Gartner appointed director of the School of International Affairs

The Penn State School of International Affairs has named Scott Sigmund Gartner, professor of international affairs, as the school’s second director, starting on July 1.

Gartner, former director of the International Relations Program at the University of California, Davis, will provide leadership following the departure of current director Tiyanjana Maluwa. Maluwa, who has served as director since the school’s founding in 2007, is stepping down to return full time to the Penn State Law faculty, where he serves as associate dean for international affairs and holds the H. Laddie Montague Chair in Law.

“Professor Gartner is not only a respected scholar of foreign affairs and mediation, but he also brings valuable leadership experience in academics from his tenure at UC Davis,” said James W. Houck, interim dean of the School of International Affairs. “Given his outstanding credentials, as well as his passion for educating students, I have every confidence Professor Gartner will help lead SIA to the next level of success.”

Gartner, who joined the School of International Affairs in 2011, is a scholar of conflict mediation and empirical studies of war. His research focuses on the intersection of foreign and domestic politics, U.S. national security, wartime assessment, and third-party mediation. He teaches classes in international mediation, U.S. national security, and research design.

Gartner's over 50 academic publications include books such as Strategic Assessment in War and The Historical Statistics of the United States, and articles in top journals in political science, sociology, international affairs, history, intelligence, and communications.

His honors include the Jefferson Prize for the best government resource, the RUSA Outstanding Reference Award, Booklist Editor's Choice Award, Library Journal Best Reference Award, History News Network Book of the Month, and the American Political Science Association's best policy thesis award.

In addition to his academic publications, he has had op-eds published in USA Today, The Huffington Post, The Christian Science Monitor, and Newsday. He and his research have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, Newsweek, The Atlantic, The History Channel, MSNBC, NPR, and ABC.

He is currently working on studies of suicide in the military, strategic assessment in insurgency, international dispute mediation, military casualties and politics, and chemical weapons.

In addition to his role in the School of International Affairs, he is an affiliate faculty member at Penn State Law and in Penn State’s Department of Political Science. He has served in a visiting capacity at the Naval Postgraduate School’s Department of Defense Analysis, the University of Canterbury (New Zealand), the University of Iowa, and the University of California, San Diego. He is also the senior advisor for Net Assessment of Violent Non-state Actors supporting a U.S. federal government agency.

Gartner holds a Ph.D. and master’s degree in Political Science from the University of Michigan and a master’s degree in International Relations and a bachelor’s degree in History from the University of Chicago.