Expertise: Finland, US Foreign Policy, Sports Diplomacy.

email:dshearer@oxy.edu

Derek Shearer is currently Stuart Chevalier Professor, Diplomacy and World Affairs at Occidental College, and was formerly the American Ambassador to Finland (1994-97).

Ambassador Shearer serves as Director of the McKinnon Center for Global Affairs, handling the colleges international relations and directing the expansion of its international affairs programs.

Ambassador Shearer served in the Clinton administration as an economics official in the Commerce Department, and then as Ambassador to Finland (1994-97). After diplomatic service, Ambassador Shearer was a fellow at the Economic Strategy Institute and then at the Woodrow Wilson Scholars Center in Washington, DC. He served as a foreign policy advisor to Vice President Gore during the 2000 Presidential campaign and to Senator Hillary Clinton in the 2007-2008 Presidential primary contests.

Ambassador Shearer’s articles on foreign affairs and public policy have appeared in the New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, the Wall Street Journal, and many weekly and monthly publications. He has been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, an US-Japan Leadership Fellowship, and a Swedish Bicentennial Fellowship.