Our Visiting Scholars

Yu Aoki headshot

Yu Aoki

City University of New York

Yu Aoki completed his Ph.D. in Political Science in September 2022 at The Graduate Center, City University of New York. Before coming to ISCS, he was both the Innovative Approaches to Grand Strategy Post-doctoral Fellow as well as a Hans J. Morgenthau Fellow at the University of Notre Dame’s International Security Center. His research interests are in international security and grand strategy with a focus on how states, especially the United States, assess adversaries’ and allies’ capabilities, intentions, and outlooks.

At ISCS, he will be working on his book project, entitled Policymakers, Intelligence Analysts, and Negativity Bias: How States Assess Strategic Situations. In his book project, he contends that a state’s policymakers and intelligence organizations tend to disagree, due to their varied susceptibility to what psychologists call “negativity bias,” on (1) how to infer their adversaries’ intentions from such adversaries’ past actions and (2) how to predict their adversaries’ and allies’ interpretations of their state’s backing down.

Shannon Carcelli headshot

Shannon Carcelli 

University of Maryland

I am an Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland, College Park Department of  Government and Politics. My work is published or forthcoming in the American Journal of  Political Science, Journal of Politics, Journal of Conflict Resolution, and other outlets. I study  the role of legislative and bureaucratic institutions in foreign policy, especially in the United  States. In my book manuscript, I find that the process of bargaining and vote-buying, oMen  necessary to create congressional coalitions, has led to a complicated, ineffective  bureaucracy. I hold a PhD in political science from the University of California, San Diego, and  a BA from Carleton College, in addition to three years’ experience working in the field of international development. During the 2018-2019 academic year I served as a post-doctoral  fellow at Princeton University’s Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance.

Erica De Bruin headshot

Erica De Bruin

Hamilton College

I am an Associate Professor of Government at Hamilton College. My research and teaching  focus on civil-military relations, coups d’état, democratic backsliding, civil war, and policing.  My book, How to Prevent Coups d’état: Counterbalancing and Regime Survival (Cornell  University Press, 2020), examines the strategies rulers use to remain in power. It argues that  how rulers design their coercive institutions affects the survival of their regimes, and the  likelihood that challenges to their rule will turn violent. My current research, funded by  grants from the National Science Foundation, focuses on the causes and consequences of global police militarization and armed group governance. I received a PhD from the  Department of Political Science at Yale University, and a BA from Columbia University. At  Hamilton, I direct the Justice and Security Program at the Arthur Levig Public Affairs Center,  and teach courses in international security.

Sam Erkiletian headshot

Sam Erkiletian

University College London

Sam Erkiletian is a PhD Candidate at University College London researching the internal dynamics of armed groups, specifically the changing identities of combatants during and after conflict. He examines how the military socialization process and subgroup dynamics of armed groups affect the behavior and identity of combatants. He employs comparative case studies and archival data in his research. He is a member of the Conflict and Change research cluster based in University College London’s Department of Political Science and has taught at the Department of War Studies at King’s College London. He holds an MSc in Security Studies from University College London and a BA in History and Ancient Studies from Saint Joseph’s University.

He has a co-authored chapter with Zeynep Bulutgil, “Civil Society, Fifth-Column Perceptions, and Wartime Deportations: Japanese and German Americans”, which is a part of the edited volume Enemies Within (Oxford University Press, 2022). He is currently working with Nils Metternich and Janina Beiser-McGrath on an archival data project that analyzes the Pan-African movement and the impact of its networks on decolonization and postcolonial states.

Amy Austin Holmes headshot

Amy Austin Holmes

Amy Austin Holmes (Ph.D., Johns Hopkins University) has published on a wide range of issues in transnational security: from challenges within the NATO alliance during and after the Cold War, to the spread of revolutionary uprisings and military interventions across the Middle East and the international responses they elicited, to the collaboration between the Global D-ISIS Coalition and a non-state armed actor. Dr. Holmes previously served as a tenured Associate Professor at the American University in Cairo, and as a Visiting Scholar at Harvard University. She recently completed a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellowship, where she worked at the U.S. Department of State, first in the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations, and then in the Office of Southern European Affairs. Her first book Social Unrest and American Military Bases in Turkey and Germany since 1945 (Cambridge University Press) analyzed seven decades of American security relations with NATO allies Turkey and Germany. Her second book Coups and Revolutions: Mass Mobilization, the Egyptian Military and the United States from Mubarak to Sisi (Oxford University Press) was informed by her experience of living in Egypt throughout the period of revolutionary upheaval. Dr. Holmes is the first person to have conducted a field survey of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) based on numerous trips to all six provinces of Northeast Syria between 2015-2021. Her research has also analyzed the transformation of the Turkish-Kurdish conflict through an original dataset of armed conflict events along the Turkish-Syrian border. Her third book is forthcoming with OUP in 2023: Statelet of Survivors: The Making of a Semi-Autonomous Region in Northeast Syria.

Margaux Repellin

Université Catholique de Louvain

Margaux Repellin is a Visiting Professor-Researcher in International Affairs and Political  Science at the Elliott School of International Affairs (ESIA) at George Washington University  (GWU). She teaches M.A. classes in the Insurgency, Counterinsurgency, Terrorism, and Counterterrorism; Transnational Security; International Security; Security Policy Analysis; and  other courses within the Security Policy Studies (SPS) Master’s Program. She also conducts  research at the Institute for Security and Conflict Studies (ISCS).  

Margaux is currently in the final stage of her Ph.D. in Political Science at Université  Catholique de Louvain. Her research focuses on understanding how leadership influences the  resilience of terrorist organizations and their diverse connections with other violent groups.  Her dissertation centers on examining how specific leadership types/characteristics within  terrorist organizations effectively recruit new members. This investigation includes cases  involving al-Qaeda and the Islamic State across the African Sahel, Middle East, and beyond,  considering potential implications for the future involving the United States, Europe, and  worldwide. 

Margaux holds Master’s degrees in International Relations from The Fletcher School at TuMs  University and in Political Science from the Université Catholique de Louvain. She also has  degrees/certificates in Conflict Analysis, Geopolitical Analysis of Major Powers,  Cybersecurity/Cyber Risk Management, and Language/Literature/Foreign Civilization in  German Studies.  

Margaux has worked for almost 18 years in the public and private sector, including over 10  years in leadership, advisory and senior management, at key level positions within  media/industry, public administration, and in corporate-government relations. Her previous  areas of expertise included Policy, Government, Artificial Intelligence, and Cybersecurity. She  has studied for almost 12 years, with a strong focus on Security/Defense, Foreign  Affairs/Geopolitics and Emerging Security Challenges (Terrorism/Counterterrorism, 

Technology, Energy, etc.), in various countries such as France, Germany, Belgium and the  United States. She has also passed certificates in 8 languages, which is critical for her  research, and has won scholarship/grant as well as 3 awards throughout her studies and  research.

Applying to the Visiting Scholars Program

About the Visiting Scholars Program

The Institute for Security and Conflict Studies welcomes visitors whose research interests align with our mission of advancing scholarship and public understanding of international security issues. Outside faculty, policy experts, and advanced Ph.D. students are all invited to apply.

Please note that Visiting Scholar positions are unfunded; applicants are expected to come with or secure their own sources of financial support. The Institute provides office space; access to a computer and the Internet; borrowing privileges at GW’s Gelman library; limited telephone, fax, and photocopying privileges; and an opportunity to interact with other scholars focusing on international security and conflict studies.

Eligibility

Outside faculty, policy experts, and advanced Ph.D. students are all invited to apply.

We give strong preference to visitors planning to stay an entire academic year, but will consider applications for semester-length visits if space is available. Shorter affiliations, including summer stays, can be offered only in exceptional cases.

Application Process

Applicants should complete the online application form with the following materials included in a single PDF document:

  1. A curriculum vitae;
  2. A 1-2 page description of the research project you propose to undertake while in residence as a Visiting Scholar at ISCS; and
  3. A list of 3 references with names, institutional affiliations, email addresses, and phone numbers

For visits starting in Fall 2024 (including semester-length stays and full 2024-2025 academic year affiliations), priority will be given to applications received by January 22, 2024. Applications received after that date will be considered if space is available. Applicants will be notified of the Institute’s decision in March, 2024.

Previous Visiting Scholars

2022-2023

Mansoor Ehsan, George Mason University

Takuya Matsuda, King’s College London

Daniel Solomon, Georgetown University

2021-2022

Dayna Barnes, University of London

Toygar Halistoprak, Antalya Bilim University

Min Jung Kim, American University

Paul Orner, University of Southern California

Giuseppe Paprella, King’s College London

2020-2021

Nicholas Anderson, Yale University

Neha Ansari, Tufts University

DongJoon Park, Georgetown University

Chen Wang, University of Virginia

2019-2020

Neha Ansari, ISCS, Tufts University

Andrew Bowen, Congressional Research Service

Igor Kovac, Visting Researcher, Center for Peace and Security Studies, UC-San Diego; Foreign Policy Advisor to Prime Minister of Slovenia

DoYoung Lee

Stephen Roblin, Cornell University

2018-2019

Eleni Ekmektsioglou, American University

Igor Kovac, Visting Researcher, Center for Peace and Security Studies, UC-San Diego; Foreign Policy Advisor to Prime Minister of Slovenia

Alex Yu-Tin Lin, University of Southern California

2017-2018

Jooeun Kim, Council on Foreign Relations, Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow

Frances Yaping Wang, Singapore Management University, Dept. of Political Science

Rubina Waseem, National Defence University (Islamabad)

2016-2017

Meredith Blank, U.S. Government

Jamie Gruffydd-Jones, Kent University, School of Politics and International Relations

Rebecca Jensen, Canadian Forces College, Dept. of Defence Studies

Tyler Jost, Brown University, Dept. of Political Science

2015-2016

Elai Rettig, Washington University, Dept. of Jewish, Islamic, and Middle Eastern Studies

Anna Samson, Australian National University

Frank Smith, U.S. Naval War College, Director of Cyber & Innovation Policy Institute

2014-2015

Tyson Belanger, Shady Oaks Assisted Living

Olivier Henripin, Loyola University-Chicago, Dept. of Political Science

Andy Levin, Connecticut College, Dept. of Government and International Relations

Sara Moller, Seton Hall Univ., School of Diplomacy and IR

2013-2014

Andrew Bell, Indiana University, Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies

Navid Hassibi, Council on International Policy, Director and Senior Fellow

Se Young Jang, Leiden University, Dept. of History

Jakub Kosciolek

Sara Moller, Seton Hall Univ., School of Diplomacy and IR

2012-2013

Payam Ghalehdar, Hertie School, Center for International Security

Kathryn McNabb-Cochran, Good Judgment, Inc., Director of Foreign Policy Research

J. Thomas Moriarity III, American University, School of International Service

Jane Vaynman, Temple University, Dept. of Political Science

2011-2012

Austin Carson, University of Chicago, Dept. of Political Science

Mark Daniel Jaeger, University of Copenhagen, Centre for Advanced Security Theory

Oded Haklai, Queen’s University, Dept. of Political Studies

Melissa McAdam, Center for Naval Analyses

2010-2011

Andrea Baumann

Brent Durbin, Smith College, Dept. of Government

Jeffrey Lantis, College of Wooster, Dept. of Political Science

Dong Sun Lee, Korea University, Dept. of Political Science and International Relations

Oriana Mastro, Stanford University, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies

Jin Wang, Chinese Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, Center for American Studies