Etel Solingen, political science Chancellor’s Professor, has been named the Thomas T. and Elizabeth C. Tierney Chair in Peace Studies. The endowed chair was established in 1986 by longtime friends of UCI, Thomas and Elizabeth Tierney, as a way to honor a scholar of distinction who is making contributions to world peace through teaching, research and service.

Solingen is an internationally recognized political science scholar and one of the world's foremost experts on nuclear proliferation, international political economy and regional orders. Her book Nuclear Logics: Contrasting Paths in East Asia and the Middle East received the 2008 American Political Science Association's (APSA) Woodrow Wilson Foundation Award for the best book across all fields of political science, and the Robert Jervis and Paul Schroeder Award for the best book on international history and politics. She was the 2012-13 president of the International Studies Association (ISA), having previously served as ISA vice-president and president of its International Political Economy section. She has participated in many "Track Two" meetings with academic and government officials designed to address international conflicts. She has lectured extensively at prestigious academic institutions, association meetings and conferences worldwide, including more than 20 keynote addresses and presentations over the last year alone, in Beijing, Moscow, Berlin, Singapore, Buenos Aires, Edinburgh, Brisbane, Budapest, Madrid and Florence, among others. For a full list of talks, please visit http://www.socsci.uci.edu/~esolinge/.

She chaired the steering committee of the University of California's system-wide Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation and was a member of APSA’s presidential taskforce on U.S. standing in world affairs. She previously served as review essay editor for the leading journal International Organization. Fellowships awarded for research excellence include the MacArthur Foundation Research and Writing Award on Peace and International Cooperation, Social Science Research Council-Mac Arthur Foundation Fellowship on Peace and Security in a Changing World, Japan Foundation/SSRC Abe Fellowship and Center for Global Partnership/Japan Foundation Fellowship as well as a grant from the Carnegie Corporation. She also received the UCI Academic Senate Distinguished Teaching Award and APSA Excellence in Mentorship Award, among others. She has published Regional Orders at Century's Dawn: Global and Domestic Influences on Grand Strategy; Industrial Policy, Technology, and International Bargaining; Scientists and the State; Sanctions, Statecraft, and Nuclear Proliferation, and many articles on international relations theory, political economy and regionalism.

Preceding Solingen as Tierney Chair was Patrick Morgan, political science professor, who has held the position since 1991.