Sophal Ear
Senior Associate Dean of Student Success and Associate Professor
Phoenix
Biography
Sophal Ear is the associate dean for undergraduate programs and global development and a tenured associate professor in the Thunderbird School of Global Management at Arizona State University where he lectures on global political economy, International Organizations, and regional management in Asia. He previously taught at Occidental College, the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, and the Maxwell School of Syracuse University. He consulted for the World Bank, was Assistant Resident Representative for the United Nations Development Programme in East Timor, Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Advisor to Cambodia's first private equity fund Leopard Capital, Audit Chair of the Nathan Cummings Foundation, and Treasurer of the Southeast Asia Resource Action Center. A TED Fellow, Fulbright Specialist, and Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum, he sits on the Boards of Refugees International (Washington, DC), Partners for Development (Silver Spring, MD), International Public Management Network (Washington, DC), the Southeast Asia Development Program (Phnom Penh, Cambodia), and the Center for Khmer Studies (Siem Reap, Cambodia). He is the author of Viral Sovereignty and the Political Economy of Pandemics: What Explains How Countries Handle Outbreaks? (Routledge, forthcoming, https://www.routledge.com/Viral-Sovereignty-and-the-Political-Economy-of-Pandemics-What-Explains/Ear/p/book/9781032133850), Aid Dependence in Cambodia: How Foreign Assistance Undermines Democracy (Columbia University Press, 2013, http://amzn.to/UXhoWc), co-author of The Hungry Dragon: How Chinas Resources Quest is Reshaping the World (Routledge, 2013, http://amzn.to/WkxCEf), and co-editor of the virtual issue of the journal Politics and the Life Sciences on Coronavirus: Politics, Economics, and Pandemics (Cambridge University Press, 2020, https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/politics-and-the-life-sciences/virtual-issues/virtual-issue-3). He wrote and narrated the award-winning documentary film "The End/Beginning: Cambodia" (47 minutes, 2011, news blurb http://youtu.be/QwsSDPRI25E) based on his 2009 TED Talk (http://www.ted.com/talks/sophal_ear_escaping_the_khmer_rouge) and has appeared in four other documentaries. A graduate of Princeton and Berkeley, he moved to the US from France as a Cambodian refugee at the age of 10.
Expertise Areas:
- Asian Studies
- Boards of Directors
- Comparative Politics
- Corporate Social Responsibility
- Economic Development
- Global Development
- Global Health
- Global Leadership
- Global Political Economy
- Global Politics
- Global Studies
- Globalism
- Globalization
- Governance
- Policy
- Policy Analysis
- Political Economy
- Politics of Asia
- Poverty
- Public Administration
- Public Health
- Public Policy
- Resource Economics
- Southeast Asian Studies
- Storytelling
- Sustainable Development
- Trade Policy
- World Health
Education
- Ph.D. Political Science, University of California, Berkeley
- M.A. Political Science, University of California, Berkeley
- M.S. Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of California, Berkeley
- M.P.A. Economics and Public Policy, Princeton University
- B.A. Economics and Political Science, University of California, Berkeley
Research
Areas of
Expertise
Public Work
Professional Associations