PEOPLE

PhD student Nick Akert received the 2023 Levitan Prize for excellence in teaching.

PhD candidate Nicholas Blanchette received the Henry Morgenthau pre-doctoral fellowship from Notre Dame University. He also will be a summer associate at the RAND Corporation. He, along with PhD students Wenyan Deng and Raymond Wang, was also awarded a World Politics Statecraft Fellowship by The Smith Richardson Foundation.

PhD candidate Zachary Burdette received a pre-doctoral fellowship from the Harvard Belfer Center on International Security.

Ford International Professor of the Social Sciences and director of the Sociotechnical Systems Research Center at the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing Fotini Christia was featured in an MIT News article on May 19, 2023, for her new work as part of the Institute’s “Ways of Seeing” project, an innovative form of historic preservation. She was the team lead on the newly released “extended reality” (XR) experiences of significant architectural locales in Afghanistan as part of an effort to preserve the country’s historical sites. 

SSP military fellow LT Col Thaddeus Drake was a panelist for "MCDP-1 in the 21st Century: Where do we go from here?" The Warfighting Society, on April 11, 2023.

Arthur and Ruth Sloan Professor of Political Science and director of the MIT Security Studies Program M Taylor Fravel was among several panelists who spoke on the "India-China border tensions and US strategy in the Indo-Pacific" for Center for a New American Security (CNAS) on March 30, 2023. On March 2, 2023, he served as a panelist to discuss “Friends with no limits? The future of China-Russia relations" at the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University. 

PhD candidate Suzanne Freeman received the Jeanne Guillemin Prize from MIT's Center for International Studies (CIS).

CIS research affiliate Eugene Gholz was featured on an episode of the Cato Institute's Power Problems podcast and spoke on "Market adjustment and foreign policy failure," on May 16, 2023.

CIS research affiliate Claude Grunitzky spearheaded the third annual MIT X True Africa University webinars. Seven webinars were featured, along with one hybrid event that featured the President of Cabo Verde. 

Director of the Seminar XXI Program and CIS senior research scholar and MIT visiting associate professor Kelly M Greenhill discussed weaponized migration and working as an IR scholar in E-International Relations on February 5, 2023. 

Associate professor and MIT-Africa faculty director Mai Hassan was featured in Spectrum in Spring 2023 in the article "When movements topple dictators". She was also featured in an MIT News article "Why social movements must innovate" on June 8, 2023; and in the MIT podcast with the Institute's president Sally Kornbluth: Curiosity Unbounded, Episode 2—"Bureaucracies, dictatorships, and the power of Africa’s people," on May 9, 2023.

CIS principal research scientist Eric Heginbotham spoke at the Starr Forum: "Reinventing Japan ... again?" on April 13, 2023; and organized a wargame simulation at MIT on June 9 - 10, 2023.

PhD candidate Samuel Leiter accepted an offer to be a summer associate at the RAND Corporation. He also received a fellowship from the Blakemore Freeman Foundation for a 10-month Japanese language program at the Inter-University Center for Japanese Studies.

Leo Marx Career Development Assistant Professor Erik Lin-Greenberg was awarded the 2023 Frank E Perkins Award for Excellence in Graduate Advising by the MIT Graduate Student Council. 

CIS faculty member Noora Lori was promoted to associate professor of international relations in the Boston University College of Arts and Sciences and in its Frederick S Pardee School of Global Studies. 

PhD candidate Nina Miller accepted an offer to be a summer associate at the RAND Corporation.

CIS faculty member and MIT chancellor Melissa Nobles was a keynote speaker at MIT's graduation ceremony. Her address to MIT’s undergraduate Class of 2023 was featured here in MIT News on June 2, 2023.

PhD candidate Mina Pollman accepted a full-time offer from the RAND Corporation.

2023 Elizabeth Neuffer fellow Gabriela Sá Pessoa was featured in MIT News on "Q&A on Brazilian politics, human rights in the Amazon, and AI" on June 6, 2023.

SSP senior advisor Carol Saivetz made a media appearance to discuss "Ukraine pledges to take back Russian-occupied territories, but experts argue success is unlikely" on GBH News, May 16, 2023. She co-chaired the Starr Forum: "From Chornobyl to Zaporizhzhia: The atom and its impact on Ukraine’s politics and security" on April 24, 2023. She also co-chaired the Starr Forum: "Ukraine and Russia one year on: The domestic impact of the war" on February 27, 2023.

Ford International Professor of Political Science and director of the Center for International Studies Richard Samuels delivered the John W Hall Memorial Lecture at Yale University on March 2023 entitled: "The cost of ‘normalcy’: Updating Japan’s national security"; he also moderated the Starr Forum: "Reinventing Japan ... again?" on April 13, 2023.

Robert E Wilhelm fellow Steve Simon spoke at a MIT Starr Forum on the themes of his book “Grand delusion: The rise and fall of American ambition in the Middle East,” on April 26, 2023. He also spoke at a MIT Starr Forum:  "The Iraq invasion: Twenty years later" along with SSP research affiliate Peter Krause (moderator), and SSP alumnus Marsin Alshamary, and Arthur and Ruth Sloan Professor of Political Science Roger Petersen, on March 24, 2023.  Simon also made several media appearances to promote his new book, including Radio: 'Grand Delusion' with Steven Simon for Utah Public Radio on  May 8, 2023;  and "New book explores last 4 decades of US involvement, failures in Middle East," for ABC News on April 12, 2023.

PhD graduate Meicen Sun was selected to be the student speaker for the 2023 SHASS Advanced Degree Commencement Ceremony on Thursday, June 1. She was also among three students who graduated this year from the Department of Political Science who focused on international relations and security studies, including Aidan Milliff (PhD) and Julian Rippy (SM).

Ford International Professor of Political Science Stephen Van Evera spoke on nuclear war theory at Columbia SIPA on February 17, 2023.

SSP senior research associate Jim Walsh made a media appearance to discuss "Video of US drone shows interference by Russian jets," on WBUR Here & Now, March 16, 2023.

Professor of history, co-director of the MIT-Eurasia program, and head of the MIT-Ukraine Program Elizabeth Wood and MIT-Ukraine program manager Svitlana Krasynska were featured in an MIT News article, “In a time of war, a new effort to help” about the MIT Ukraine Program on May 2, 2023. Wood co-chaired the Starr Forum: "From Chornobyl to Zaporizhzhia: The atom and its impact on Ukraine’s politics and security" on April 24, 2023. Wood also co-chaired the Starr Forum: "Ukraine and Russia one year on: The domestic impact of the war" on February 27, 2023; Wood was interviewed by Scripps News about Russian Independence Day on June 12, 2023.

PUBLICATIONS

SSP Stanton Nuclear Security fellow Austin Cooper, “The Argentella scandal: why French officials did not make Corsica a nuclear test site in 1960,” Nonproliferation Review, 2023. 

Arthur and Ruth Sloan Professor of Political Science and director of the MIT Security Studies Program M Taylor Fravel (with Henrik Stålhane Hiim and Magnus Langset Trøan), “The dynamics of an entangled security dilemma: China’s changing nuclear posture,” International Security 47, no. 4 (January 4, 2023): 147–87.

SSP Grand Strategy, Security, and Statecraft fellow Caileigh Glenn, "Lessons in sanctions-proofing from Russia," The Washington Quarterly, Spring 2023.

Director of Seminar XXI Program and CIS senior research scholar and MIT visiting associate professor Kelly M Greenhill (with Fiona B Adamson), "How migration deals prioritize political self-interest over refugee protection," International Affairs blog, Medium.com, May 16, 2023.

_______(with Fiona B Adamson) "Deal-making, diplomacy and transactional forced migration," International Affairs, Volume 99, Issue 2, Pages 707–725, March 2023, https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiad017

PhD candidate Benjamin Norwood Harris and PhD student Suzanne Freeman, “Crossing a virtual divide: Wargaming as a remote teaching tool,” Published online by Cambridge University Press, February 20, 2023.

Associate professor and MIT-Africa faculty director Mai Hassan, "Sudan’s generals are dragging the country toward disaster," Foreign Affairs, May 1, 2023.

___________"The failed “coup-proofing” behind the recent violence in Sudan," The New Yorker, April 20, 2023.

SSP research affiliate and former Robert E Wilhelm fellow Paul Heer, "Is Washington prepared to negotiate peaceful coexistence with China?", National Interest, May 5, 2023.

___________"Ballooning mistrust in the US–China relationship," East Asia Forum, March 12, 2023.

___________"Deconstructing the bipartisan consensus on the China threat," National Interest, March 16, 2023.

CIS research affiliate and associate professor at Boston College Peter Krause, “The strategies of counter-secession: How states prevent independence,” in The Routledge handbook on Self-determination and secession, Ryan Griffiths, Aleksandar Pavković, and Peter Radan, eds. (London: Routledge, 2023);

____________“How Israel’s new government will challenge the status quo in Jerusalem,” Middle East Brief, No. 153, Crown Center for Middle East Studies, May 2023.

Leo Marx Career Development Assistant Professor Erik Lin-Greenberg, "Evaluating escalation: conceptualizing escalation in an era of emerging military technologies," The Journal of Politics, University of Chicago Press Journals, April 20, 2023.

CIS research affiliate Rachel Tecott Metz, "Why security assistance often fails," Lawfare, April 23, 2023.

CIS research affiliate Reid Pauly (with Rose McDermott), "The psychology of nuclear brinkmanship," International Security 47, 3 (2023): 9–51.

2023 Elizabeth Neuffer fellow Gabriela Sá Pessoa, "A Ukrainian refugee has won 500,000 euros in a Belgian lottery," New York Times, June 12, 2023.

___________(with Alan Yucas) "Ukrainian drones strike cities across the Russian border, governors say." New York Times, June 9, 2023. 

___________ "Djuena Tikuna, an Indigenous singer and journalist, takes the MIT stage," IWMF, May 2023.

___________(as part of the Boston Globe editorial team), “Saving the Amazon, before it’s too late,” Boston Globe, March 18, 2023.

Robert E Wilhelm fellow Steve Simon published a new book, “Grand Delusion: The Rise and Fall of American Ambition in the Middle East,” Penguin Random House Press, April 11, 2023. 

___________(with Joshua Landis) "HR 3202: Analyzing legislative efforts to block Arab engagement with Syria," Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, June 9, 2023.

___________(with Aaron David Miller) "Is Saudi-Israeli normalization worth it?," Foreign Policy, June 6, 2023.

___________(with Jonathan Stevenson) "The threat of civil breakdown is real," Politico, April 21, 2023.

___________(with Adam Weinstein) "You can go home again: A proposal for phased military withdrawal from Iraq and normalizing US–Iraq relations," Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, March 16, 2023.

Ford Professor of Political Science and faculty director of MIT-Denmark Kathleen Thelen (with Anke Hassel), "Institutional reform for inclusive growth: Lessons from Germany and Sweden," The Economic 2023 Inquiry, April 13, 2023.