Gerard Toal (Irish:Gearóid Ó Tuathail; born 1962 inIreland[1]) is Professor of Government and International Affairs atVirginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
Toal holds a B.A. inHistory andGeography fromNational University of Ireland, Maynooth, an M.A. in Geography from theUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (1984), and a Ph.D. inPolitical Geography fromSyracuse University (1989).
He served for ten years as an Assistant Professor of Geography atVirginia Tech in Blacksburg, before establishing the Government and International Affairs program in theSchool of Public and International Affairs. He has held fellowships at theCopenhagen Peace Research Institute, and the Center for International Studies at theUniversity of Southern California.
Toal has authored, co-authored, and/or edited eight books.Bosnia Remade: Ethnic Cleansing and Its Reversal, co-authored with Dr Carl Dahlman, won the Julian Minghi Book Prize from the Political Geography Specialty Group.Near Abroad: Putin, the West, and the Contest over Ukraine and the Caucasus won theENMISA Distinguished Book Award from the International Studies Association in 2019.
He has served as an associate editor for the academic journalsGeopolitics andEurasian Geography and Economics. He currently serves on the editorial board ofPolitical Geography,Eurasian Geography and Economics,Nationalities Papers andCommunist and Post-Communist Studies.
His research specializations includecritical geopolitics,nationalism,political geography,post-Communism,globalization,territorial disputes, anddiscourse analysis. He has published on various field research projects inBosnia-Herzegovina,Georgia,Armenia,Moldova, andUkraine.
In 2005, Toal testified before the United States Congress on political developments inBosnia-Herzegovina.
