Dr. Adam Irish earned his B.A. from the University of Michigan and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Illinois, Urbana–Champaign. Between degrees, he served in Teach For America at a low-income school in Las Vegas, Nevada, teaching 5th grade for two years.
While completing his doctorate, Irish received several teaching accolades, including the 2011 Campus Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award. Before joining the faculty at Chico State, he spent two years as a Mellon Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow at Wheaton College (MA) and one year at Georgetown University, where he taught advanced courses in international law.
Irish is interested in the challenges countries face when trying to cooperate. His early work investigated how democracy and party politics shape international law and international organizations. Irish also conducts research on the effectiveness of different teaching techniques. He has co-authored with both undergraduate and graduate students.
Between 2015 and 2020, Irish served as faculty adviser to Upsilon Delta, Chico State’s chapter of Pi Sigma Alpha the national political science honor society. Under Irish’s leadership, dozens of students have attended the National Student Research Conference in Washington D.C. and, for four years in a row, the chapter earned distinction as one of the “Best Chapters” nationwide. In 2019, the chapter also received Chico State’s Outstanding Student Organization Award and Event of the Year Award. In 2020 Irish was honored with the Myles Tracy Outstanding Student Organization Advisor Award. Starting in 2025, Irish will once again serve as the faculty advisor to Chico State’s chapter of Pi Sigma Alpha.
Chico State student researchers in action.