Program Director

Kalmanovitz Hall 237

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...

Education:
  • PhD, Sociology, University of Michigan at Ann Arbor
  • MA, University of Notre Dame, Indiana
  • BSc (Honors), Lahore University of Management Sciences, Pakistan

Full-Time Faculty

Kalmanovitz Hall 275

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...

Education:
  • DPhil (PhD) in International Relations / Political Science, University of Oxford
  • Master in International Affairs (MIA), Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies
  • BS...
Expertise:
  • Empire/Post-colonialism
  • Religion and politics
  • History, memory and politics
  • Turkey/Middle East
  • EU/Europe
Kalmanovitz Hall 233

*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...

Education:
  • University of California Berkeley, PhD in Geography, 2018
  • University of Toronto, MA in Geography, 2010
  • University of Oxford, BA in Geography, 2006
Kalmanovitz Hall 160

Aaron J. Hahn Tapper, the Mae and Benjamin Swig Professor in Jewish Studies and the founding Director of the Swig Program in Jewish Studies and Social Justice, has been at USF since 2007. An educator for more than two decades, his primary academic interest is the intersection between identity formation, social justice, and marginalized groups.

Aaron completed his PhD in the Religious Studies Department at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he studied the History of Religions...

Education:
  • PhD, Religious Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara
  • MTS, Harvard Divinity School
  • BA, Johns Hopkins University
Kalmanovitz Hall 162

Oren Kroll-Zeldin is the assistant Director of the Swig Program in Jewish Studies and Social Justice at the University of San Francisco where he is also an assistant professor in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies. He is the co-editor of This Is Your Song Too: Phish and Contemporary Jewish Identity (Penn State University Press) and author of the forthcoming book Unsettled: American Jews and the Movement for Justice in Palestine (New York University Press). Oren is the co-founder...

Education:
  • California Institute of Integral Studies, PhD in Cultural Anthropology and Social Change
  • California Institute of Integral Studies, MA in Cultural Anthropology and Social Change
  • Skidmore College...
Kalmanovitz Hall 337

Brandi Lawless is a professor in the Department of Communication Studies. Broadly, her research can be defined as critical intercultural communication — an area of research concerned with understanding power, privilege, marginalization, hegemony, and ideologies. She is interested in the ways individuals (re)produce and communicate identities and subjectivities at the intersections of race, class, gender, ethnicity, and other aspects of identity. Her most recent work has explored intercultural...

Education:
  • PhD, Communication, University of New Mexico
  • MA, Communication Studies, San Francisco State University
  • BA, California State University, Northridge
Kalmanovitz Hall 279

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...

Education:
  • UC Berkeley, PHD 2000
  • UC Berkeley, MA 1993
  • Mount Holyoke College, BA 1991
Expertise:
  • Social change and revolution
  • European Politics
  • Political Economy
Kalmanovitz Hall 283

Jennifer Turpin joined USF's faculty in 1991 after receiving a doctorate in sociology at the University of Texas at Austin. She has received USF's Distinguished Teaching Award and the College Service Award, as well as an honorary doctorate from USF in 2015. She founded USF's Women's Studies program and served as chair of the sociology department before spending 17 years in the university administration, as provost (2010-2015); dean (2003-2010); and associate dean (1997-2003).

Her research...

Education:
  • University of Texas, PhD in Sociology, 1991
  • University of Texas, MA in Sociology, 1986
  • University of Texas, BA in Psychology, 1983
Expertise:
  • Sociology
  • Gender Studies
  • Peace and Conflict Studies
  • Higher Education Studies
Kalmanovitz Hall 272 POLS (Annex)

Stephen Zunes has been at USF since 1995, teaching courses on the politics of the Middle East and other regions, nonviolence, conflict resolution, U.S. foreign policy, globalization, and the politics of war and peace. He is the founding director of the Middle Eastern Studies Program.

A prominent specialist on U.S. Middle East policy, Professor Zunes has presented hundreds of public lectures and conference papers in both the United States and over a dozen foreign countries. He has traveled...

Education:
  • PhD in Government, Cornell University, 1990
  • MA in Government, Cornell University, 1986
  • MA in Political Science, Temple University, 1983
  • BA in Government, Oberlin College, 1980
Expertise:
  • Middle Eastern & North African Politics
  • Peace Studies
  • U.S. Foreign Policy
  • Social Movements