Dr. Clara Park was one of 21 faculty and staff members recognized this year for the positive impact they have made on their students through the Marinus Smith Awards. Overall, over 35 nominations were received from students and their families.

The Marinus Smith Awards are presented each spring to faculty and staff members who have been nominated by students. Submitting a nomination provides a meaningful way for students to show appreciation and gratitude to those who have inspired, mentored and supported them.

Read more about the Marinus Smith Awards here:  Faculty, staff recognized with student-nominated Marinus Smith Awards

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The Department of Political Science is excited to introduce Dr. Clara Park this year!

“I was always interested in International Relations and Economics, and specifically the intersection of those two fields.” Dr. Clara Park double majored in Government and Economics from Cornell, then went to graduate school at UC Berkeley for Political Science.

Her decision to pursue academia is the result of her experiences in a wide array of internships during her undergrad career. First, she interned for a bank on Wall Street during the Global Financial Crisis, which “changed my perspective and made me wonder why this was happening and what impact it is having.”

Then she moved into the policy sphere, interning for the Brookings Institution Foreign Policy and the US Department of Treasury in the Office of Economic Policy. “Having been exposed to these three areas, I was motivated to do academic research in these fields to better understand them.”

“Then I joined the Honors Thesis Seminar at Cornell, and I really liked it! I enjoyed writing research papers and decided to go to grad school.”

This fall, she will be teaching International Political Economy and International Cooperation, and most looks forward to engaging with her students.

“This is an exciting time to study international trade and international cooperation, because with recent political changes, we are questioning issues that the US has been at the forefront of,” she explained, “and I look forward to discussing current events with my students. I hope that my students can critically evaluate different points of views and formulate their own reasoned argument about these issues.”

Currently working on a book project, Dr. Park has interesting upcoming research on globalization and trade. “I am working on my book project Negotiating Globalization, which focuses on explaining trade agreements in finance and high-technology industries.”

She argues that “a lot of the technological advances, like using credit cards around the world and sending data over the internet, did not happen naturally, but was the result of efforts by firms and governments to reduce trade impediments, such as both tariffs and non-tariff barriers.”

Other than teaching, Dr. Park keeps finding new reasons to fall in love with the Boulder community. “There is such a supportive academic community with scholars studying a diverse range of issues in political economy, and everybody is super nice and welcoming. And it is just breathtakingly beautiful all the time.”

Welcome to Boulder Dr. Park!

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