Faculty

John Zarobell is a Professor of International Studies and Academic Director of the MAIS program. His first book, Empire of Landscape, focused upon visual culture in colonial Algeria and was published in 2010. Art and the Global Economy, published in 2017, analyzes major changes in the art world as a result of globalization. He is currently working on a long-term research project on Asian Megacities and the role of arts in urban development.

Brian Dowd-Uribe is an associate professor in the international studies department at the University of San Francisco. His current research explores the social, agro-ecological, and economic dimensions of food, agriculture, and water policy, primarily in sub-Saharan Africa and Central America. Specifically Professor Dowd-Uribe’s research examines whether and to what extent transgenic crops benefit small farmers, the role of decentralized water governance committees in mitigating water-related...

Nora Fisher Onar is Associate Professor and Chair of International Studies at the University of San Francisco. 

Her research interests include international relations theory, diplomacy, comparative politics / area studies (Turkey/Middle East; Europe; Eurasia), political ideologies, gender, and history/memory. She is also increasingly interested in the impact of technological change on international affairs. 

She received her doctorate from the University of Oxford and holds master’s and...

*On leave until Fall 2025*

Ilaria Giglioli is a scholar of migration, borders and racialization. A human geographer by training, she studies the creation, legitimization and contestation of borders, with a comparative focus in the Mediterranean and US southern border. In particular, she studies the social, political and economic processes that generate support for border fortification, as well as social movements that contest it. She also studies the relationship between border fortification...

Professor Kidd graduated with a PhD from the School of Communications at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, with a specialization in international development. Her research agenda is broadly concerned with the role of grassroots communicators and movements in social change, and she worked as a popular communicator, trainer, and advocate in community radio, documentary film and video, and social justice communications.

Her research has been circulated in academic and non-academic...

Keally McBride is a professor of politics at the University of San Francisco and is interested in issues of power and social change. Her recent research has focused on the dynamics of information technology within contemporary capitalism, but she has published books on punishment and policing, movements of decolonization, and colonialism and the rule of law. She teaches a broad array of courses that investigate local public policy, European politics, political economy, peace and conflict, and...

Jennifer Murphy is an assistant professor in the international studies department at the University of San Francisco. Jenny’s facilitating, curriculum development, and research are informed by ongoing investigations in the interdisciplinary humanistic social sciences. Her geopolitical area of emphasis has been the territorial conflict between Western Sahara and Morocco (1975-present), particularly the political organizing and quest for self-determination of the indigenous Sahrawi people in the...

Jeffrey Paller specializes in African politics and sustainable urban development. His current research examines 1) the contentious politics of African urbanization, 2) the building of sustainable neighborhoods in African cities, and 3) political change and local governance in emerging cities. His first book Democracy in Ghana: Everyday Politics in Urban Africa (Cambridge University Press) was published in 2019. He also curates the weekly news bulletin “This Week in Africa.”

Sadia Saeed is a historical sociologist with substantive interests in religion and politics, international human rights, and global inequalities. Her first book Politics of Desecularization: Law and the Minority Question in Pakistan (Cambridge University Press, 2017) examines the contentious relationship between Islam, nationalism, and rights of religious minorities in colonial India and Pakistan. It received the 2016-2017 Book Prize from the American Institute of Pakistan Studies (AIPS). Her...

*On leave until Spring 2025*

Dana Zartner, JD, PhD is a Full Professor in the International Studies Department and is an Adjunct Professor at the School of Law at the University of San Francisco, where she specializes in international and comparative law, with a focus on the intersection of environmental justice and human rights. Professor Zartner’s first book Courts, Codes, and Custom: Legal Tradition and State Policy Toward International Human Rights and Environmental Law was released by...

Olivier Bercault specializes in Human Rights, armed conflicts, refugee issues and international criminal prosecutions. He served in the emergencies program at Human Rights Watch (HRW) and conducted research missions in numerous conflict areas: Eastern Chad, Darfur, Central African Republic, Algeria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Sri Lanka among others. During that period, he investigated and documented widespread and serious abuses committed by governmental forces, rebel and other armed groups. His...

Filip Kovacevic is an adjunct professor in the Departments of Politics and International Studies. As a Montenegrin author, social justice activist, and geopolitical analyst, Prof. Kovacevic has lectured and taught across Europe, the Balkans, the former USSR, and the U.S., including two years at Smolny College, the first liberal arts college in Russia, operating under the auspices of St. Petersburg State University. He received fellowships from the Open Society Institute and the National...