PhD Candidates from Across the Country Attend Two-Day Workshop at Johns Hopkins SAIS

The Kissinger Center for Global Affairs convened 26 PhD candidates at a 2-day workshop as part of its Carnegie International Policy Scholars Consortium and Network (IPSCON) program to help junior scholars develop the tools they need to produce academic and policy-relevant research. The workshop is run by Francis J. Gavin, Giovani Agnelli Distinguished Professor and Director of the Kissinger Center, and Jim Steinberg, Professor at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Public Affairs, co-leaders of the IPSCON initiative. The program is also steered by a group of Senior Scholars including Peter Feaver, Margaret Hermann, Kathleen Hicks, Bruce Jentleson, Jeremy M. Weinstein, and Philip Zelikow.

 

Sponsored by the Carnegie Corporation in New York, the IPSCON initiative aims to create a cohort of scholar-practitioners who understand the pertinent challenges facing policy-makers from both worlds of thought and practice.  The program’s DC Policy Workshop brings cohort members to Washington, DC for two days to hear from policymakers and other experts inside the beltway about how to tailor research to policy-makers needs and interests and how to understand important policy questions. 

 

During their time at the workshop, scholars had the opportunity to hear from Laura Updegrove, Senator Merkley’s Senior Foreign Policy Advisor, and Chris Brose former Staff Director of the Senate Armed Services Committee speak on the broader role of Congress in Foreign Policy. Junior Scholars also heard from foreign policy journalists Karen DeYoung, Susan Glasser and Margaret Warner in conversation with Jim Steinberg, former Deputy Secretary of State and IPSCON Co-Leader, about reporting on international affairs.

 

IPSCON programming relies on simulation and exercise-based training that engages Junior scholars in an historical decision-making exercise. At this workshop, Junior scholars simulated the policy-making process in Dr. Philip Zelikow’s “What to Do about the Philippine Islands” exercise.

 

The workshop also included a panel tackling the larger questions of ethical dilemmas in policymaking with Eliot Cohen, the current Dean of SAIS and former Counselor of the Department of State from 2007-2009, Elbridge Colby, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense from 2017-2018, and Sarah Cross, former Director for Refugee and Migration Policy in the White House National Security Council. Workshop organizers also hosted a career panel with Tanvi Madan, Stacey Pettyjohn, Ambassador Bonnie Jenkins, Jung Pak, and Alanna Torres-Van Antwerp. The conference concluded with a conversation hosted by the senior scholars on the midterm elections and their foreign policy implications.

 

 

The Cohort Members that Attended the DC Policy Workshop Include:
 

·      Robert Allred, Duke University

·      Whitnet Baillie, Syracuse University,

·      Vincent Bauer, Stanford University

·      Colonel Joe becker, Johns Hopkins University

·      James “Jeb” Benkowski, Johns Hopkins SAIS

·      Jason Blessing, Syracuse

·      Daniel Chardell, Harvard

·      Yunnan Chen, Johns Hopkins SAIS

·      Sean Delehanty, Johns Hopkins University

·      Frances Duffy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

·      Matthew Frakes, University of Virginia

·      Marc Grinberg, Stanford University

·      So Jin Lee, Duke University

·      Erik Lin-Greenberg, Stanford University

·      Angely Martinez, Syracuse University

·      Tim McDonnell, MIT

·      Rachel Myrick, Stanford University

·      Jaehan Park, Johns Hopkins SAIS

·      Sara Plana, MIT

·      A. Bradley Potter, Johns Hopkins SAIS

·      Elise Roberts, Syracuse University

·      Elaine Sedenberg, UC Berkeley

·      Alexandra Sukalo, Stanford university

·      Rachel Tecott, MIT

·      Emily Whalen, The University of Texas – Austin

·      Audrye Wong, Princeton, Woodrow Wilson School

 

The IPSCON initiative is sponsored by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. You can learn more about the program here