Joseph LaPalombara is the Arnold Wolfers Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Management at Yale University and holds now the position of Senior Research Scholar in the university’s Center for Comparative Research. In the School of Management, his field is International Management, and he specializes in courses that focus of the impact of public policies on foreign direct investments, particularly in emerging-market countries.
He is also concerned with relationships between American industry and the industrial community of Western Europe.
A native of Chicago, he is a graduate of the University of Illinois and Princeton University.
He has been at Yale since 1964. He has also taught at Oregon State, Princeton & Michigan State universities, and has held visiting professorships at Columbia University and the University of California (Berkeley), as well as in Italy at the University of Florence, the University of Turin and the University of Catania.
LaPalombara has chaired the departments of political science at Michigan State University and Yale University. He has also been the director (1987-1992) of Yale’s Institution for Social and Policy Studies. In Europe, he was instrumental in bringing into existence the European Consortium for Political Research; and, in Italy, he was a founding member of the Consiglio Italiano per le Scienze Sociali.
He has been a consultant to various state and national governmental agencies including the U.S. Department of State, the Foreign Service Training Institute, the Agency for International Development, and the Central Intelligence Agency.
LaPalombara is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, has received several awards and he is the author of scores of articles, scientific papers and books.