Announcing the New Dean of the Walsh School of Foreign Service
April 14, 2015
Dear Members of the Georgetown Community:
It is with great pleasure that I announce Joel Hellman, Ph.D., as the new dean of the Walsh School of Foreign Service, beginning July 1, 2015.
As both a scholar and practitioner, Dr. Hellman brings to Georgetown a unique and valuable perspective from his work on issues of governance, conflict, and the political economy of development around the world. He joins our community following 15 years of service at the World Bank, where he most recently served as Chief Institutional Economist and previously led its engagement with fragile and conflict-affected states as Director of the Center on Conflict, Security and Development. As a development practitioner, he coordinated the Bank’s response to broad and deep complex global challenges such as the tsunami in Aceh and North Sumatra.
Earlier in his career, Dr. Hellman served as a faculty member in the Department of Government at Harvard University and in the Department of Political Science at Columbia University. He has a Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University and an M.Phil. from the University of Oxford.
For nearly a century, the talents and vision of our deans, faculty, staff and students have made SFS the premier destination for young people seeking to become compassionate, agile leaders in foreign affairs. We believe that by building on our foundation, Georgetown can make unique contributions in the context of the increasingly complex and interconnected global landscape that we face. As we imagine our future ahead and seek to engage in ever deeper and more meaningful ways with these issues, we look forward to working with Dr. Hellman to lead the SFS into its next hundred years of excellence.
I can only begin to express my gratitude to our colleague, James Reardon-Anderson, Ph.D., for his service as Interim Dean. I also wish to express my appreciation to the faculty, staff and advisory leaders of the SFS for their support during this time of transition following Dean Lancaster’s passing.
Finally, we are profoundly appreciative of the efforts of the committee that conducted the search for the SFS’s new leader, led by Angela E. Stent, Ph.D., Professor of Government and Director of the Center for Eurasian, Russian and European Studies.
I hope that you will all join me in offering a warm welcome to Dr. Hellman; I look forward to introducing him to our community in person in the days ahead. You all have my very best.
Sincerely,
John J. DeGioia