Joining CIDE Region Centro in Aguascalientes, Mexico as an Assistant Professor

I’m proud to announce that as of July 1st, 2012 I have joined the Public Administration Division of CIDE (Centro de Investigacion y Docencia Economicas, AC – Center for Economic Teaching and Research) as a tenure-track Assistant Professor. My geographical base will be the new campus of CIDE, CIDE Region Centro in Aguascalientes, the capital city of the state of Aguascalientes, in central Mexico.

CIDE is a research centre and a teaching institution as well, highly regarded worldwide as the Harvard of Mexico. Faculty here are either Mexican nationals who did their PhDs abroad or foreigners with PhDs, everyone from excellent universities worldwide. CIDE professors are world-class scholars and the camaraderie and collegiality here has been outstanding. While my office is at CIDE Region Centro, I will coordinate a research programme that will require me to travel to the main CIDE Santa Fe campus on a regular basis, in Mexico City.

Given the regional focus of CIDE Region Centro, my scholarly agenda is perfectly suited for its long-term goals. The Department of Political Science at the University of British Columbia (UBC), my academic home since 2006, has been incredibly supportive of my move to Mexico and I plan to continue as Affiliated Faculty. I will also remain Affiliated Faculty in the Latin American Studies Programme at UBC.

Of course, I will continue to mentor my former students from UBC, particularly those who are collaborating with me on several scholarly writing pieces. UBC is not only my alma mater, but also the place where my scholarly research blossomed and where I gained a lot of experience teaching amazing students. I want to apologize to those of you who were hoping to take a course with me in the 2012-2013 academic year, but fear not. I am hoping to come back to teach at some point (most likely summer compressed courses or perhaps a full year as a Visiting Scholar). And whether or not I am at UBC physically, I will maintain my scholarly affiliation with UBC Political Science and with the university at large, and will always support its endeavours. It is, after all, my alma mater!

I want to thank the department of Political Science at UBC for providing an amazing scholarly home and my fellow faculty members for being wonderful and supportive colleagues. I also want to thank the hundreds of brilliant students who took my courses: you challenged me to be a better educator and I hope I rose to the challenge. I want to thank my former students who have collaborated with me through the years in my scholarly research agenda: your enthusiasm and hard work makes me incredibly proud of who you are and who you are becoming. And I also want to thank CIDE for an amazing opportunity to expand the research programme I consolidated in the past few years. I can’t think of a better scholarly home for me.

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