Fredericksburg, Va. – Elizabeth Larus, associate professor of political science at the University of Mary Washington, has been accepted as a 2007-08 Academic Fellow with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD) in Washington, D.C.
The FDD Academic Fellowship Program is an educational program that focuses on the threat of terrorism to democracy. It will take place in Israel from May 26 through June 6, 2007, and consists of an intensive series of lectures by academics, diplomats and military officials from India, Israel, Jordan, Turkey and the United States. In addition, academic fellows will travel to military, police and immigration facilities throughout Israel.
An expert in the politics of China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, Dr. Larus is the author of Economic Reform in China, 1979-2003: The Marketization of Labor and State Enterprises, as well as a dozen book chapters and academic journal articles ona economic reform in China and China-Taiwan relations. Her most recent journal publications are “Partisan Intervention and Taiwan’s China Policy,” in Pacific Focus, Spring 2007, and “Taiwan’s Quest for International Recognition,” in Issues & Studies, June 2006. She has conducted field research in Asia for 20 years and has presented her findings at academic conferences worldwide, including Oxford University, Yale University, National Taiwan University, Academia Sinica (Taiwan), Hong Kong Polytechnic University and the Atlantic Council.
Dr. Larus has been awarded a Dissertation Fellowship Award and two duPont Fellowships from the University of Virginia and also was the recipient of a Lingnan Foundation Research Grant and a Pacific Cultural Foundation Grant. In addition, she is a member of the American Political Science Association, the American Association for Chinese Studies and the Conference Group on Taiwan Studies, and she has served as the president of the Virginia Consortium for Asian Studies. She received a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Creighton University, as well as a master’s degree in public administration and a doctorate in government with a certificate in Asian studies both from the University of Virginia.
FDD is a non-profit, non-partisan think tank based in Washington, D.C., that seeks to educate Americans about the terrorist threat to democracies worldwide. FDD produces independent analyses of global terrorist threats that explore the historical, cultural, philosophical and ideological factors that drive terrorism and threaten the individual freedoms guaranteed within democratic societies.