Sophal Earl

Dr. Sophal Ear, Ph.D., is the Refugees International Secretary and Program Committee Chair (joined in 2015). He is a tenured Associate Professor in the Thunderbird School of Global Management at Arizona State University where he lectures on global political economy, international organizations, and regional management in Asia. He is also the President of the International Public Management Network (IPMN). He previously served as Senior Associate Dean of Student Success and as Associate Dean for Undergraduate Programs and Global Development. At the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School and the Maxwell School at Syracuse University, Dr. Ear has taught political economy, post-conflict reconstruction, and international development policy. In November 2015, Dr. Ear was elected to the Crescenta Valley Town Council, representing 20,000 residents of unincorporated Los Angeles County living in La Crescenta and Montrose. He was re-elected in 2018. 

He has consulted for the World Bank and worked for the United Nations Development Programme in East Timor. A TED Fellow, Fulbright Specialist, Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum, and former Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, he serves on the Board of Directors of the Nathan Cummings Foundation, Partners for Development, the Southeast Asia Resource Action Center, the Southeast Asia Development Program, Diagnostic Microbiology Development Program, the Center for Khmer Studies, and the International Public Management Network. 

Dr. Ear is the author of several books that examine the impact of foreign assistance in Cambodia and the geopolitical impacts of China’s global resource quest. He wrote and narrated the award-winning documentary film “The End/Beginning: Cambodia” based on his 2009 TED Talk and has appeared in several other documentaries. His story is featured in an exhibit entitled “We Are All Californians” at the California Museum in Sacramento. 

In 2019, Dr. Ear received the Tobis Medal from the University of California, Irvine, for his professional integrity, concern for social justice, and humanitarianism. In 2016, he was awarded the Rev. Clementa A. Pinckney Achievement Award for Extraordinary Leadership in Public Service by the Public Policy & International Affairs Program. The previous year, he was named 40 Under 40 Professors Who Inspire by NerdWallet. A graduate of Princeton and Berkeley, he moved to the United States at the age of 10 after living in France as a Cambodian refugee.