On the Bright Side: Updates for the Johns Hopkins SAIS community, December 20, 2021
On the Bright Side
December 20, 2021
Spirit Week
In an effort to bring faculty and staff together from across the three SAIS campuses during the holiday season, the SAIS Events Team held Spirit Week from December 13-17. Spirit Week consisted of contests and in-person and virtual events intended to add levity during a busy time of the year.
Monday: Coffee with a Colleague
Staff and faculty visited the Zoom Lounge for Coffee with a Colleague. The Events Team hosted a 45-minute session in which Sonya Holmes, Senior Special Events Coordinator, and Jessica Moreno, Special Events Coordinator, facilitated conversations ranging from hobbies and travel plans to favorite areas on the three SAIS campuses.
Monday: Virtual Background Contest
Anna Lemberger, Assistant Director of Development (Annual Fund), and the SAIS DC Admissions Team submitted entries for the virtual background contest. The Amissions Team won the contest with its reindeer and snowman-inspired virtual background.
Monday: Office Door and Office Décor Contest
Representatives from the SAIS Admissions Team, Operations Team, the Dean’s Office, and Julie Lloyd, Human Resources Manager, decorated doors in their areas for the contest. The one-woman HR team of Julie Lloyd edged out the rest of the teams to win the contest with a door with all the Christmas lights, bells, and whistles.
Tuesday: Holiday Sweater Contest
Jannsen Keiger, Admissions Specialist; Anna Lemberger, Assistant Director of Development (Annual Fund); Julie Lloyd, Human Resources Manager; Jason Lucas, Communications Manager; Anne McKenzie Associate Director, Career Management and Employer Engagement, SAIS Global Careers; Gabrielle Rayner, Special Events Coordinator; and Kensei Tsubata, Multimedia Production Coordinator, submitted entries for the holiday sweater contest. Anne McKenzie’s Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer sweater outshined the rest of the SAISers to win the contest.
Tuesday: Cookie & Cocoa Hour
Staff and faculty enjoyed a mid-afternoon break in the Nitze Café for a holiday-themed cookie hour featuring conversations on holiday sweaters and more over hot chocolate and apple cider.
Wednesday: Holiday Party
Approximately 30 staff and faculty members gathered in Kenney Herter Auditorium for the 2021 SAIS Holiday Party emceed by Khorey Baker, Assistant Dean of Student Affairs, with opening remarks by SAIS Dean Jim Steinberg. Along with mingling, staff and faculty participated in SAIS and DC trivia and posed for pictures at the photo booth station. Virtual background, office décor, and holiday sweater contest winners also received their prizes of SAIS swag ranging from tote bags to water bottles during the party.
Thursday: SAIS Wellness Day
The Events Team transformed Kenney Herter Auditorium into a wellness station for a few hours to provide faculty and staff a space to take a break from their work for chair yoga, Zumba, and healthy snacks. Additionally, the Events Team provided faculty and staff helpful health and wellness tips from Johns Hopkins University.
Friday: SAIS Spirit Day
To conclude Spirit Week, staff and faculty showed off their school spirit by either wearing SAIS gear or the University's colors.
Professor Carlos A. Vegh Honored by LACEA
Carlos A. Vegh, Fred H. Sanderson Professor of International Economics, is the 2021 recipient of the Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association’s (LACEA’s) Carlos Diaz-Alejandro Prize, considered the most prestigious academic award in Latin America. The LACEA, an international association of economists with common research interests in Latin America, established the biennial award to encourage high-quality research on economic issues relevant to the Latin American region and to honor the memory and contribution of Carlos F. Diaz-Alejandro, a renowned specialist in Latin American economics.
LACEA selected Vegh as the 11th recipient of the award due to his extensive research on topics related to Latin American and Caribbean macroeconomics, such as hyperinflation, balance of payment crises, currency substitution, fiscal policy, and exchange rate policy. Additionally, LACEA also considered Vegh's considerable contribution to the public goods and time serving as an editor for top journals in development and international economics and a mentor to many students and junior faculty.
SAIS Faculty Included on Foreign Affairs' Best of Books 2021 List
SAIS Faculty Included on Foreign Affairs' Best of Books 2021 List
Adjunct Lecturer of Strategic Studies Carter Malkasian's book, The American War in Afghanistan: A History, and Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis Distinguished Professor of Historical Studies Mary Sarotte's book, Not One Inch: America, Russia, and the Making of Post–Cold War Stalemate, were included in Foreign Affairs' Best of Books 2021 list.
In The American War in Afghanistan, Malkasian detailed the full history of the conflict from 2001 to 2020, including the political, cultural, strategic, and tactical aspects of the war. Sarotte examined how the U. S. endured Russian resistance in the 1990s to expand NATO, but ultimately undermined a potentially lasting partnership in Not One Inch.
Adjunct Lecturer Mvemba Dizolele Joins CSIS as a Senior Fellow and Director of the Africa Program
Adjunct Lecturer Mvemba Dizolele Joins CSIS as a Senior Fellow and Director of the Africa Program
Mvemba Dizolele, Adjunct Lecturer, has joined the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) as a senior fellow and director of the Africa Program. Dizolele, a former Africa senior adviser at the International Republican Institute (IRI), has been a non-resident senior associate with the CSIS Africa Program for more than three years. Before his role at IRI, he served as the course coordinator for central and southern Africa at the U.S. Foreign Service Institute from 2016 to 2019.
As a senior fellow and director of the Africa Program, Dizolele will work with CSIS colleagues to help bridge the policy gap between strategic and economic interests of the industrialized nations and those of African nations. Dizolele will continue to serve as a lecturer at SAIS.
SAIS Alumna Named Next GMF President
SAIS Alumna Named Next GMF President
In November, Heather A. Conley '96 was named the German Marshall Fund of the United States' (GMF's) next president. She will begin serving as GMF's sixth president in January as the organization starts celebrating its 50th anniversary and the 75th anniversary of the Marshall Plan. Conley is currently senior vice president for Europe, Eurasia, and the Arctic at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and also serves as the director of the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program at the organization, which she joined in 2009.
Conley previously served as executive director of the Office of the Chairman of the Board at the American National Red Cross. From 2001 to 2005, she served under then-Secretary of State Colin Powell as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs with responsibilities for U.S. bilateral relations with Northern and Central Europe countries. She began her career in the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs at the U.S. Department of State, where she also served as special assistant to the coordinator of U.S. assistance to the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union. She has received two State Department Meritorious Honor Awards.
SAIS Alumnus Joins UNDP’s Washington Leadership Team
SAIS Alumnus Joins UNDP’s Washington Leadership Team
Stefano Pettinato '99 recently joined the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Washington Office’s leadership team as its deputy director. Pettinato most recently served as a UNDP resident representative in Bahrain. He was also a deputy resident representative in El Salvador and Belize, regional policy adviser at the UNDP Regional Center in Panama and Regional Bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean, and policy adviser in UNDP’s Human Development Report Office in New York, where he co-authored UNDP's flagship Human Development Report in 2003 and 2004. Pettinato previously served at the Inter-American Development Bank, World Bank, Brookings Institution, and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.
Mikaela Yuchen Wang Named to Class of 2023 Schwarzman Scholars
Mikaela Yuchen Wang Named to Class of 2023 Schwarzman Scholars
Mikaela Yuchen Wang '22 is one of 151 young leaders from 33 countries and 106 universities named to the seventh cohort of Schwarzman Scholars, one of the world's most prestigious graduate fellowships located at Schwarzman College at Tsinghua University in Beijing. Wang, currently enrolled in the Johns Hopkins SAIS – Tsinghua dual degree program, was chosen from among nearly 3,000 applicants for the Schwarzman Scholars Class of 2023 due to her leadership potential, academic ability, and strength of character.
In August 2022, Wang will start a year of intensive study and cultural immersion – attending lectures, workshops, and discussion groups; being mentored and advised by leaders across sectors; and traveling while developing a better understanding of China. As a Schwarzman Scholar, Wang hopes to further engage with China's financial industry transformations that are paving the way for clean energy transitions while pursuing a one-year master's degree in global affairs in Schwarzman College at Tsinghua University.
SAIS Student Team Wins AES Energy Innovation Challenge
SAIS Student Team Wins AES Energy Innovation Challenge
A student team consisting of Ruta Karpauskaite '21, Aditi Kumar '22, Julia Fernandes Fonteles '21, and Caitlin Candee '22 won the first AES Energy Innovation Challenge, which took place from October 4 to November 12. For winning the competition, Candee, Fonteles, Karpauskaite, and Kumar, known as the Power Troupe during the challenge, will receive a $10,000 prize. The AES Corporation, a global Fortune 500 company currently leading the transformation to smarter, greener energy solutions, will also make a $1,000 donation to Instituto Rede Abrigo, a non-profit social organization that develops and promotes solutions to improve institutional care for children and adolescents in Rio de Janeiro. The competition consisted of two two-week rounds that challenged graduate student teams to create a new product offering aimed at communities with conventional fuel facilities that are being brought offline or decommissioned.
Candee, Fonteles, Karpauskaite, and Kumar focused on decommissioning a Virginia-based coal power plant and replacing the lost capacity with offshore wind facilities. They developed a proposal to build a gravity energy storage tower alongside a wind blade recycling facility to repurpose the coal plant and replace the lost capacity with offshore wind facilities. The second phase of their plan focused on scaling up their model to markets across Virginia and then to the broader PJM Interconnection markets on the East Coast. In addition to their proposal, they designed a transition strategy that emphasized early planning and stakeholder engagement at the beginning of the negotiation process, ensuring social, environmental, and financial implications will be addressed at the early stages of the plant's decommissioning.
SAIS DC Students Participate in Iran Nuclear Program and Climate Change Simulations
During the week of November 15, students in Assistant Professor of Development, Climate, and Sustainability Sarah Jordaan’s courses participated in a pair of simulations focused on the last decade of Iran’s nuclear program and the global climate crisis. The first simulation in her Science, Technology and International Affairs course focused on the peaceful use of nuclear technologies where students analyzed complex international security issues and applied their skills in a multi-cultural negotiation.
Through the second simulation in Jordaan’s course on climate change, students conducted a series of negotiations in which they met the Paris Climate Agreement goal of 1.9 degrees Celsius.
SAIS Europe War Game
SAIS Europe students in Adjunct Professor of Strategic Studies Andrew Winner’s Strategy and Policy course designed and participated in a three-move war game in mid-November that portrayed a crisis primarily involving China, Taiwan, and the U.S. The game aimed to increase students’ understanding of the dynamics between policy objectives and a strategy used to achieve those objectives under constraints of time, incomplete information, and a thinking opponent.
The game consisted of two player teams – China and the United States. A student control team acted as all other nations in the world and adjudicated moves between the two player teams. The three-move game involved one period of class time and then a full eight-hour day of play, adjudication, and plenary discussion on a weekend day. In response to interest in the game and student experiences with it, students organized and led an out brief to a larger SAIS Europe student and faculty audience the week following the game.
SAIS Europe Geneva Trek
During the week of November 15, the SAIS Europe Career Services Office hosted its annual career trek to Geneva virtually. The trek provided students an opportunity to connect with SAIS alumni and learn about various careers in Geneva.
Alumni from the International Trade Centre, World Intellectual Property Organization, United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, World Health Organization (pictured below), International Committee of the Red Cross, and World Economic Forum shared insights into their careers, current organizations, and advice for leveraging SAIS opportunities to develop skills and obtain internships. The following alumni participated in the event: Calin Brown '18, Francesca Grandi '03, Fatima Hewaidi '17, Erin Kenney '92, Stephanie Phipps '17, Charles Randolph '91, Anthony Salazar '20, Robert Skidmore '94, Anahita Vasudevan '17, Madison Wilcox '17, and Joseph Wozniack '95.
DC Environment Career Trek
SAIS Global Careers partnered with the SAIS Energy and Environment Club to offer the Fall 2021 Virtual DC Environment Trek on October 29. Nearly 50 SAIS students connected with alumni and professional contacts at the World Bank, The Nature Conservancy, World Resources Institute (pictured below), D.C. Department of Energy and Environment, and the D.C. Green Bank to learn about environment-focused career paths. The following alumni participated in the event: Alexandra Fisher '16, Julie Mae Gabato '18, Joe Jaeger '19, Katie Lebling '14, Jay Lurie '07, Michael Matosich '19, Samantha Power '07, Dan Radack '91, Caitlin Smith '16, Chen-Chen Tung '12, and Xinyue Wen '19.
International Student Alumni Panel Discussion
On International Student Day, November 17, SAIS Global Careers held a virtual panel discussion led by five alumni panelists (Jonathan Eigege '17, Rilind Latifi '13, Deboleena Rakshit '19, Siqi Zhou Thorp '21, and Mariana Zepeda '20) who were international students while at SAIS. Nearly 60 international students across SAIS’ three campuses participated in the event.
Alumni shared career journeys, tips for seeking employment in the U.S., and advice on overcoming professional challenges. Farouk Dey, Vice Provost for Integrative Learning and Life Design at Johns Hopkins University, also joined the event, sharing his inspiring story about curiosity, risk-taking, and, perseverance as a former international student in the U.S.