Donald Sparks is Emeritus Director of the Distinguished Scholars Program and Emeritus Professor of International Economics at The Citadel in Charleston, SC, (where he has been named MBA Professor of the Year three times) and Visiting Professor of International Economics at the Management Center Innsbruck, Austria.
Dr Sparks served as a Senior Consulting Associate in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research at the US Department of State during the Obama administration. He has been a Fulbright Professor of Economics at the University of London, the University of Eswatini (Swaziland) and at the University of Maribor, in Slovenia. He was a Fulbright Specialist at the University of Swaziland, the African Union Commission’s Department of Economic Affairs in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and at the National University of Laos. At the American University in Cairo, he was the Department Chairman and Visiting Professor of Economics. Currently, he serves on the board of the Charleston Council for International Visitors.
Before beginning his academic career, Dr Sparks served as the Regional Economist for Africa in the Office of Economic Analysis at the US Department of State in Washington, DC and as a Staff Assistant to Senator Ernest F Hollings.
He received his MA and PhD at the School of Oriental and African Studies (London) and his BA from the George Washington University. Dr Sparks is married to Dr Katherine Saenger and they live in Charleston, South Carolina, USA and Seefeld in Tirol, Austria. They have two grown children and one grandson.