2016-17

John-Michael Arnold

John-Michael Arnold

Pre-Doctoral Fellow

John-Michael Arnold is a Ph.D. candidate at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, where he is a Bradley Fellow. The working title of John-Michael’s dissertation is Other People’s Boots on the Ground: Lethal Assistance and the American Ways of War. The dissertation explores the United States provision of lethal assistance—weapons and equipment; military advice and training; and combat support—to other states and non-state groups. Prior to enrolling at Princeton, John-Michael worked for three years as special assistant to the president of the Brookings Institution. He holds a master’s degree in international relations from Yale University and a B.A. in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) from the University of Oxford.

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Meredith Blank

Meredith Blank

Pre-Doctoral Fellow

Meredith studies international relations with a focus on sub-national conflict and violence. She investigates the relationship between state governments, national militaries, and militias in enabling human rights abuses. Her current work explores the impact of security institutions on state-sponsored repression.

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Rebecca Jensen

Rebecca Jensen

Pre-Doctoral Fellow

Rebecca Jensen is a doctorate candidate (ABD) at the University of Calgary’s Centre for Military and Strategic Studies, researching military effectiveness of US ground forces in the Iraq War, and in particular the factors that influenced successful adaptation in Iraq between the invasion and the Surge. Previous education includes an MA in history with an emphasis on European and political history from the University of Manitoba and an MPA with a focus on institutional adaptation and public sector reform from the joint University of Winnipeg and University of Manitoba School of Public Administration. She has also worked as a journalist and editor, and as a policy analyst and consultant working in both domestic and foreign policy spheres, and has presented her work extensively at student and professional conferences, and in briefings for defence agencies. Ms. Jensen was a Fulbright Visiting Researcher at the Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School for Advanced International Studies during AY 2015-16. She is also a United States Marine Corps Dissertation Fellow, and a USMC University Case Method Teaching Fellow. Her work has been supported by university level fellowships, as well as by a doctoral fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Tyler Jost

Tyler Jost

Pre-Doctoral Fellow

Tyler Jost is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Government at Harvard University. His research focuses on Chinese foreign policy, national security in East Asia, and the impacts of civil-military relations on international conflict. Previously, he served for six years as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Army, including two deployments to Afghanistan. He holds an M.A. in Chinese Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London and a B.S. in International Relations and Chinese from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

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Jamie Gruffydd-Jones

Jamie Gruffydd-Jones

Pre-Doctoral Fellow

Jamie is a Ph.D. student in Security Studies at Princeton University. His research examines nationalism, human rights, and public opinion in authoritarian countries. Jamie’s dissertation work uses survey experiments, existing surveys, and interviews to analyze the domestic response to international pressure on human rights in China.

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Ketian Zhang

Ketian Zhang

Pre-Doctoral Fellow

Ketian Vivian Zhang received her Ph.D. in Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2018, where she is also an affiliate of the Security Studies Program. In the 2017-2018 academic year, Ketian was a Predoctoral Research Fellow in the International Security Program at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School and was previously a predoctoral fellow at the Institute for Security and Conflict Studies at George Washington University. Beginning Fall 2018, she will be a Shorenstein Postdoctoral Fellow at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University. Ketian studies coercion, economic sanctions, and maritime territorial disputes in international relations and social movements in comparative politics, with a regional focus on China and East Asia. Her book project examines when, why, and how China uses coercion when faced with issues of national security, such as territorial disputes in the South and East China Seas, foreign arms sales to Taiwan, and foreign leaders’ reception of the Dalai Lama.

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Andrew Bell

Andrew Bell

Visiting Scholar

Andrew Bell is a research fellow at the Stockdale Center for Ethical Leadership at the U.S. Naval Academy and a postdoctoral research fellow with the Department of Law and Policy at the International Committee of the Red Cross. His research interests focus on international security, the law of armed conflict, counterinsurgency, military ethics, foreign military training, humanitarian intervention, and technology and conflict. His current research examines the effect of military culture and law of war norms in shaping conduct toward civilians in war.

Dr. Bell earned a Ph.D. in political science from Duke University (Security, Peace, and Conflict Studies), a J.D.-M.A. from the University of Virginia School of Law (specializing in international law), an M.T.S. from Duke Divinity School (specializing in just war theory and Christian ethics), and an A.B. from Duke University (Public Policy Studies and History). He has previously been a predoctoral research fellow at the Institute for Security and Conflict Studies at George Washington University. Dr. Bell has served as an active duty and reserve officer in the U.S. Air Force, with service in Iraq and Afghanistan. He will begin an appointment as assistant professor at the School of Global and International Studies at Indiana University-Bloomington in 2017.

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Ivan Oelrich

Visiting Scholar

Ivan Oelrich is an adjunct professor at George Washington University’s Elliott School.  His research has followed two tracks:  first, the evaluation of research and development programs aimed at developing new conventional military capability and, second, the role of and need for nuclear weapons with a special focus on the determinants of nuclear stability. Previously, he was the vice president of the Strategic Security Program at the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) and its acting president.  He has held senior research positions at the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA), the Advanced Systems and Concepts Office of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, and the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment (OTA).  He was a fellow at the Center for Science and International Affairs, Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, conducted research in nuclear physics and taught at the Physics Department of the Technical University of Munich in Germany, and was a pre-doctoral Research Associate at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.  He has been an adjunct professor at Princeton University, Georgetown University, Johns Hopkins University, and the University of Hamburg.  Dr. Oelrich received his BS from the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. from Princeton University, both in chemistry. His work has been published in The Cambridge Review of International AffairsInternational SecurityThe Nonproliferation Review,Arms Control TodayThe Bulletin of the Atomic ScientistsNuclear Engineering InternationalInternational Defense Review, Physical Review, and Physical Review Letters with shorter or online pieces in the International Herald TribuneThe New York TimesThe Atlantic, and Foreign Affairs.  He has also published numerous FAS, IDA, and OTA reports and chapters in collected volumes.

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.

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Daniel Jacobs

Daniel Jacobs

PhD in Residence

Daniel Jacobs is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Political Science at The George Washington University and a research assistant at the Institute for Security and Conflict Studies at the Elliott School of International Affairs. His current research interests include the strategic benefits of material and ideational vulnerability, autocratic accountability, and theories of grand strategic success. Daniel holds an M.A. (Hons) in International Relations from the University of Chicago and a B.A.(Hons) in Political Science from McGill University. When not studying international relations, Daniel is an aspiring barbecue pitmaster and canoe builder/woodworker.

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Michael Joseph

Michael Joseph

PhD in Residence

Michael Joseph is a Ph.D. student in political science at George Washington University. His research uses formal insights to explore how states determine the extent of each other’s motives and its consequences for war, trade and peace. He is passionate about the role of bad actors in international politics and is interested in how Western powers can single these states out and manage their bad behavior. His research draws from six years’ experience working in Iraq, Jordan and the United States in various analytical roles. In his spare time, he makes ice cream and plays risk.

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Bryce Loidolt

Bryce Loidolt

PhD in Residence

Bryce Loidolt is a doctoral student in political science at George Washington University and an adjunct researcher at the RAND Corporation. He has also served as adjunct faculty at National Defense University at Fort Bragg, NC. His research focuses on terrorism and counterterrorism, with a current interest in the relationship between security force assistance and recipient combat effectiveness. At RAND, he has recently assisted in coordinating and synthesizing findings from advanced quantitative models and qualitative analytic tools to inform U.S. strategy against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Bryce also worked as an adviser to Special Operations Forces in Afghanistan and conducted field research in Egypt and Yemen. Through Arabic and English language research, Bryce’s work has appeared as RAND Corporation monographs and in scholarly journals such as Studies in Conflict and Terrorism and Terrorism and Political Violence. A Southern California native, Bryce received his B.A. in Middle East Studies from Middlebury College and his M.A. in Political Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

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Kenneth Vincent

Kenneth Vincent

PhD in Residence

Kenneth R. Vincent is a Ph.D. candidate in International Relations in the Department of Political Science at George Washington University.  He also works full-time as the program Economist for the Office of Petroleum Reserves at the U.S. Department of Energy. In this position, he oversees major program planning and economic studies for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, conducts oil market and policy analysis, and executes the program’s international activities. Vincent holds a Bachelor of Arts in Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia and a Master of International Affairs from the George H.W. Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University.  His dissertation is entitled “The Strategic Determinants of Oil Stockpiling Behavior.”

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