Author Biographies

Olivia Bauer graduated from the University of Georgia in 2022 with degrees in History and International Affairs. Her research interests are primarily grounded in governance by non-state armed groups. During her time at the University of Georgia, Olivia worked as an intern for the Carter Center, the International Rescue Committee, the Carl Vinson Institute of Government, and PeachPod (a podcast about Georgia politics). 

Natalie Chaudhuri received her M.A. in the Latin American Studies Program from Georgetown University with a Certificate in Refugees, Migration, and Humanitarian Emergencies. She also received her B.S.F.S. from Georgetown’s Walsh School of Foreign Service, majoring in Regional & Comparative Studies with a concentration in Latin America and Africa. Natalie has interned with the Washington Office on Latin America, the U.S. Department of State, and the Organization of American States’ Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. She will be starting a doctoral program in political science at Stanford University next fall.

Sooin Choi is a master’s student studying Urban and Regional Planning. She obtained a Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service from Georgetown University in Qatar and writes and researches the intersection of migration, cities, and governance.

Keven Hernandez is a second-year graduate student in the Security Studies Program. He is interested in conceptualizing how security issues can affect the world’s working classes, and how this conceptualization can affect U.S. policy in the Indo-Pacific.

Kara Joyce (she/her) is a writer and editor focused on the nexus of climate change, gender security, and public policy. She earned a Master of Arts in Security Studies from Georgetown University (‘23), and Bachelor’s degrees in English Literature and International Affairs from the University of Georgia (‘18). Her current independent research project is creating a database of gendered risk factors related to anti-abortion terrorism.

Christopher Kiyaseh holds an M.A. in Political Science from American University, with particular emphasis on Arctic defense, environmental policy, and marine ecosystems. As an emerging Arctic scholar, Christopher excels in using an interdisciplinary research approach to inform his work. Professionally, Christopher has held roles in open-source intelligence and policy analysis.

Déliana Renou is a master’s student in Social Policy at the French university Sciences Po Paris. She graduated with her Bachelor in East European and Russian Studies, during which she focused her studies on the understanding of communist history in the region, European integration and current geopolitical issues in Caucasian, East European and Russian regions. She is now finishing her Master in European Affairs at Sciences Po Paris, with a strong focus on French social policies.

Hadley Spadaccini holds her MA in Asian Studies from George Washington University, where she specialized in Chinese foreign policy and international economic policy. She has published on Chinese participation in multilateral international institutions and Chinese domestic innovation. Hadley was a graduate China research fellow at the Hertog Foundation, Exovera, and Strategy Risks, a Foreign Language and Area Studies fellow at the National Taiwan University, and Boren Scholar at Tsinghua University. She is currently a Research Fellow with the Center for Policy, Research, and Innovation studying Chinese economic statecraft in Southeast Asia.

Thomas Zimmer is a historian and DAAD Professor at Georgetown University. His work focuses on the recent history of U.S. democracy and its discontents, on the struggle over how much democracy, and for whom, there should be in America, and on anti-democratic tendencies and impulses on the American Right since the 1950s. He writes the “Democracy Americana” newsletter, hosts the “Is This Democracy” podcast, and is a contributing opinion writer for The Guardian US. Before coming to Georgetown in 2021, he was an Assistant Professor at Freiburg University in Germany.