeier believes this experience will be valuable as she transitions to a classroom setting and said she plans to center her classes around key real-world economic models. 

“I’ve straddled academia and policy-making for years, and I hope to bring my passion for these fascinating topics to inspire my students to make the world a better place,” Hallward-Driemeier said.

Professor Adam P. Liff, visiting chair in modern and contemporary Japanese politics and foreign policy, hails from Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies and is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Center for East Asia Policy Studies, a research center for improving public policy.

Liff said he looks forward to utilizing his expertise in East Asian foreign policy in courses about policy in Asia and foreign relations between the U.S., China and Japan.

“I’m excited to help launch a new public event series called ‘Japan and the World,’ which will host a series of student-oriented lectures, panels, and conferences exploring various aspects of Japan’s foreign relations and contemporary policy challenges,” Liff wrote to The Hoya. 

“I have crossed paths with many SFS alums over the years, so I am especially looking forward to the opportunity to teach and get to know the fantastic students here,” Liff added. 

Professor Christi Smith is a political sociologist who previously worked at Washington University in St. Louis’s global studies program, where she also served as the assistant dean at the Center for Diversity and Inclusion. At Georgetown, she will teach courses focused on migration and resettlement and work at the Program on Education, Inquiry and Justice. Smith comes from a global background, first becoming interested in political sociology when she was a teenager in Germany and met refugees from East Germany. 

Smith said understanding sociology is essential to the field of politics.

“Sociology offers wide-ranging theoretical and methodological tools for understanding how political ideas are instantiated, how cognitive maps of the world are organized into everyday practices, and how institutions and organizations change,” Smith wrote to The Hoya.

Smith welcomes students interested in sociology, migration or comparative education to ask her for advice. 

“I’m thrilled to be at Georgetown, and SFS in particular, where so many of us are internationally focused and concerned with a greater good,” she wrote.

Hallward-Driemeier said she was similarly impressed by the SFS’s commitment to its values.

“I think the real strength of Georgetown is its values of community, looking after the whole self and its mission to help other people in the world,” she said.

Correction: This article was updated on 9/2 to reflect that Prof. Christi Smith met refugees from East Germany, not the Soviet Union.