Skip Navigation
Return to All Schools

Aronson Assistant Professorship

Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences
International StudiesPolitical Science

Established in 2017 by Jeff and Shari Aronson

JEFFREY H. ARONSON is co-founder and managing principal of Centerbridge Partners, L.P., a private investment firm based in New York City with approximately $25 billion of capital under management. The firm is focused on private equity, distressed securities and credit investing. Mr. Aronson has been an active investor in distressed securities for 25 years and has been deeply involved in many U.S. and overseas restructurings. Prior to co-founding Centerbridge with Mark T. Gallogly in October 2005, Mr. Aronson was a partner at Angelo, Gordon & Co., where he led all of the firm’s distressed securities and leveraged loan efforts. Before joining Angelo, Gordon in 1989, Mr. Aronson served as senior corporate counsel at L.F. Rothschild & Co. and he began his career as a securities attorney with the law firm of Stroock & Stroock & Lavan.

Mr. Aronson is chair of the Johns Hopkins Board of Trustees. In addition, he serves as a member of the Krieger School Dean’s Advisory Board and the Center for Financial Economics Advisory Board. He also is a member of the Johns Hopkins Medicine Board and its Executive Committee. Mr. Aronson graduated with honors from Johns Hopkins University in 1980. He has a JD from New York University School of Law and serves as a member of their Board of Trustees. His daughters Marni and Nicole graduated from Johns Hopkins as members of the class of 2013 and 2015, respectively. He is married to Shari Aronson.

In 2015, Mrs. and Mrs. Aronson established the Aronson Center for International Studies, designed to promote closer ties between the university’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences. The center will include two professors who will teach students and collaborate with faculty in both schools. It also will oversee funding for undergraduates who want to do research or study abroad, including at SAIS’s international campuses in Europe and China.

Held by Sarah E. Parkinson

Dr. SARAH E. PARKINSON is the Aronson Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. Her research examines organizational behavior and social change in war- and disaster-affected settings, with a focus on Southwest Asia and North Africa. Parkinson has published research on militant organizations’ decision-making and internal dynamics, political violence, refugees’ access to healthcare, humanitarian aid, ethics, and research methods. Most recently, she has been conducting multi-sited research on public safety and disaster preparedness. Parkinson’s work has involved extensive fieldwork in Lebanon, Iraq, and Qatar, as well as shorter engagements in Tunisia, Turkey, and the UAE. Dr. Parkinson’s scholarship has been published in journals such as the American Political Science Review, World Politics, Perspectives on Politics, the European Journal of International Relations, International Studies Quarterly, Social Science and Medicine, Comparative Political Studies, and Comparative Politics in addition to outlets such as Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The Monkey Cage, and Good Authority. Parkinson is a co-founder of the Advancing Research on Conflict (ARC) Consortium. She received her PhD and MA in political science from the University of Chicago and has held fellowships at Yale University, George Washington University, the University of Minnesota, and Northwestern University in Qatar. She is an active first responder in her free time.