A Latin American scholar and former foreign policy adviser to the president of Mexico hopes to bring his professional experience into the classroom as he joins the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs faculty in July.

Rafael Fernández de Castro will become the inaugural Jay and Debe Moskowitz endowed chair. Jay Moskowitz wanted the chair to focus on relations between the United States and Latin America, so all of the candidates were selected with the donor’s intent in mind, said Ross Rubenstein, professor and chair of the public administration and international affairs department.

After looking for candidates across all of Maxwell’s departments, a search committee selected Rafael Fernández de Castro as the best fit for the position, Rubenstein said.

De Castro is an expert who has a broad interest in Mexican affairs and is very well connected, said senior associate dean Michael Wasylenko.  He added that de Castro has a valuable professional network that will help students with job placement and career advice.

In recent years, Maxwell’s department of international affairs and public administration merged, so the school has been working hard to find more faculty members who specialize in international affairs, Rubenstein said.  De Castro fits in perfectly with the college’s larger goal, he added.

“More specifically, Latin America is an area that we would like to have more programs and attract more students,” Rubenstein said. “And I know that is one of Professor de Castro’s primary interests.”

Maxwell is one of the top public policy schools in the United States and has a great faculty and student body, de Castro said. He hopes that the network he has built within the last 25 years will benefit the Maxwell community.

De Castro said he is also pleased with Maxwell dean James Steinberg’s goals of creating an institution with a larger global vision.

“I want to collaborate with him in making sure that the Maxwell school has better connections and improves its network in Mexico and Latin America,” de Castro said.

The Mexico City native came to the United States to complete his master’s and doctorate degrees in public policy and political science.  After receiving his master’s, he interned for three months with democratic Rep. Henry B. Gonzalez of Texas.  De Castro said the internship experience made him want to stay close to Congress and better understand the United States federal government, so he studied for his doctorate at Georgetown University.

“All along the way I had been analyzing different aspects of the U.S.-Mexico relationship,” de Castro said.

Rubenstein said de Castro has a “very unique” background — not only is he a prolific researcher and writer, but de Castro is also the founder and chair of an international relations department at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México and has extensive experience as a practitioner, Rubenstein added.

From 2008 to 2011, de Castro served as the foreign policy adviser to former Mexican President Felipe Calderón.

De Castro said he experienced great moments for Mexican foreign policy, like when he participated in the United Nations Climate Change conference that was held in Cancun in 2010.  But he said he also witnessed great crises as well, such as when the swine flu epidemic hit Mexico.

After working in Calderón’s cabinet for three years, de Castro decided to return to academia.

“I believe that after the three year experience I had with him, I was better prepared to teach students,” de Castro said.  “I thought I was going to be a better professor because I have more experience and obviously a lot of anecdotes about what it is like to work for a president and to travel.”

Both Rubenstein and Wasylenko said de Castro was the best fit for the Moskowitz chair.

“I am very excited about his arrival. It is really a wonderful opportunity for us to have somebody of his caliber coming here,” Rubenstein said.

De Castro said he sees the position as a wonderful opportunity for Mexican academic and foreign policy makers.

Said de Castro: “I believe that the U.S. and Mexico and Latin America have an interdependent future, so hopefully I could share that vision with my students and influence them in their future careers.”

Published on February 25, 2014 at 1:48 am

Contact Kate: kacapoda@syr.edu