Gene Park, associate professor of political science, will be the new director of the Global Policy Institute at Loyola Marymount University. His vision for the future is to address real world global challenges by building on LMU’s base of excellence in research and education, as well as its commitment to social justice. In order to achieve this vision, Park seeks to build upon Prof. Michael Genovese’s work as founding director to support applied faculty research, cultivate leadership opportunities for students, host high-profile speakers on campus, and develop courses around global policy. “A key priority of the GPI is to be true to the teacher-scholar model by encouraging meaningful collaboration between faculty and students,” says Park.
Park previously served as the GPI’s interim director and also on the advisory board since its founding in 2015. His work on political economy has been published extensively by Stanford University Press, Cornell University Press, and numerous academic and audience journals. He has been invited to give talks across the US, Europe and Asia, and news outlets, such as the New York Times, Yonhap News, Channel NewsAsia, The National Interest and others have featured his commentary. Prior to arriving at LMU, he taught at Baruch College, City University of New York. Professor Park was also a Shorenstein Fellow at Stanford University’s Asia Pacific Research Center and a Japan Summer Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and spent two years as a researcher at Japan’s Ministry of Finance. He also has had affiliations with the Stockholm School of Economics and Keio University in Tokyo. Prof. Park is a Fulbright scholar, member of the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation’s U.S.-Japan Network for the Future, and one of the Emerging Leaders in Northeast Asia Scholars Program.
Prior to Park’s appointment, Prof. Michael Genovese, professor of political science, served as president and founding director of LMU’s Global Policy Institute. The GPI was founded in 2015 to support faculty and student research, create a platform for LMU to engage more effectively in public discourse about global issues, and to position the university as a center for global policy discussions in the Los Angeles region and beyond. A hallmark of Genovese’s leadership has been the creation of opportunities for students to better experience and engage with the world around them, including internships with the World Policy Institute in NYC, as well as other internships in Washington, DC, and with the House of Commons in London. Through his role as founder and President of GPI, Prof. Genovese has become a frequent commentator on CNN and in other major news outlets.
In the spirit of collaboration as he takes on this new role, Prof. Park welcomes suggestions on course development, strengthening cooperation across disciplines and colleges, jointly pursuing external funding opportunities, and any other ways we can increase our capacity for citizenship and engagement with our increasingly global society.
