Richard Clark

Biography

Richard Clark is an Associate Professor of Political Science, concurrent with the Keough School of Global Affairs. He also serves as Director of the Sheedy Family Program in Economy, Enterprise, and Society. Clark is affiliated with the O’Brien Notre Dame International Security Center, Pulte Institute for Global Development, and Kellogg Institute for International Studies. His research and teaching interests include globalization, international finance, and climate change.

Clark is author of Cooperative Complexity: The Next Level of Global Economic Governance (Cambridge University Press, 2025) and Global Governance Under Fire: How International Organizations Resist the Populist Wave (with Allison Carnegie, Princeton University Press, 2026). His scholarly contributions have been published in leading academic outlets such as the American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, International Organization, and World Politics. He has also provided commentary for outlets like Brookings, Devex, Foreign Affairs, and The Washington Post, with coverage in Nature Climate Change.

Clark’s research has been recognized with various awards, including the Best Dissertation award from the APSA International Collaboration section, the MPSA’s Best Paper in International Relations award, the ISA’s Lawrence S. Finkelstein Prize, and the Best Paper Award from the Women, Gender, and Politics Research section at APSA.

Before coming to Notre Dame, Clark taught at Cornell University and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance at Princeton University. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia UNiversity in 2021 and his bachelor's degree from the University of Notre Dame in 2016. Originally from Youngstown, Ohio, he is an avid golfer and Cleveland sports fan.