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Kissinger Center announces Janne Nolan Prize winners for Best Article on National Security/International Affairs


The Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) is proud to announce, in conjunction with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and Texas National Security Review, the 2020 Janne Nolan Prize winners for the best article on national security/international affairs.
 
Janne Nolan Prize Winner (award of $5,000)
• Jane Vaynman, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Temple University
 
Janne Nolan Prize Runners-up (awards of $2,500)
• John Emery, Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at Stanford University
• Saher Naumaan, Threat Intelligence Analyst at BAE Systems
 
Special Recognition (awards of $1,500)
• Emma Campbell-Mohn, PhD student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Suzanne Freeman, PhD student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
 
Special Recognition for undergraduate submissions (awards of $500)
• Sruthi Katakam, Johns Hopkins University
• Brooke Lennox, University of Michigan
 
The Janne Nolan Prize competition for the best article on national security/international affairs is hosted by the Future Strategy Forum, an initiative that connects scholars who research national security with leading practitioners and elevates female talent in the field. The competition offers prizes to the best new scholarship from early career scholars in national and international security. The awards given to graduate recipients of Special Recognition honors are supported by the Nuclear Studies Research Initiative (NSRI), a project sponsored by Carnegie Corporation of New York and MacArthur Foundation, in which the late Janne Nolan was an early and enthusiastic member.
 
Vaynman’s prize-winning manuscript and those written by Emery and Naumaan are eligible to be workshopped by a group of senior scholars: a policymaker or scholar suggested by the winners, Francis J. Gavin, Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs Director at Johns Hopkins SAIS; Keren Yarhi-Milo, Arnold A. Saltzman Professor of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University; Kori Schake, Director of Foreign and Defense Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute; and James Steinberg, University Professor of Social Science, International Affairs and Law at Syracuse University. Vaynman, Emery, and Naumaan will also submit their manuscripts to Texas National Security Review and upon completing a double-blind peer review process, their work will be eligible to be published in a special issue released this summer.
 
“I am so honored to be selected for this prize. Both with this competition and with their many other efforts, the Kissinger Center, CSIS, and Texas National Security Review have created venues which promote and improve new research in international security,” Vaynman said. “I am excited that my work can be a part of that community and look forward to engaging with an amazing group of scholars for the next stages of my paper.”
 
The writing competition is named in honor of the late Nolan, a renowned nuclear scholar and policy advisor who championed ethics and morality as well as open debate in policy-making. In a nearly 40-year career, Nolan authored nine books, taught at multiple universities, and held numerous governmental and non-governmental appointments. The competition commemorates Nolan’s legacy in an effort to inspire other emerging scholars, especially women in the national security field, to not only research, write, and publish their opinions on pressing policy challenges, but to do so with the curiosity and rigor she brought to this field.
 
“The Kissinger Center is thrilled to partner with the Future Strategy Forum and Texas National Security Review to honor our beloved friend Janne Nolan,” Gavin said. “The winners demonstrated the kind of rigor, creativity, and passion to apply scholarship to policy questions that animated Janne’s remarkable career.”