Belfer Center fellows at orientation 2009.

Belfer Center Announces 2009-2010 Research Fellows

News, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

September 22, 2009

Author: Sharon Wilke, Associate Director of Communications

The Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School announces the following new 2009-2010 fellows. These fellows conduct research within the Belfer Center's International Security Program (ISP), Project on Managing the Atom (MTA), Program on Intrastate Conflict (ICP), Initiative on Religion in International Affairs, Energy Technology Innovation Policy (ETIP) research group, and The Dubai Initiative. In addition, some fellows research within the core Belfer Center and others hold joint fellowships with Harvard Kennedy School's Carr Center for Human Rights Policy. 

International Security Program (ISP) 

Jennifer M. Dixon is a predoctoral research fellow in the Belfer Center's International Security Program and a Ph.D. candidate in political science at University of California Berkeley. Her research focuses on the connections between contemporary foreign policy, national identity, and the stories states tell about their pasts. 

David Ekbladh is assistant professor of history at Tufts University.  His first book, The Great American Mission: Modernization and the Construction of an American World Order will be published by Princeton University Press at the end of 2009. Previously, he was an Olin Postdoctoral Fellow with International Security Studies at Yale University and a visiting scholar at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. At Harvard, he is exploring the birth of American globalism in the 1930s.

Brendan Rittenhouse Green is currently a doctoral candidate in political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In addition to his Belfer Center International Security Program fellowship, he has received a Miller Center fellowship in American Politics, Foreign Policy, and World Politics. At Harvard, he will continue work on his dissertation, Two Concepts of Liberty: American Grand Strategy and the Liberal Tradition." 

Jacqueline L. Hazelton is a doctoral candidate in the politics department at Brandeis University. Her dissertation analyzes success and failure in counterinsurgency. Hazelton was previously an international journalist with the Associated Press. Her research focus is compellence and accommodation in counterinsurgency warfare and under what conditions states defeat guerrilla insurgencies.

Carlotta Minnella is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Oxford. She holds first-class honors degrees in political science and international relations, security studies, and diplomacy from the University of Trieste, the Institute of Political Studies in Paris, and SIOI in Rome. Her research focuses on national security and counter-terrorism policies, the role of culture, norms, and ideas in decision-making, and transatlantic security relations  

Lieutenant Colonel Robert S. Pope is a joint fellow International Security Program/U.S. Air Force fellow. He holds an undergraduate degree in physics, graduate degrees in nuclear weapons effects physics and military operational arts and sciences, and a doctorate in physics.  He has been on active duty in the United States Air Force for 18 years and has held a number of assignments in strategic communication and public affairs, strategic planning, WMD counterproliferation, and directed energy weapons intelligence.   

Aaron Rapport is a doctoral candidate in the political science department at the University of Minnesota. His dissertation research on strategic assessment and U.S. military interventions is supported by the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia in addition to the International Security Program of Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center. 

Ilai Saltzman is a Ph.D. candidate in International Relations at the University of Haifa (Israel). Saltzman's dissertation and continuing research deals with states' grand strategy formation in face of changes in the balance of power. For the past several years, he has served as  voluntary General Secretary of the Young Israeli Forum for Cooperation (YIFC).

International Security Program/Project on Managing the Atom 

Philipp C. Bleek is a Ph.D. candidate in international relations in the Department of Government at Georgetown University. His dissertation explores whether and under what conditions states pursue and acquire nuclear weapons in response to rival proliferation. 

Major General Ho-Kun Chang retired from the Republic of Korea Air Force and is currently a senior fellow at the Korea Institute for Crisis Management Analysis in Seoul, Korea. His research at Harvard focuses on preventive defense on the Korean Peninsula. He recently published a book (in Korean) titled Preventive Diplomacy: The Cases on the Missed and Seized Opportunities on the Korean Peninsula Focusing on Early Warning. 

Vaidyanatha Gundlupet received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in August 2008. His dissertation, "Big Sticks and Contested Carrots: Explaining International Security Institutions," was awarded the 2009 Kenneth N. Waltz Dissertation Award for the best dissertation in the field of security studies from the American Political Science Association's International Security and Arms Control section. At Harvard, he will work on the impact of nuclear weapons on South Asian security and the nuclearization and future of India-Pakistan relations. 

Ursula Jasper is a doctoral candidate at the University of St. Gallen (Switzerland) and a research associate at the Center for Security Economics and Technology (CSET) there. With a fellowship from the Swiss National Science Foundation, she is researching the causes of nuclear nonproliferation and their implications for arms control. 

Amy Oakes is currently working on a book manuscript titled Diversionary War that examines whether governments provoke international crises in response to domestic unrest. She received her B.A. in Political Science from Davidson College in 1998 and her Ph.D. in Political Science from Ohio State University in 2006. Her research interests include domestic cases of war and nuclear nonproliferation. She is currently looking into whether efforts to reduce the number of nuclear states may backfire.

Yun Zhou received her Ph.D. in nuclear engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. Her current research explores the global storage and transport of nuclear material under a global expansion of nuclear power and the security implications of this storage and transport. 

International Security Program/Program on Intrastate Conflict 

Patrick Johnston completed his Ph.D. at Northwestern University in July 2009 and was a predoctoral fellow at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) from 2007-2009. His research focuses on insurgency and counterinsurgency. His current projects examine the effectiveness of strategies of coercion in counterinsurgency, the causes of insurgent victory, and the micro-dynamics of insurgency and counterinsurgency. 

Jennifer Keister received a B.A. in government from the College of William and Mary and is a political science Ph.D. candidate at UC San Diego.  Her research focuses on how rebel movements establish social contracts with civilian populations-why and how some groups provide public goods and build governance structures, while others engage in extortive behavior.

Yvonne Malan was born in South Africa where she completed her undergraduate career and taught courses in philosophy and politics. She received her doctorate from the University of Oxford in politics and international relations and has focused academically on jurisprudence, political science, political philosophy, complexity theory, African studies, and transitional justice. At Harvard, she will continue her research on intra-state conflict and security.  

Anoop Sarbahi  is a Ph.D. Candidate in the UCLA Department of Political Science. At Harvard, he is examining how the dynamics of a civil war are shaped by three different levels of interaction: the state and rebel movements; the different rebel factions; and the rebel movement or faction and the population. Sarbahi was awarded the Jennings Randolph Peace Scholar Fellowship by the United States Institute of Peace for 2008-2009.

International Security Program/Initiative on Religion in International Affairs (RIIA) 

Robert Bosco received his B.A. in Philosophy from Wheaton College and his M.A. from the School of International Service at American University. Currently a Ph.D candidate at the University of Connecticut, his research interests focus on Islam and religion and hegemony in international politics. 

Lorenzo Vidino, a native of Milan, Italy, holds a law degree from the University of Milan Law School and a masters degree in international relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, where he is currently completing his doctoral degree. His research focuses on terrorism, radicalization, and political Islam worldwide, with a particular emphasis on Europe.  

Energy Technology Innovation Policy (ETIP) Research Project 

Nathaniel Logar is researching institutional policies for useable science, policies for integrating user needs into decision processes, and partnerships between federal actors and private entities. He conducted his Ph.D. research at the University of Colorado's Center for Science & Technology Policy Research. Previously, he researched the FDA approval process on transgenic fish and on climate science policy, as a part of a National Science Foundation-funded interdisciplinary group called Carbon, Climate, and Society. 

Ruud Kempener is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Belfer Center's Energy Research, Development, Demonstration & Deployment (ERD3) Policy project. He is an expert in agent-based modeling of energy technology innovation in socio-economic systems and has advised government departments, research institutes, local councils, and industry on energy policies. He is working at Harvard on the development of a framework for international cooperation between the U.S. government, the BRIMCS countries, and other OECD countries on energy technology innovation policy.  

C. Edward Huang spent his undergraduate years at both National Taiwan University and University of Western Ontario in Canada and received his doctoral degree in transportation engineering from the University of California at Berkeley. His research at Harvard addresses transportation issues such as infrastructural finance, environmental protection, and energy consumption.

Balachandra Patil has a Ph.D. in energy and environment from the Indian Institute of Science, India, where he has served as a faculty member since 1989. His research has focused primarily on assessing the dynamic interactions between energy, technology, and environment from the perspective of sustainable development and arriving at solutions relevant for developing countries like India. At Harvard, he will look at technology policy needs for addressing India's energy demand-supply and energy access gaps, climate change mitigation as a stimulus for rural energy access, and sustainable energy technologies. 

Dubai Initiative  

Ayman Ismail is a co-founder and board member of Nahdet El-Mahrousa, a leading Egyptian non-profit organization which has pioneered the model of a development incubator for social entrepreneurs. He earned a PhD in International Economic Development and a Masters in City Planning and Geographic Information Systems from MIT and has degrees in engineering from the American University in Cairo. At Harvard, he will research private equity and venture capital in emerging economies, technology policy and innovation, and economic development in Egypt and the Middle East and North Africa region.  

Lawrence Rubin received a Ph.D. in Political Science from UCLA and has earned degrees from UC Berkeley, the London School of Economics, and the University of Oxford. Rubin's dissertation was titled "Why Arab States Fear Islamist Regimes: Threat Perception and Soft Power Politics."  Currently associate editor for the Journal of Terrorism and Political Violence, his research this year will focus on religion and international security, inter-Arab foreign policies, Islam and politics, and nuclear proliferation. 

Djavad Salehi-Isfahani is professor of economics at Virginia Tech and non-resident guest scholar at the Brookings Institution. He earned a BSc from University of London, Queen Mary College, and a Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University. Author/editor of several books, his Labor and Human Capital in the Middle East, 2001, was recognized as a Noteworthy Book of the Year by the Princeton University Industrial Relations Section. This year, he will continue his research in demographic economics, energy economics, and the economics of the Middle East.   

Husam Zomlot is specialized in the political economy of conflict. He holds a PhD degree in economics from the University of London, an MSc in development studies from the London School of Economics and a BA in economics and political science from Birzeit University. From 2003 to 2008, he served as a PLO representative to the UK. His research interest is in the area of war-to-peace transitions and conflict transformation in the context of conflict affected countries.  

Belfer Center Core Fellows 

Belfer Center Fellow Sarah Grisin Fougere received an M.A. from Georgetown University in international security studies and a B.A. in government from Dartmouth College. At Harvard, she will focus her research on Russian foreign policy and nuclear proliferation.   

Brigadier General (retired) Kevin Ryan is a senior fellow at the Belfer Center. A career military officer, he has extensive leadership experience in air and missile defense, intelligence, and political-military policy areas. His military service included assignments as senior regional director for slavic states in the Office of Secretary of Defense and as defense attaché to Russia. He also served as chief of staff for the Army's Space and Missile Defense Command. At the Belfer Center, he will work on nuclear issues related to the U.S.-Russian relationship. 

Joint Fellowship: Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs/Carr Center for Human Rights Policy

Paul Fishstein served as director of the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU), a Kabul-based, policy research institution, from 2005 to 2008. Before joining AREU as Deputy Director in 2004, he worked in Afghanistan on USAID-funded initiatives to strengthen the management of health care delivery, and in Quetta and Islamabad, Pakistan managing assistance and "cross-border" reconstruction activities. He is finishing his involvement in research on the relationship between aid and stabilization in Afghanistan, and at Harvard he will focus on markets, economic policy, and state legitimacy.

Nigel Pont is the program director for the Carr Center's State Building and Human Rights Program - Afghanistan and Pakistan. Nigel has recently completed two and a half years as Afghanistan Country Director for Mercy Corps, a non-profit humanitarian aid and development organization. He managed a wide range of relief and development programs in Afghanistan during the civil war, the Taliban era, and post 9/11. Born in Iran and growing up in Pakistan, he has in-depth knowledge of the region and speaks Dari and Urdu.

For additional information on individual fellows, visit www.belfercenter.org and click on Experts.

For more information about this publication please contact the Belfer Center Communications Office at 617-495-9858.

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