Professor Andrew Oros returns from sabbatical research

Professor Andrew Oros recently returned to the classroom this semester following his sabbatical leave from July 2020 through December 2021. During this time, Dr. Oros served as a fellow at the Wilson Center, a Washington, DC research institute that focuses on international policy. Dr. Oros’ work concentrated on demographic shifts in the Indo-Pacific, particularly the effects of aging populations on military strategy.

Dr. Oros traveled to South Korea this past November/December to continue his research, and enjoyed meeting with a WAC student who was studying in the country. He had originally planned to visit 6 countries, but the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic only allowed him to go to one; still, his trip “re-energized” him and allowed him to receive constructive feedback on research he had conducted. 

One of Dr. Oros’ most meaningful projects at the Wilson Center was developing interactive maps with a graduate student intern that reflected demographic changes in the Indo-Pacific region. Dr. Oros used the same data technology that is featured by the Geospatial Innovation Program (GIP) at WAC, and hopes to integrate it into some of his future courses. “I encourage all POL majors to get some experience with GIS,” he added.

Dr. Oros also worked with a Japanese researcher and a graduate intern at the Wilson Center to develop a dataset that reflects and projects demographic changes in 48 Indo-Pacific countries from 1950 through 2050. He is connecting that data with the region’s security strategies, and is looking forward to continuing his research when traveling abroad this coming summer. His findings will be included in his upcoming book that is tentatively titled “Asia’s Graying Peace: Aging Powers and Rising States in the Indo-Pacific,” and he hopes to finish the book’s manuscript by the end of 2022. 

On returning to the classroom, Dr. Oros says he is excited to “hear how my students think about developments in the world and in US politics,” and is especially looking forward to following the upcoming South Korean presidential election in his Democracy in Asia class. He is also looking 
forward to introducing new courses that he had been working on during his leave, such as Race and Reconciliation in Asia next year, as well as classes that involve “national security planning and forecasting the future.” 

You can check out Dr. Oros’ work, including his interactive maps, with this link