Patrik K. Meyer has eclectic personal, academic and professional backgrounds, which he uses to conduct multi-disciplinary research and narrow the gap between theory and practice. He earned his Ph.D. in Politics and International Studies from the University of Cambridge, during which he worked with Chinese scholars to provide an expanded understanding of conflicts in Xinjiang, China, that fuel tensions between the Uyghurs and the Chinese government. He also holds an M.P.A. in Development and Conflicts from Harvard University’s J.F. Kennedy School of Government, an M.S. in Structural Dynamics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a B.S. in Civil Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.
Before commencing his academic studies, Patrik spent twenty years traveling the world, mainly through the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia, where he was, among other things, deeply involved in Islamic and Chinese studies. Then, as an engineer he specialized in improving the seismic performance of low-cost housing and trained engineers, government officials, and laymen on-site in post-earthquake reconstruction (Turkey, India, Morocco, Iran, Pakistan, and China). Most recently, he was Adjunct Professor at the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, North Korea, where he taught structural engineering and international business in 2014.
His fields of interest include improving the seismic performance of non-engineered low-cost housing and ensuring that the proposed improvements are economically, socially, and politically viable. Also, he is involved in expanding ethno-nationalistic conflict management approaches and bridging ideological divisions between Muslims and non-Muslims.
