Ecaterina Locoman

Dr. Ecaterina Locoman is a Senior Lecturer in International Studies at the Lauder Institute and the Department of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania. She oversees the Capstone Research Program at the Lauder Institute, guiding joint-degree students in original research and thesis completion. Her expertise spans comparative foreign policy analysis, alliance formation, and the geopolitics of national interest, with a regional focus on Central/Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Previously, she served as a Lecturer at Rutgers University, directing an undergraduate exchange program with Ritsumeikan University in Japan.

Her research explores post-Communist states’ divergent foreign policy trajectories post-USSR dissolution, highlighted in her current book project Looking East or Looking West. She has conducted extensive fieldwork in Ukraine and Moldova, including interviews with high-level political figures. Publications appear in journals like Contemporary Security Policy and Media, War & Conflict.