The Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies at Indiana University continues its growth as one of the largest international affairs schools in the country by welcoming Michael De Groot, Wendy Leutert and Stacey Van Vleet to its roster of nearly 120 leading scholars and practitioners.
The new faculty members will teach at the undergraduate and graduate levels, bringing with them expertise in Russian foreign relations, Chinese economics and trade and Tibetan studies.
“These three accomplished scholars add depth and breadth to our outstanding faculty,” said Ambassador Lee Feinstein, founding dean of the Hamilton Lugar School.
“They will advance the goals of the Hamilton Lugar School by bridging academic disciplines and bringing deep area studies perspectives to the field of global and international studies.”
Michael De Groot, assistant professor of Foreign Relations of the Russian Federation, Department of International Studies
Dr. De Groot received his Ph.D. in History from the University of Virginia. Prior to coming to IU, he was a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perry World House and a Henry A. Kissinger Predoctoral Fellow with the Johnson Center for the Study of American Diplomacy and International Security Studies at Yale University. He is a two-time graduate of the Hamilton Lugar School Summer Language Workshop’s Russian program (2013, 2015).
De Groot’s research explores the intersection of the Cold War and economic globalization. Drawing on archival research in eight countries and five languages, his current book project examines the global economic shocks of the 1970s and the challenges and opportunities they presented to industrial states on both sides of the Iron Curtain.
Wendy Leutert, GLP-Ming Z. Mei Chair of Chinese Economics and Trade, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures
Dr. Leutert holds a Ph.D. in Government from Cornell University and was the An Wang Postdoctoral Fellow at the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard University; Postdoctoral Fellow at the Columbia-Harvard China and the World Program at the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University; and Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for the Study of Contemporary China, University of Pennsylvania.
Leutert’s research interests include political economy, comparative politics, and international relations, with current projects focused on the reform and global expansion of China’s state-owned enterprises and their leaders. Her research has been supported through the Fulbright-Hays and Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship Programs, the Ford Foundation, the Smith Richardson Foundation, and the Chinese Scholarship Council.
She teaches China and the Global Economy at the Hamilton Lugar School.
Stacey Van Vleet, assistant professor of Tibetan studies, Department of Central Eurasian Studies
Dr. Van Vleet is a scholar of Tibet, the Tibetan Buddhist world, and Sino-Tibetan relations, with research and teaching interests in social and cultural history; religion, science, and secularism; and questions of ethnicity and governance within competing projects of empire, colonialism, and nationhood. After earning her Ph.D. in East Asian History from Columbia University, she was a visiting lecturer in Stanford University’s Departments of History and East Asian Languages and Cultures.
Van Vleet’s current book project, Plagues, Precious Pills, and the Politics of Tibetan Learning in Qing China, reveals how a vast network of monastic medical institutions across the northern Qing Empire (1644-1911) made technologies of Tibetan Buddhism central to imperial governance, and how its dismantling was crucial to the making of a secular modern Chinese state.
The Hamilton Lugar School at Indiana University is a national leader in area and international studies and promotes understanding of global issues informed by a deep knowledge of history, culture and language. Named for revered Hoosier statesmen and foreign policy voices, former U.S. Rep. Lee Hamilton and the late former U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar, the school is committed to creating leaders who celebrate differences and seek shared understanding.