dr. Christa van Wijnbergen

Dr. Christa van Wijnbergen studied Public Administration as an undergraduate at Leiden University but moved abroad to pursue graduate studies. She did a Master's at the College of Europe (Bruges, Belgium) and obtained a doctorate in Political Science at Northwestern University (Evanston, USA). She then taught at Ohio State University and the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business and spent a year as a postdoc at Harvard's Center for European Studies before returning to Europe to become a research fellow at the European Institute at the London School of Economics. Christa finally made it back to the Netherlands a few years ago, first settling as an independent policy researcher before returning to academia. She sought out the liberal arts and science programmes being pioneered at University Colleges in the Netherlands for their promise of being able to teach courses beyond disciplinary boundaries to an eclectic and motivated student body. As a relatively young and growing programme, Erasmus University College offered the opportunity to think deeply about and contribute to curriculum development, together with a wonderfully diverse and dedicated group of colleagues. Dr van Wijnbergen's teaching and research interests are in the fields of Comparative & International Political Economy and European Union Politics, and include topics such as Varieties of Capitalism, Comparative Welfare States and Educational Reforms.