Office of the dean

Lori Poloni-Staudinger
Interim Dean, College of Social and Behavioral Sciences

Dr. Lori Poloni-Staudinger currently serves as the interim dean in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences (SBS). Previous to this appointment, she was the SBS associate dean for research, personnel, and graduate programs and former chair of the Department of Politics and International Affairs (PIA) where she currently holds the rank of professor. Dr. Poloni-Staudinger has also served as graduate coordinator and undergraduate coordinator in her home department. She has been active in efforts to promote faculty governance, student success, community engagement, international education, and diversity in the academy.

Dr. Poloni-Staudinger spearheaded the expansion of the PIA Department’s Master of Public Administration degree, including the MPA-China cohort. This first of its kind program is a partnership between Abundance International Education Institute (AIEI) and NAU.

Dr. Poloni-Saudinger has been active in work to increase citizen participation in politics, facilitating dozens of community forums throughout the state of Arizona. She is a Kettering Foundation Fellow and also served as vice president of a school board and president of a nonprofit board in Flagstaff, Arizona. Dr. Poloni-Staudinger has also served as treasurer, vice president, and president of the Women’s Caucus for the Midwest Political Science Association. Her civic engagement work led to the development of Arizona Deliberates, a cooperative, grant-funded project between Maricopa Community College District, NAU and non-profits. Through this work, she facilitated dozens of community discussions across the state of Arizona.

The author of five books and over thirty articles, chapters and reports, Dr. Poloni-Staudinger’s research and publications focus mainly on social movements and extra institutional political participation in Europe and the United States. Over time, her work has moved from focusing on environmental movements to a focus on women’s movements and politics. Her recent work examines questions around women and political violence as well as women and politics more generally. Her expertise has led to publications in the Washington Post as well as other popular media outlets.

Before beginning at Northern Arizona University, Dr. Poloni-Staudinger held a teaching fellowship at Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis and also served as a statistician and policy analyst for an education policy think tank in Indiana. Lori has been a visiting faculty member at University of the Basqe Country in San Sebastian, Spain and was the Distinguished Fulbright Professor of International Relations at the Diplomatic Academy in Vienna, Austria. She has also served as a consultant for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Dr. Poloni-Staudinger was also selected to attend Harvard’s Management Development Program, which provided invaluable training and insight into higher education leadership and operations.

Dr. Poloni-Staudinger received her bachelor’s of science in Wildlife Biology with a minor in French from Colorado State University. She received an MA in political science with a concentration in environmental politics from Colorado State as well. Her PhD was earned at Indiana University in political science and her dissertation focused on environmental non-governmental organizations in Europe.