2018-19

Ryan Baker

Ryan Baker

PhD in Residence

Ryan is a Ph.D. student in public policy at George Washington University and a reserve officer in the U.S. Marine Corps. He received his master’s degree in Security Policy Studies from the Elliott School of International Affairs and his bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Utah. Ryan’s research interests revolve around issues of international security, U.S. defense policy, and research methodology. His dissertation will examine the influence of logistics on military effectiveness and try to identify the contribution of logistics relative to other important factors. Before graduate school, Ryan spent more than five years on active duty as a supply officer in the Marine Corps and deployed overseas twice.

Link to CV

Elenia Ekmektsioglou

Elenia Ekmektsioglou

Pre-Doctoral Fellow

Eleni Ekmektsioglou is a PhD candidate and an adjunct instructor at American University’s School of International Service. Her dissertation seeks to explain variation in state reactions to new military technologies. Her broader research interests include technological innovation in strategic weapon systems and their impact on crisis stability, international security in East Asia and China’s nuclear and naval strategy. Before starting her doctoral studies at American University, Eleni was a research fellow at Pacific Forum CSIS. She has also worked as a project coordinator at the European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS) and at the European Institute for Asia Studies (EIAS). She holds a Master’s degree from the King’s College London War Studies department and a Bachelor’s degree from Panteion University of Athens while she has spent one year in Sciences Po Lille as an exchange student. She has written opinion pieces for online magazines such as The Diplomat or the National Interest and more extensive analyses for journals such as the Strategic Studies Quarterly.
Awards: Recipient of the William C. Olson award for outstanding teaching by a PhD student and AU SIS Summer Grant for archival research 2018.
Dani Gilbert

Dani Gilbert

PhD in Residence

Danielle Gilbert is a PhD candidate in Political Science at the George Washington University and a 2018-2019 Minerva/Jennings Randolph Peace Scholar at the United States Institute of Peace. She studies comparative politics and international relations with a multi-method approach to examining the causes and consequences of violence. Her dissertation, “The Strategic Logic of Political Kidnapping,” examines the hostage-taking strategies of non-state groups, leveraging evidence from interviews with ex-combatants from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, as well as an original dataset of nearly 1,900 violent, political organizations.

Danielle’s work has been supported by the Cosmos Club, the Bridging the Gap Project, the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace, the Les Aspin ’60 Summer Fellowship, and the Georg W. Leitner Program in International and Comparative Political Economy at Yale. She has published in the journal Terrorism & Political Violence and has written for War on the Rocks and The Monkey Cage. For the past three years, Danielle has served as a fellow with the Bridging the Gap Project, where she manages the annual New Era Workshop. Prior to her graduate studies, she served four years on Capitol Hill, including as a Senior Legislative Assistant and Appropriations Associate, and has worked as a policy advisor on presidential and congressional campaigns.

Personal Website

Link to CV

Vanes Ibric

Vanes Ibric

PhD in Residence

Vanes Ibric is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at the George Washington University. His research areas include international security, alliances, and the frequency and effectiveness of betrayal and lying in international politics. My dissertation attempts to explain the occurrence of militarized disputes and wars between states that have formed alliances through a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods.

Link to CV

Alex Kirss

Alex Kirss

PhD in Residence

Alexander is a PhD student in Political Science at the George Washington University. He previously earned his MA in International Relations from the University of Chicago and BA in Political Science from Williams College. His research interests include the effect of nuclear weapons on conflict, political ambition, and strategic choice in declining powers.

Link to CV

Kendrick Kuo

Kendrick Kuo

PhD. in Residence

Kendrick Kuo is a PhD student in political science at the George Washington University. His research focuses on international security, military effectiveness, and innovation. He also studies nationalism, with country expertise in China. He holds an M.A. in International Affairs and International Economics from Johns Hopkins SAIS and a B.A. in International Affairs and Religion from the George Washington University. He also received a FLAS to study Chinese at Tsinghua University and a Boren Scholarship to study Arabic at the University of Jordan.

Personal Website

CV

Igor Kovac

Igor Kovac

Pre-Doctoral Fellow

Igor is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at the University of Cincinnati. His dissertation develops a theory of persistent imbalance of power – Pervasive Hegemony. Using network analysis, time series, and case study of the US hegemony after the end of the Cold War he argues that it is the unchanged central position of the US within the global economy that characterizes its hegemony. Moreover, this also reflects a different, so far unexplored, type of dynamic in international relations – ‘buy-in’. Igor holds a M.A. in International Studies from Vienna School of International Studies, M.S. in Sport Science, and a B.Sc. in International Relations, both from University of Ljubljana respectively.

Link to CV

DoYoung Lee

DoYoung Lee

Pre-Doctoral Fellow

DoYoung Lee is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago. His research interests include strategies of extended deterrence, the effect of nuclear weapons on interstate conflict, and alliance politics. His dissertation project examines nuclear patron states’ strategies of extended deterrence to non-nuclear client states. He holds a BA and an MA degree in Political Science from Korea University, South Korea. His research has been funded by the Smith Richardson Foundation, the Charles Koch Foundation, the Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs, and the University of Chicago.

Link to CV

Tim McDonnell

Tim McDonnell

Pre-Doctoral Fellow

Tim McDonnell is a PhD candidate in political science at MIT, a member of MIT’s Security Studies Program, and a pre-doctoral fellow at GW’s Institute for Security and Conflict Studies. His main line of research focuses on the sources of US nuclear posture. He also has experience studying high-end conventional warfare. He earned his MA in security policy studies from the George Washington University, and his BA in political science and Russian studies from Wheaton College, MA. Prior to joining MIT, Tim worked as program associate for the Wilson Center’s Nuclear Proliferation International History Project.

Link to CV

Shahryar Pasandideh

Shahryar Pasandideh

PhD in Residence

Shahryar Pasandideh is a PhD student in the Department of Political Science at The George Washington University. His research focuses on assessments of military power, the development and diffusion of military technologies, military operations and effectiveness, and regional security issues in the Gulf region and the Indo-Pacific. He earned a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) from Trinity College, University of Toronto, majoring in International Relations and Middle Eastern History.

Link to CV

Brian Radzinksy

Brian Radzinksy

PhD in Residence

Brian Radzinsky is a PhD candidate in the political science department at the George Washington University. His research focuses on nuclear strategy, extended deterrence, and emerging technologies. His dissertation examines the effects of grand strategy, conventional military power, and civilian technological innovation on the nuclear postures of the United States, Russia, and other nuclear powers. He is also a fellow with the Elliott School’s Nuclear Security Working Group. Previously, he’s served as a predoctoral researcher at the Center for Global Security Research at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and managed cooperative nuclear security projects at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He has a BA in political science from Reed College.

 

Link to CV

Travis K. Sharp

Travis K. Sharp

Pre-Doctoral Fellow

Travis Sharp is a Ph.D. candidate at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy Reserve. His research explores military-to-military contacts between great power rivals, cyber security, and U.S. defense spending and strategy. Previously, he held fellowships with the Modern War Institute at West Point, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and the Center for a New American Security. He has published in the Journal of Strategic Studies and International Affairs, among others, and been quoted by the New York Times and Washington Post. He holds a M.P.A. and M.A. from Princeton and a B.A. from the University of San Francisco.

Link to CV

Alex Yu-Ting Lin

Alex Yu-Ting Lin

Pre-Doctoral Fellow

Alex Yu-Ting Lin is a PhD candidate and Russell Fellow at the University of Southern California. His research interests lie at the intersection of international security and international political economy, focusing on topics related to power transition, geoeconomics, and grand strategy. Using a combination of regressions, archival research, and automated text analysis, his dissertation examines the sources of status dissatisfaction for rising powers, a commonly cited motivation for conflict initiation. His previous work has appeared with the East-West Center. He holds a BA and MA from the University of British Columbia.

Link to CV