ASU School of Civic and Economic Thought welcomes several new faculty members
The exterior of Lattie F. Coor Hall on ASU's Tempe campus. ASU photo
Arizona State University's School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership, part of the The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, is excited to welcome seven new faculty members to its academic community.
Each brings a set of unique scholarly interests and teaching experience that will provide students with fresh perspectives in the study of civic thought, leadership and political philosophy.
Von Heyking joins the school from the University of Lethbridge, where he served as professor and chair of the Department of Political Science. His research encompasses political theory (ancient to contemporary), politics and literature, ideologies, religion and politics, civil religion, just war theory, and the politics of friendship. He is the author of several books and a widely respected voice in political philosophy.
Previously head assistant instructor for Introduction to International Relations at Princeton University, Brand is a scholar of international relations and comparative public law with a focus on migration and security. Her research examines the interplay of treaty, statutory and constitutional authority across regions, and she is currently authoring a book on the development of the international refugee regime.
She holds graduate degrees from Princeton University, the University of Oxford, and SOAS University of London, as well as undergraduate degrees in economics and political science from ASU. She also brings professional experience from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and philanthropic strategy.
Thomas approaches the study of politics as a fundamentally philosophical enterprise, with a focus on the nature, limits and purpose of political organization. His primary research interest is the intersection of science and politics — particularly the relationship between scientific expertise and political authority.
His current project investigates René Descartes’ contributions to the emergence of a scientific culture in the West. Thomas comes to ASU from the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas at Austin, and previously taught at Emory University. He holds a Bachelor of Arts from Hiram College and a PhD from the University of Notre Dame.
Brand is a historian who previously taught at Cairn University and served as director of undergraduate fellows at the Clements Center for National Security. A former U.S. Army tactical intelligence officer, his research focuses on republics in the Western tradition and the role of citizen-soldiers. He is the author of "Killing for the Republic: Citizen-Soldiers and the Roman Way of War" (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2019) and has been published in Time Magazine, USA Today and The Washington Post, among others. His teaching explores the interplay between civic virtue, diplomacy and military history.
Thomas comes to ASU as an assistant professor from the Civitas Institute, where her teaching and research focused on the history of political philosophy, with a particular emphasis on ancient Greek thinkers. Her current work is a book-length study of Aristotle’s treatment of pleasure and pain in moral and philosophical education.
Before joining the Civitas Institute, Thomas was a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Politics and the James Madison Program at Princeton University. She earned her BA from Hiram College and her PhD from the University of Notre Dame.
Orlich is an ASU President’s Professor, previously teaching Romanian studies and comparative literature in the School of International Letters and Cultures. Orlich is a Global Futures Scholar in the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory and has previously been a faculty affiliate with the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership.
She has authored 10 monographs, translated more than 20 books, and published over 100 scholarly articles. She has been recognized as ASU Professor of the Year and Centennial Professor, and her honors include Fulbright awards, an NEA fellowship, and Romania’s Meritul Cultural (twice). Orlich also serves as Honorary Consul General of Romania in Arizona and chairs the Consular Corps of Arizona’s Scholarship Committee.
Bachiochi is a legal scholar and fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and directs the Wollstonecraft Project at the Abigail Adams Institute. She is the author of "The Rights of Women: Reclaiming a Lost Vision" (Notre Dame Press, 2021) and writes on feminist legal theory, law and political thought in major publications, including The Atlantic and The New York Times. She holds a BA from Middlebury College, an MA in theology from Boston College, and a JD from Boston University School of Law.
The addition of these scholars strengthens not only the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership's commitment, but ASU's as a whole, to providing students with a rigorous, well-rounded education grounded in both timeless principles and contemporary relevance. Students can expect to benefit from their mentorship, diverse perspectives and academic leadership in the year ahead.