SIAS Welcomes New Faculty
Yaron Ayalon
Lecturer, School of International and Area Studies and Judaic Studies
Yaron Ayalon is the Schusterman Teaching fellow in Judaic and Middle Eastern Studies. He teaches in the School of International and Area Studies and the Program in Judaic and Israel Studies. His research focuses on the history of the Middle East in the early modern period, and particularly on non-Muslims in the Ottoman Empire. His recent work deals with Jewish communities in Ottoman Syria and how they confronted natural disasters. Ayalon earned a BA in education and Middle East history from Tel Aviv University in 2002, and his PhD from Princeton University is forthcoming in 2009.
Mike Boettcher
Lecturer, School of International and Area Studies and Journalism
Veteran network news correspondent Mike Boettcher is a lecturer in the School of International and Area Studies and the Gaylord College of Journalism and Mass Communication.
Currently a correspondent with ABC News assigned to cover the Afghanistan war, he is also writing a book about Al Qaeda and its global network. He has extensive experience covering Iraq dating back to Operation Desert Storm in 1991 when he was imbedded with U.S. Marines.
Boettcher is recognized as one of the worlds most experienced foreign correspondents, covering wars and revolutions in every part of the globe since 1980.
Jarrod Hayes
Assistant Professor, School of International and Area Studies and Political Science
Jarrod Hayes joined the Department of Political Science and the School of International and Area Studies in 2009 after receiving his PhD from the University of Southern California. His research interests fit most neatly into the areas of international security and foreign policy analysis. Currently his research focuses on the role identity in the construction of security within democracies, although his research interests are considerably broader and include issues in nuclear weapons proliferation, international rivalries, international relations theory and regional level foreign policy and security dynamics in Europe, South Asia, and East Asia.
Thomas Hefter
Assistant Professor, School of International and Area Studies and Modern Languages, Literatures and Linguistics
Thomas Hefter is Assistant Professor of Arabic Language and Literature in SIAS and the Department of Modern Languages, Literatures and Linguistics. He obtained his Ph. D. in Islamic Studies and Classical Arabic Literature from the University of Chicago in 2008. His research interests are currently focused on the 9th century prose master, al-Jahiz and the rhetorical function of the addressee in his writings.
Tze-yue G. Hu
Lecturer, School of International and Area Studies and Modern Languages, Literatures and Linguistics
Tze-yue G. Hu's adjunct lecturing position is a joint appointment in the School of International and Area Studies and Department of Modern Literatures, Languages, and Linguistics. She received her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of Hong Kong.
From 2005-07, she was a visiting scholar at the University of Oklahoma, School of International and Area Studies. She became an adjunct lecturer in 2008 teaching an upper division course East Asian Identities and Cultural Trends. Her monograph work Frames of Anime – Culture and Image-Building, will soon be published by the University of Hong Kong Press (due December 2009). Her various journal articles and book chapters have been translated into French, Japanese and Chinese.
Jiyeoun Song
Assistant Professor, School of International and Area Studies and Political Science
Jiyeoun Song is assistant professor in the School of International and Area Studies and the Department of Political Science. She studies comparative political economy, focusing on labor market, social welfare policies, and institutional changes in capitalism. In particular, her research examines the politics of labor market reform and the varieties of capitalism in East Asia, with an empirical focus on Japan and South Korea. Before joining the School of International and Area Studies and the Department of Political Science, she served as a postdoctoral fellow at the Program on U.S.-Japan Relations at Harvard University. She received her Ph.D. in Government at Harvard University in 2008.