Introducing New Members of the Faculty

To help introduce to the Cornell community the new members of the university's faculty, the Cornell Chronicle is publishing brief, new-faculty profiles each week during the semester.

Allen Carlson

Assistant professor, government
College: Arts and Sciences
Academic focus: Focuses on international relations theory and Chinese foreign policy, Chinese nationalism and the status of Taiwan and Tibet, Asian security; changing role of sovereignty in international politics during post-Cold War period -- with a particular focus on the ability of mainstream international relations theory to explain change that is taking place; Chinese foreign relations during the 1980s and 1990s; and assessing the extent to which China's foreign policy has changed in relationship to growing levels of economic/political interdependence with the international system.
Previous position: Instructor, Yale University, 1998-2000.
Academic background: B.A., government, Colby College, 1991; and M.Phil., political science, 1993, and Ph.D., political science, 2000, both from Yale University.

Laurie E. Drinkwater

Associate professor, horticulture
College: Agriculture and Life Sciences
Academic focus: Investigates mechanisms within the plant-soil-microbial continuum that control ecosystem processes, such as energy flows and nutrient cycling. She is striving to achieve a better understanding of the biotic and abiotic mechanisms that regulate links in carbon-nitrogen cycles. She also is using a multidisciplinary approach to develop management practices that improve soil quality in intensive horticultural systems.
Previous position: Director, U.S. Regenerative Agriculture Resource Center, Rodale Institute, Kutztown, Pa.
Academic background: B.A., biology, University of South Florida, Tampa, 1978; and Ph.D., physiological ecology, University of California-Davis, 1986.

Yaniv Grinstein

Assistant professor, finance
College: Johnson Graduate School of Management
Academic focus: Research and teaching interest is in corporate finance. His research focuses on firms' investment, financing and governance decisions under moral hazard and asymmetric information. His current projects include a theoretical and empirical investigation of financing and governance decisions in leveraged-buyout firms, and a theoretical analysis of investment decisions in research and development projects.
Previous position: Doctoral student, Carnegie Mellon University.
Academic background: B.Sc., mechanical engineering, 1989, and M.S., business administration, 1995, both from Technion, Israel Institute of Technology; and M.S., finance, 1997, and Ph.D., financial economics, 2000, both from Carnegie Mellon University.

David Tat-Chee Ng

Assistant professor, applied economics and management
College: Agriculture and Life Sciences
Academic focus: Focus is on valuation and volatility in financial markets. He conducts research on international finance and empirical asset pricing. Also he studies exchange rate risks, country risks and factors that affect asset prices in international and emerging stock markets. This spring he will teach an undergraduate course in international finance and will teach econometrics next fall.
Previous position: Doctoral candidate, Columbia University. Summer internships at the Federal Reserve Board, International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
Academic background: B.A., economics and mathematics, 1993; M.A., economics, 1996; M.Phil., economics, 1997; and Ph.D., economics, 2000, all from Columbia.

Dietram A. Scheufele

Assistant professor, communication
College: Agriculture and Life Sciences
Academic focus: Research examines how people form and express their opinions and how pollsters measure opinion. Additionally, he researches the election process, learning why people participate, what makes them vote and how they process information leading to a vote.
Previous position: Visiting assistant professor, communications, Cornell, 1999-2000.
Academic background: B.A., mass communications, Johannes Gutenberg-Universtaet Mainz, Germany, 1994; and M.A., journalism and mass communication, 1997; and Ph.D., mass communications, 1999, both from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Collaborations: With associate professors James Shanahan and Bruce Lewenstein, will do an examination of public opinion on biotechnology.

November 9, 2000