Ambassador Shearer serves as Director of the McKinnon Center for Global Affairs, handling the college's international relations and directing the expansion of its international affairs programs.
Ambassador Derek Shearer is Chevalier Professor of Diplomacy and World Affairs at swagÍâÁ÷ in Los Angeles. He handles the college’s international relations, directing the expansion of its international affairs programs, and serves as Director of the McKinnon Center for Global Affairs. Ambassador Shearer’s most recent publication, , was published in April of 2017.
Derek Shearer served in the Clinton administration as an economics official in the Commerce Department, and then as Ambassador to Finland (1994-97). Among his many accomplishments were the creation of the administration’s coordinated strategy to the Nordic-Baltic region and the hosting of the Clinton-Yeltsin summit in Helsinki. At Ambassador Shearer’s recommendation during the presidential campaign, President Clinton established the in the White House. He was a co-author of the Clinton-Gore campaign program . After diplomatic service, Ambassador Shearer was a fellow at the and then at the in Washington, DC. He also has been a visiting Woodrow Wilson fellow and ambassador-in-residence at a number of colleges. He served as a foreign policy advisor to Vice President Gore during the 2000 Presidential campaign and to Senator Hillary Clinton in 2008.
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 authored numerous scholarly and policy articles in books and journals – and has lectured at leading universities in Europe, Asia, Latin America and Australia, including speaking tours for the US government in China, Japan, Greece, Australia, Kazakhstan, Peru, Chile, Syria and the Baltic States – and taught at the University of Maryland, Tufts, and UCLA, as well as at Occidental. He has lectured on U.S. foreign policy at Pembroke College, Cambridge, St. Andrews University, St. Anthony’s College, Oxford, the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard as well as at leading universities in Canada, New Zealand and Brazil. Ambassador Shearer has been the recipient of a , an , and a Swedish Bicentennial Fellowship, among other honors – and he is listed in Who’s Who in the World, Who’s Who in America, and other such publications. He also has been a regular contributor to the Huffington Post.
In addition to courses on diplomacy, terrorism, and US foreign policy, Ambassador Shearer has taught courses on entrepreneurship, served on the boards of media and food companies, and as an international advisor to Ziff Brothers Investment Co, and other firms. He has served on the board of the nonprofit relief group , and is a member of the and the . He currently resides in Pacific Palisades, California with his wife Sue Toigo, and Vera the cat.
To contact Shearer, please email or call Chamnan Lim at limc@oxy.edu or 323-259-2681.