Sophal Ear

Buddhist, Change Agent, Consultant, Educator/Teacher, Filmmaker, Foodie, Parent, Public servant, World traveler, Writer/Editor

Dr. Sophal Ear is a tenured Associate Professor and former Senior Associate Dean in the Thunderbird School of Global Management at Arizona State University where he lectures on global political economy, International Organizations, and regional management in Asia. He is the President of the International Public Management Network (IPMN), Vice Chair of the Public Policy & International Affairs (PPIA) Program, and Secretary of the Board of Refugees International. He also serves on the Board of the Center for Khmer Studies. He is a Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a TED Fellow, Fulbright Specialist, and Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum. Prof. Ear is the inaugural Chair of the Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) Advisory Board of the Los Angeles County District Attorney, serving in 2021-22. Prior to ASU Thunderbird, he taught at Occidental College, the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, and the Maxwell School of Syracuse University. He consulted for the World Bank, was Assistant Resident Representative for the United Nations Development Programme in East Timor, Advisor to Cambodia's first private equity fund Leopard Capital, Audit Chair of the Nathan Cummings Foundation and Partners for Development, Treasurer of the Southeast Asia Resource Action Center, Secretary of Southeast Asia Development Program, and Corresponding Secretary of the Crescenta Valley Town Council. He is the author of Viral Sovereignty and the Political Economy of Pandemics: What Explains How Countries Handle Outbreaks (Routledge, 2022, https://amzn.to/3V9zwNV), Aid Dependence in Cambodia: How Foreign Assistance Undermines Democracy (Columbia University Press, 2013, http://amzn.to/UXhoWc), co-author of The Hungry Dragon: How China’s Resources Quest is Reshaping the World (Routledge, 2013, http://amzn.to/WkxCEf), and co-editor of the virtual issue of the journal Politics and the Life Sciences on Coronavirus: Politics, Economics, and Pandemics (Cambridge University Press, 2020, https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/politics-and-the-life-sciences/virtual-issues/virtual-issue-3). He wrote and narrated the award-winning documentary film "The End/Beginning: Cambodia" (47 minutes, 2011, news blurb http://youtu.be/QwsSDPRI25E) based on his 2009 TED Talk (http://www.ted.com/talks/sophal_ear_escaping_the_khmer_rouge) and has appeared in four other documentaries. A graduate of Princeton and Berkeley, he moved to the US from France as a Cambodian refugee at the age of 10.

I’m passionate about making sure technology and policy reflect human values. As someone who survived dictatorship and displacement, I believe deeply in the power of governance that protects rather than controls. My passion lies in connecting research, storytelling, and public dialogue so that lessons from Cambodia can inform global efforts to defend democracy, advance ethical AI, and amplify voices too often left unheard.

That technology must serve people, not power. As artificial intelligence and digital surveillance expand, we need to reclaim human agency, ethics, and democracy at the core of innovation. Cambodia’s story, of resilience under repression, shows both the danger of unchecked control and the possibility of renewal through courage and truth. My idea worth spreading is that AI and governance reform can be designed to strengthen trust, accountability, and human dignity rather than undermine them.

Agriculture and resource economics, Comparative politics, East Asia and Pacific, Methodology, Political Analyst, Political Economy of Development, Political Science, post-conflict reconstruction, Public Policy, Southeast Asia

I learned about TED in 2008, on a plane back to Monterey where I live. Bud Enright was riding next to me. The next thing I know, we become friends, and he tells me about this conference he's attending with all these amazing people speaking. I can't believe it. I'm now part of TED too.

Karaoke singing