Steinfeld named director of Brown’s Watson Institute

EDWARD STEINFELD has been named director of the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs. / COURTESY BROWN UNIVERSITY
EDWARD STEINFELD has been named director of the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs. / COURTESY BROWN UNIVERSITY

PROVIDENCE – Brown University has named a new director of the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, Edward Steinfeld, the dean’s professor of China studies, director of the China Initiative and professor of political science.
The university, in a press release, said Steinfeld will succeed Richard M. Locke, who has served as director since 2013 and was appointed provost this year.
Steinfeld will begin the new position on Jan. 1. He was named to the position after an international search, the university said.
“Professor Steinfeld is a highly accomplished scholar, specializing in China’s political economy and industrial development, with a record of administrative leadership and policy-relevant engagement, and will bring valuable perspectives to the role of director,” Brown University President Christina H. Paxson wrote in a letter to the campus community.
Steinfeld, in his new role, will provide “intellectual leadership and strategic direction in shaping and supervising the institute’s teaching and research initiatives in international and public affairs,” the university said.
Said Steinfeld, “Moving forward in close collaboration with colleagues across Brown’s campus – in the social sciences, the humanities, the sciences, engineering, public health and medicine – we at Watson aim to change the world. What a privilege to be working on this kind of mission, with these kinds of colleagues, in this kind of university.”
Two years ago, Steinfeld came to Brown from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was professor of political science, professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, director of the MIT-China program and co-director of the China Energy Group.

At Brown, Steinfeld launched the China Initiative, an interdisciplinary center for the study of modern China, at the Watson Institute. Steinfeld will continue to oversee the initiative as Watson’s director.

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