Pamela Starr
Faculty Fellow
Associate Director, USC Latin America Initiative
 
Dr. Pamela K. Starr is associate director of the USC Latin America Initiative, a senior fellow at the USC Center on Public Diplomacy, and a senior lecturer in Public Diplomacy and the School of International Relations. She comes to USC from the Eurasia Group, one of the world's leading global political risk advisory and consulting firms, where she was senior analyst responsible for Mexico. Prior to that, she spent eight years in Mexico as a professor of Latin American political economy at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM), a private university in Mexico City.

Dr. Starr is an active speaker, commentator, and author on Mexican politics, economics and foreign policy, and on economic reform and policy making in Latin America. She is the author of the Council on Foreign Relation’s special report on the 2006 Mexican election, “Challenges for a Postelection Mexico: Issues for US Policy”. Starr has also worked as a consultant to investment banks and securities firms, an advisor on Latin American issues for a Mexican senator and on Mexican issues for US mayors and members of Congress, and as a lecturer on the staff of the Foreign Affairs Committees of the US and Mexican Senates.

Dr. Starr’s research and writing focuses on two main topics: the politics, economy and foreign policy of contemporary Mexico, and more broadly the politics of economic policy-making across Latin America. In a series of books and book chapters, peer-review journal articles and policy-oriented publications, Dr. Starr has also illuminated the interplay between political and economic developments in shaping economic policy in Mexico and Latin America. On the basis of this research, Dr. Starr has given talks throughout the hemisphere to a wide range of audiences, including the World Economic Forum, the IMF, the Inter-American Development Bank, the US Department of State, the US Embassy in Mexico City, the US State Legislative Leaders Foundation, the Mexican legislature and the Ecuadorian Central Bank. Dr. Starr has held research positions in Argentina and Brazil and at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, DC. She has received grants and fellowships from the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Earhart Foundation, the Organization of American States and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Dr. Starr serves on the editorial board of Foreign Affairs en Español, is an associate of the Inter-American Dialogue, and is an active member of the Latin American Studies Association and the American Political Science Association. After receiving her PhD from the University of Southern California in 1993, Dr. Starr worked as a visiting assistant professor at the University of California, Los Angeles before moving to ITAM in 1997.


Spring 2008 Courses

*PUBD599: The Public Diplomacy of Trade in the Americas