The Department of Defense Announces Awards of $20,000 each for the 2020-2021 Cohort of the Minerva-U.S. Institute of Peace, Peace and Security Dissertation Fellows

The Department of Defense Minerva Research Initiative is pleased to announce the 2020-2021 cohort of the Minerva-USIP, Peace and Security Dissertation Fellows.

In partnership with the USIP’s Jennings Randolph Peace Scholar Dissertation Fellowship program, more than 110 applicants from 80 U.S. universities applied for this prestigious award. The dissertations chosen for the Peace and Security Scholar Fellowship showed great potential to advance the peace building and security fields, and to positively influence policy and practice.

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, said 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 2020-2021 Peace Scholar Dissertation Fellows include:Minerva-Funded Minerva-USIP Peace and Security Scholars:
Elizabeth Brannon (Michigan State University) The Role of Women in Former Rebel Parties in Post-Conflict Africa.

Alexandra Chinchilla (University of Chicago) Aid, Arms, and Advisors: Limited Intervention in Conflict.

Silvia Danielak (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Spatializing Peacebuilding: An Infrastructural Approach to Post-War Violence and Vulnerability in the City.

Yumna Fatima (The American University) Post-Split Violence in Splinter Groups.

Kristin Foringer (University of Michigan) Symbolic Reparations and Collective Memory in Post-Conflict Colombia.

Meghan Garrity (University of Pennsylvania) Disorderly and Inhumane: Explaining 100 Years of Mass Expulsion.

Andrew Goodhart (Ohio State University) Designing International Orders that Endure: How the Thickness of Social Purpose Affects the Durability of Order.

Rehan Jamil (Brown University) Social Policy and Changing Citizenship Boundaries in Pakistan.

Dylan Maguire (Northeastern University) Strategic Partnerships: Militia Engagement with External State Support.

Cameron Mailhot (Cornell University) Blueprints for Peace: International Missions, Domestic Commitments, and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding Reforms.

Ana Montoya (Duke University) Restoring the Rule of Law in the Aftermath of Civil War: The Judicial Enforcement of Land Restitution Orders in Colombia.

Benjamin Naimark-Rowse (Tufts University) Bridging Relationships in Pro-Democracy Social Movements.

Paul Olander (Loyola University Chicago) Private Military Corporations in Civil Wars.”

USIP-Funded Peace Scholars:

Dogus Aktan (University of Denver), Private Politics in the Shadow of Hierarchy: Contentious Mobilizations against Extractive Firms.

Patrick Hunnicutt (University of California, Santa Barbara) Services for Stability: How International Aid and Public Services Affect Recovery after Conflict.

Sooyeon Kang (University of Denver) From Reform to Resignation: Explaining why Some Protest Movements Escalate their Demands.

Rabea Kirmani (Georgetown University) Migration, Mobilization and Identity Obfuscation: How Persecuted Communities Respond to Repression.

Hilary Matfess (Yale University) Front lines and Home Front: Women’s Wartime Mobilization and Post-Conflict Political Representation.

Nahrain Rasho (University of California, Davis) Ethno-federalism and Subnational Ethnic Conflict: The Consequences of Regional Autonomy on Conflict Among Regional Ethnic Minority Groups.

Daniel Thomas (Columbia University) Conflict and Social Integration: How do Violence and Status Shape Social Behavior?

Please join us in congratulating these distinguished Ph.D. candidates on this accomplishment.

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