Featured Student News from our 2018 department newsletter, Homo Politicus. Access the newsletter archive here.

Yu Aoki (level III) received the Early Research Initiative Knickerbocker Award for Archival Research in American Studies.

Sumru Atuk (level III) received the Mellon Graduate Research & Service-Learning Grant from the Mellon Foundation, as well as the Sue Rosenberg Zalk Travel Award from the Center for the Study of Women and Society, The Graduate Center, CUNY. 

Harry Blain (level I) published “The Scale of Pentagon Waste Boggles the Mind, but Congress Keeps Giving Them More” for Foreign Policy in Focus in October 2017; “The US is Stockpiling Nuclear Weapons and the Cost is Astonishing” in November 2017; “2017 was a Banner Year for the Arms Industry” in December 2017; and “Israel’s New Admirers: The White Nationalist Right” in February 2018. In addition, Blain wrote “The Dangers of Political Sainthood” for Open Democracy in October 2017 as well as “Why is the American Left so prejudiced about the South?” in February 2018. 

Nina Connelly (level I) co-authored an article with Professor Tom Weiss titled “Cultural Cleansing and Mass Atrocities: Protecting Cultural Heritage in Armed Conflict Zones” (Paul Getty Trust 2017).

Sarah Kostecki (level III) was invited to a panel with several professors at the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College in November 2017, titled “One Year After the Trump Election: Policy Impacts in the U.S. and the World.” 

Drake Logan (level III) received the Early Research Initiative Knickerbocker Award for Archival Research in American Studies, and a provost’s digital innovation grant for the “The Military Toxics Transparency Project.”

Ariel G. Mekler (level I) published a chapter entitled “LGBTIQ (In)Visibility: A Human Security Approach to SOGIESC,”  In Queer Development Studies: A Reader, edited by Corinne Mason (Routledge 2018) and is presenting a paper entitled “Far Right Extremism and the War on Terror” at the 2018 New York State Political Science Conference.

Chris Michael (level III) worked on employee ownership legislation that was recently passed in New York. He also drafted bills that were introduced in Wisconsin, Maryland, and the City of Newark. 

Nick Micinski (level III) published the article “The Global Compact On Migration Is Not About Sovereignty” in Huffington Post. Micinski was an invited speaker at Humanity in Action Fellowship in Detroit on “Confronting Islamophobia in Our Communities.”

David Monda (level I) had an op-ed piece in published in Kenya’s largest circulation newspaper Daily Nation on January 30 2018 titled “Tough times ahead for nation as stage set for political tussle,” as well as three articles published in Political Animal Magazine: “Kenya Slides Precipitously Towards a De Facto One-Party State in 2018,” “Trump’s Racist Comments on Africa Obfuscate a Domestic Political Struggle in America,” ​and “Israel’s Outreach in Africa Continues at the Kenyan President’s Inauguration.”

Faraz Motaghedi (MA) has been selected by the United States Naval Academy to present a paper “Modern Autocracy: The Future of Liberty within the Middle East” at their 58th Foreign Affairs Conference in Annapolis, MD. 

Alison Parks (level III) received the Early Research Initiative Knickerbocker Award for Archival Research in American Studies. 

Jenna Russo (MA) was selected by Columbia University’s Harriman Institute of Russian Studies to present her research at the IMEMO conference in Moscow, January 24-25, titled “The Politics of R2P and Inaction in Syria: U.S., Russian, and Chinese Perspectives.”

Sofia Pernilla Sedergren (MA) will present her paper “Framing Political Debates Based on the Attainment of Women’s Suffrage: the Case of Great Britain 1916-1928” at the New York State Political Science Association Conference in April 2018. Sedergren also participated in the Graduate Center’s “Lightning Talks” challenge for Master’s students on March 2, 2018. 

Elizabeth Stone (level II) published “Is There ‘Hope for Every “Addicted” American’?: The New US War on Drugs” in Social Sciences. Stone also received a Provost’s Pre-Dissertation Research Fellowship for summer archival research. 

Tyson Himes (MA) participated in the Graduate Center’s “Lightning Talks” challenge for Master’s students on March 2 2018, presenting a talk titled “Money Laundering With A View,” in which he presented statistics that connect money laundering through shell companies with the purchase of high-end real estate, citing examples tied to Trump properties in major U.S. cities, including Manhattan, currently under investigation by Robert Mueller.

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