BYU professor is named one of '100 Top Global Thinkers'

PROVO — The work that earned a BYU political science professor a spot on the list of the "100 Top Global Thinkers of 2009" was repeatedly turned down before it was published.

Valerie Hudson, who was number 97 in Foreign Policy magazine's year-end collection, sent her study, "Bare Branches," to several publishers, only to face rejection each time.

Depressed, she finally told her co-author, Andrea den Boer, that if they were going to face rejection, they might as well start at the top and work their way down.

"The top journal took it without revision," she said. "We didn't think anyone was going to listen at all to what we had to say, then it went utterly viral."

Their findings, published in a book by The MIT Press, detail the dangers of gender imbalance in Asia and the problems of an overabundance of young males.

The research was lauded by the magazine as an "indispensable 2004 study (that) may have been partially responsible for the scaling back of China's one-child policy," according to Foreign Policy magazine.

Hudson also recently published another study that shows the best predictor of a country's stability is its treatment of women.

"I'm very gratified, because many of the people on that list are actually heroes of mine," Hudson said. "The gentleman at number 96, Hans Rosling, I consider him to be an absolute genius, so to find myself in proximity with him is overwhelming. It's very gratifying to know that our ideas have had some impact for good on the course of world affairs."

The magazine named Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, as the top global thinker, with President Barack Obama at the No. 2 spot. Bill and Hillary Clinton, Commanding General David Petraeus and Bill Gates were among the top 15.

To see the entire list of the "100 Top Global Thinkers of 2009" visit: www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/11/30/the_fp_top_100_global_thinkers?page=full

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