UCLA International Institute, June 30, 2020 — The International Institute is pleased to share a number of leadership changes at its centers and the hiring of two new faculty members.

Earlier this year, The Promise Armenian Institute (PAI) named Distinguished Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Ann Karagozian its inaugural director. An engineer whose research and teaching focuses on fluid mechanics, combustion and rocket and air-breathing propulsion systems, Karagozian formerly served as interim UCLA vice chancellor for research and Academic Senate chair. She heads both the UCLA Energy and Propulsion Research Laboratory and the joint UCLA-Air Force Research Laboratory Collaborative Center for Aerospace Sciences.

The newly created PAI is a hub for world-class research and teaching on Armenian Studies, as well as ongoing UCLA research and public impact programs involving Armenia across multiple disciplines. In early May, Sebouh Aslanian, UCLA professor and Richard Hovannisian Endowed Chair in Modern Armenian History, was named inaugural director of the newly established Armenian Studies Center within PAI. The Institute welcomes Professors Karagozian and Aslanian and looks forward to their work in making PAI and the Armenian Studies Center cornerstones of Armenian studies, research and impact programming.

The Younes and Soraya Nazarian Center for Israel Studies also named a new director earlier this year, Professor Dov Waxman, who joined the center as Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation Chair in Israel Studies. Waxman has a joint appointment between the Division of Social Sciences and the UCLA International Institute, where he will teach in its interdepartmental degree programs. The author of several books on Israel, the Palestinians and the American Jewish community, Waxman previously taught at Bowdoin College, the City University of New York (CUNY) and Northeastern University.

Waxman took over leadership of the Y&S Nazarian Center from Yoram Cohen, distinguished professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering, who led the center from 2015 to 2020. The International Institute welcomes Professor Waxman and extends its sincere gratitude to Professor Cohen for his dedicated leadership of the center over the past five years.

The Program on Caribbean Studies of the Latin American Institute is also experiencing a change in leadership. Professor Jorge Marturano of the department of Spanish & Portuguese will become director of the program effective July 1, replacing Inaugural Director and Associate Professor of History Robin Derby. Marturano’s research and teaching interests span testimonial writing, prison narratives, culture, politics and fiction in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The institute welcomes Professor Marturano and thanks Professor Derby for her active leadership of the program since its founding in late 2016; we are pleased that she will remain affiliated with the institute as its equity advisor and as faculty director of the UCLA International Education Office.

Finally, the Institute is delighted to welcome Alden Young to its teaching faculty in fall 2020. A political and economic historian of Africa with deep research interests in African economic development and Sudan, Young previously taught at Drexel University in Philadelphia. He spent the past academic year working on a new book at the Institute for Advanced Study of Princeton University. Young will have a joint appointment to the department of African American studies and the UCLA International Institute, where he will teach courses in its interdepartmental degree programs.