2013-14

Andrew Bell

Andrew Bell

Pre-Doctoral Fellow

Andrew Bell is a Ph.D. candidate in Security, Peace and Conflict Studies at Duke University, in Durham, North Carolina. His dissertation research focuses on civilian targeting in war, international humanitarian law, military culture, ethics in conflict, and counterinsurgency. He has served as an active duty officer in the U.S. Air Force, serving in Iraq, Afghanistan, Japan, and Germany, and he is currently a major in the U.S. Air Force Reserve. Andrew holds a J.D. and M.A. (specializing in international law) from the University of Virginia, a Master of Theological Studies from Duke Divinity School, and an A.B. in Public Policy Studies and History from Duke University.

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Olivier Henripin

Olivier Henripin

Pre-Doctoral Fellow

Olivier Henripin is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Political Science at Northwestern University specializing in international relations and formal and quantitative methods. His dissertation, titled “Intractable Territorial Conflicts and the Strategic Social Construction of Indivisible National Homelands,” seeks to explain the origins of perceptions of indivisibility in territorial disputes and the conditions under which indivisibility fosters dispute intractability or, conversely, facilitates peaceful dispute resolution. His broader research interests include Chinese foreign policy, Sino-U.S. and Sino-Taiwanese relations, the bargaining approach to war, and domestic determinants of foreign policy. His research has been supported by fellowships from the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of China (Taiwan), the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the Fonds québécois de recherche. He holds a B.A. in International Studies from the University of Montreal and an M.A. in Political Science from McGill University. During the 2010-2011 academic year, he was a visiting scholar in the Department of Diplomacy and Center for Foreign Policy Studies at the National Chengchi University in Taiwan.

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Sameer Lalwani

Sameer Lalwani

Pre-Doctoral Fellow

Sameer Lalwani is a Ph.D. candidate in political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he is an affiliate of the Security Studies Program and studies U.S. grand strategy, military intervention, civil-conflict, civil-military relations, and national security decision making. His dissertation seeks to explain why states choose particular strategies within civil conflict to combat rebellion, primarily in South Asia. Sameer has conducted field research in Pakistan and India and archival research in the UK, for which he has received support from the Smith-Richardson Foundation, the Tobin Project and the MIT Entrepreneurship Center. Previously, he spent three years as a policy analyst at the New America Foundation and he holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from University of California, Berkeley.

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Sara Bjerg Moller

Sara Bjerg Moller

Pre-Doctoral Fellow

Sara Bjerg Moller is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Political Science at Columbia University. Prior to undertaking her graduate studies, she worked as a Research Associate for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. She has also held research positions at the Brookings Institution, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Her research has been published in the Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, National Interest, Middle East Times, and World Politics Review. Her monograph “Lessons Learned and Unlearned: The Tenth Anniversary of September 11, 2001” won first place in the 2011 Richard A. Clarke National Scholarly Monograph Contest. Her dissertation explores the institutional design and effectiveness of military alliances and coalitions.

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Se Young Jang

Se Young Jang

Visiting Scholar

Se Young Jang is a Ph.D. candidate in international history at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID) in Geneva. Her Ph.D. dissertation focuses on exploring how the US government persuaded and/or pressured its close East Asian allies, South Korea and Taiwan, not to develop their own nuclear weapons in the 1970s. Her research is based on extensive archival research in US, UK, Canada, France, Germany, Taiwan, and South Korea, and she hopes that her research will contribute to providing valuable case studies to enrich historical research on US non-proliferation policy. Se Young received her B.A. in political science and her M.A. in international relations from Seoul National University. Prior to joining the Ph.D. program at the IHEID, she was a South Korean diplomat specializing in disarmament and non-proliferation issues and participated in the 2009 UN Program of Fellowship on Disarmament. Se Young is also a recipient of the 2013-2014 Albert Gallatin Fellowship.

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Jakub Kosciolek

Jakub Kosciolek

Visiting Scholar

Jakub Kosciolek is a Cultural Studies graduate and Ph.D. student at the Institute for Regional Studies at Jagiellonian University (Krakow). He has participated in many scientific conferences and authored numerous articles on subjects ranging from the problems of the linguistic situation in Ukraine, the fear of crime generated by the media, issues of exploitation of the Holocaust in popular culture, to the analysis of the canonical works of literature and drama of the twentieth century. His latest works include The Conflict in Darfur (2010), and editing Problemy wspolczesnej Afryki. Szanse i wyzwania na przyszlosc [The problems of contemporary Africa. Opportunities and challenges for the future] (2013).

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Navid Hassibi

Navid Hassibi

Visiting Scholar

Navid Hassibi is a doctoral candidate in political science with the Research Group in International Politics at the University of Antwerp in Belgium. His dissertation focuses on the U.S. nuclear weapons policy under the Obama administration and examines whether decades old policies are changing and if so, to what degree and why. Navid is additionally an international affairs analyst in the Canadian civil service within a national security portfolio agency. He also frequently provides analysis and insight on affairs in the Middle East, particularly on Iran. His work has been published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, The National Interest, and with PBS Frontline. Navid holds a B.A. (Hons.) in Political Science from the University of Toronto and an MA in International Politics from the University of Manchester (UK).

Julia Macdonald

Julia Macdonald

Julia Macdonald is a fifth year doctoral candidate in Political Science at the George Washington University and a research and teaching fellow at the Institute for Security and Conflict Studies in the Elliott School of International Affairs. Julia’s current research focuses on signaling and threat credibility during international crises. Her dissertation investigates the importance of varying domestic political environments in shaping leaders’ assessments of threat. Additional research interests include gender and peacekeeping, military strategy and effectiveness, and U.S. foreign policy decision making. Julia completed her undergraduate training in History and Philosophy in New Zealand and holds an M.A. (Hons) in International Relations from the University of Chicago. She worked for the New Zealand Ministry of Defense as a Policy Analyst for two years prior to joining the doctoral program at GWU, and she has received support for her research from the New Zealand Government.

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Chana Solomon-Schwartz

PhD in Residence

Chana Solomon-Schwartz is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Political Science at the George Washington University. Her dissertation project examines whether the presence of women in foreign policy decision-making bodies impacts the discourse, decision-making processes, and/or policy outcomes of those bodies with regards to the use of military force and humanitarian intervention. More broadly, her research interests include U.S. foreign policy, the Middle East, the politics of organizations, and IR theory. Before graduate school, Chana was a Research Assistant at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. She holds a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University and has studied in Israel, Jordan, and Morocco. Outside of the field of political science, Chana enjoys biking and is working on developing an episodic play.

Inwook Kim

Inwook Kim

PhD in Residence

Kim is a Ph.D. student in Political Science at the George Washington University. He is broadly interested in the relationship between oil and international security, and his dissertation focuses whether and how oil reinforces or undermines national security of oil-rich states. In addition, he also works on historical and contemporary inter-Korean relationship. Prior to joining GWU, Inwook has worked as a lecturer at Korea Military Academy for three years (1st Lt). He holds a BA in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from Oxford University, and received a MA from London School of Economics. Inwook is a recipient of the Fulbright Scholarship.