After serving as the Interim Director during 2021-22, Dr. Müge Kökten Finkel was named the Director of the Ford Institute for Human Security for a three-year term.
Finkel is the Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Gender Inequality Research Lab (GIRL) and Co-Lead for the Gender Equality in Public Administration research effort and working group. Through her work, she has advanced a long-standing partnership with the United Nations Development Programme, producing the 2021 Global Report on Gender Equality in Public Administration and Gen-PaCS (Gender Parity in Civil Service) Dataset, which will be made publicly available this fall.
"I am very excited to be taking on the role of Directorship of the Ford Institute for the next three years,” shared Finkel. “I will be working to expand the Ford Institute’s interdisciplinary profile through partnerships in order to address growing new threats to human security, while continuing many of the Institute’s important initiatives begun under Dr. Taylor Seybolt."
Finkel has also recently served as the Director of the Master of International Development program and is currently an Assistant Professor of International Development at GSPIA.
"Dr. Finkel has made exceptional contributions to GSPIA during her 15 years as a member of the GSPIA faculty,” said Dean Carissa Slotterback. “I look forward to all that is ahead for the Ford Institute!”
The mission of the Ford Institute for Human Security is to promote effective responses to severe threats faced by individuals and their communities as a result of conflict and deprivation. To that end, the Institute conducts research on the causes and consequences of political violence and economic underdevelopment and works to advance the idea that governments have a sovereign responsibility to protect their people.
Inaugurated in 2003 as a research institute under the direction of Professor Simon Reich, the Ford Institute has expanded to include instructional support in addition to research. The Institute was instrumental in developing one of the first human security majors in the country.