Professor David A. Steinberg among winners of the 2016-2017 Catalyst Awards

Assistant Professor of International Political Economy David A. Steinberg is among the distinguished group of Johns Hopkins faculty who has been honored with the 2016-2017 Catalyst Awards.

The prize recognizes 34 early-career faculty members across the university with a $75,000 grant for their research endeavors. The honor, which also provides mentoring and networking opportunities with cohorts, is part of a $15 million university commitment to faculty-led research.

“It’s personally a great honor, and also a major help for my research going forward,” Steinberg said. “This has given me an opportunity to spend time focusing on my research this upcoming year and pushing forward on some articles and a book project.”

Steinberg’s research focuses on the politics of international money and finance. He is currently examining the transformation of the global financial system over the past 40 years, focusing on the deregulation of international financial markets in emerging economies.

He said the grant will help support his field research in Argentina to interview government officials and interest groups, surveys for original data, and hiring Johns Hopkins SAIS students as research assistants.

Steinberg said he looks forward to meeting the other winning researchers who are studying a broad range of topics including pancreatic cancer, obesity and neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease. “This will be a good opportunity to meet with colleagues — other junior scholars — and meet with academic leadership of the university,” he said.

Steinberg is the author of Demanding Devaluation: Exchange Rate Politics in the Developing World, winner of the 2016 Peter Katzenstein Book Prize for an outstanding first book in International Relations, Comparative Politics, or Political Economy. He has also written articles for the Washington Post and journals World Politics, Comparative Political Studies, and International Studies Quarterly.

Before joining the school last year, Steinberg was an assistant professor of political science at the University of Oregon.  He was a fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Browne Center for International Politics, and visiting researcher at Peking University’s School of Government in China and Torcuato Di Tella University’s Department of Political Science and International Studies in Argentina. He holds a MA and PhD from Northwestern University, and BA from McGill University.  The native of Ottawa, Canada said he enjoys mountain biking and taking his twin daughters to the playground and swimming pool.

Steinberg, who will teach Applied Methods of Political Analysis in the spring, said he is encouraged by the learning environment at Johns Hopkins SAIS. “I feel very lucky to have so many great colleagues; it’s a wonderful intellectual environment,” he said. “Whenever I hit a difficult spot with my research, I have lots of doors I can knock on and colleagues to help me through my intellectual challenges, so I’m grateful for this amazing set of colleagues.”

He said the students are an amazing resource as well. “I feel like I learn so much in class every time,” Steinberg said. “They have really interesting backgrounds and experiences and know a great deal about on the ground practical aspects of the policy issues that we’re talking about in class. So I’m always lucky to be learning from my students so much.”