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News | Aug. 27, 2019

Announcement of the 2019-2020 Cohort of the Jennings Randolph Peace Scholar Dissertation Fellows

By Toni Haynes

The Department of Defense Minerva Research Initiative is pleased to announce the 2019-2020 cohort of the Jennings Randolph Peace Scholar Dissertation Fellows. This year, over 110 applicants from 70 U.S. universities applied for this prestigious award. The dissertations chosen for the Peace Scholar Fellowship show the greatest potential to advance peacebuilding and security fields, and the strongest likelihood to affect policy and practice.

The Minerva initiative has a unique relationship between Research and Policy within DOD.  As such, leadership across the department collaborate to identify and support basic social science research issues in need of attention and then integrate those research insights into the policy making context. In doing this, the leadership team closely works with the program managers within the military Service branches.

Since 2016, the Minerva Research Initiative has joined with the U.S. Institute of Peace to award non-residential fellowships to students enrolled in U.S. universities, supporting careers in research, teaching and policymaking.  Minerva Research Initiative fellowships support basic research contributions related to broad concerns of conflict management and peacebuilding, including security and stability.

“The Minerva-USIP Peace and Security pre-doctoral awards support young researchers at a crucial time in their careers and encourages them to think through how their work can broadly influence security challenges around the world,” remarked Dr. David Montgomery, director of the Minerva Research Initiative. “We are proud of the doctoral candidates being funded through this collaboration with the U.S. Institute of Peace and look forward to seeing their projects develop.”

The 2019-2020 Peace Scholar Dissertation Fellows are students from Minerva-Funded Peace and Security Scholars:

• Ayda Apa Pomeshikov (University of Washington), “The Prophet was a Refugee too: Islamic Humanitarianism and Syrian Refugees’ Search for Rights and Belonging in Turkey.”

• Vincent Bauer (Stanford University), “Does Doctrine Matter? The Role of Discretion during Counterinsurgencies.”

• Polina Beliakova (Fletcher School, Tufts University), “Controlling the Defenders: Implications of Intrastate Conflict for Civilian Control of the Military.”

• Jason Blessing (Syracuse University), “Securing Cyberspace: Interstate Militarization of the Fifth Domain.”

• Laura Collins (George Mason University), “The Politics and Authority of Religious Organizational Engagement in Wartime: The Case of Central African Republic.”

• Christina Cottiero (University of California, San Diego), “Staying Alive: The Strategic Use of Regional Integration Organizations by Vulnerable Political Leaders.”

• Ashley Fabrizio (Stanford University), “Contingent Radicalization: Government Repression's Differential Effect on Ethnonationalist Mobilization.”

• Lillian Frost (The George Washington University), “Beyond Citizenship: Protracted Refugees and the State.”

• Rob Grace (Brown University), “Understanding Humanitarian Access Obstruction.”

• Ramzy Mardini (University of Chicago), “Rebel in Society: Social Networks and the Regeneration of the Islamic State.”

• Megan Ryan (University of Michigan-Ann Arbor), “Mobilized Religious Majorities: Fear-Based Rhetoric and Anti-Minority Violence during Political Liberalization.”

• Noah Rosen (American University), “Seizing a Window of Opportunity: Converting a Peace Process into Local Peace.”

• Andres Uribe (University of Chicago), “Grievance and Participation in Violent Democracies.”

Please join us in congratulating these DOD distinguished doctoral candidates on this accomplishment.

To learn more, visit https://minerva.defense.gov/Programs/US-Institute-of-Peace-Collaboration/.