Current Fellows

Giuseppe Paparella

Giuseppe Paparella is a post-doctoral fellow in Security and Foreign Policy at the Global Research Institute. Giuseppe holds a PhD in Security Studies from King’s College London, a MSc in International Relations from the London School of Economics, as well as graduate and undergraduate degrees from the University of Bologna and the University of Bari in Italy. Giuseppe’s research agenda is concerned with the socio-psychological dimensions of American diplomacy and statecraft in the Asia-Pacific. He is also interested in studying the relationship between nationalism and foreign policy, and in the application of historical knowledge to illuminate current challenges and policy choices. His work has been published in both scholarly and policy outlets, including The International History Review, National Identities, Diplomacy and Statecraft, The Strategy Bridge, Defence-in-Depth, The Imperial & Global Forum, and The International Spectator.

At GRI Giuseppe will be working on his book manuscript, which investigates the impact of American presidents' nationalist beliefs on American foreign policy in the Asia-Pacific between 1898 and 1972; he will start his second book project, centered on Sino-American foreign relations before the Cold War; and he will participate in collaborative projects in applied history and international relations.

More details on Giuseppe’s profile and research can be found at www.giuseppepaparella.com.

Kyuri Park

Kyuri Park is a post-doctoral fellow in Security and Foreign Policy at the Global Research Institute (GRI). Prior to GRI, Kyuri was a post-doctoral fellow at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) at Stanford University. She received her Ph.D. in Political Science and International Relations (POIR) at the University of Southern California (USC). She holds MA in Asian Studies at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service (SFS) and BA in International Studies at Ewha Womans University, South Korea.

Her research lies primarily in international security and cooperation, with a regional focus on East Asia. Kyuri is interested in theorizing and examining the interaction between great and non-great powers (small and middle powers) and drawing out the implications for regional order, stability, and the US grand strategy.

At GRI, Kyuri will work on her book manuscript, which explores how East Asian countries are responding to the rise of China and why they are responding the way they are. In this project, she sheds light on joint military exercise as an important indicator of cooperation and challenges the widely held belief in security studies that East Asian countries are militarily aligning with the US against rising China. Drawing on the networked perspective on capabilities, she posits that cooperative security ties are important social capitals that increase a state's strategic autonomy. Thus, from this perspective, opting for a Cold-War style alignment with a particular great power or bloc is the second-best strategy at best for East Asian countries, and the optimal strategy is to diversify cooperative ties. Using social network analysis and case studies, Kyuri presents original mixed-methods evidence that the regional countries are pursuing cooperative security ties with both China and the US to ensure their strategic autonomy.

Kyuri's other works on South Korea's middle power diplomacy and cultural dimension of unipolarity have been published in International Politics and Palgrave Macmillan. Previously, she served as a contributing author of 'Korea-Japan Relations' in Comparative Connections, published by the Pacific Forum. She was also a 2022-2023 US-Korea NextGen Scholar, an initiative by the CSIS Korea Chair and the USC Korean Studies Institute (KSI), and a 2019-2021 US-Asia Grand Strategy predoctoral fellow at the USC KSI.

More details on Kyuri's profile and research can be found at: http://www.kyuripark.com.

Adriana Rudling

Adriana Rudling holds a PhD in Politics from the University of Sheffield, U.K. Being part of a 1+3 scheme (MA+PhD), Adriana also holds a MA in Politics with Research Methods from the same university. She also holds an MSc in Latin American Studies: Politics from Universidad de Salamanca, in Spain and a BSc in International Relations: Peace and Security from Göteborgs Universitet, in Sweden. She is fluent in Swedish, Romanian and Spanish, having studied literature, languages, and translation to post-graduate level as well. She previously held research and teaching positions at Queen’s University Belfast (Northern Ireland), Universidad del Rosario (Colombia), and Instituto Pensar (Colombia). In the past few years, Adriana has served as a consultant specializing in monitoring, learning, and evaluation, working with local and international NGOs like the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) and Colombia Diversa and government agencies such as the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Her academic work has been funded by the University of Sheffield, the Society for Latin American Studies, and the Faculty Research Initiative Fund at Queen’s University Belfast.

Her PhD dissertation focused on the fragmentation of victims’ organisations dedicated to representing victims of (en)forced disappearance in Panama and Colombia. Broadly speaking, her research interests center on the interactions between victims of massive and systematic human rights violations and the measures state bureaucracies established in (post-)transitional societies to respond to these harms. Her research has been published in several leading peer-reviewed journals spanning multiple disciplines, including Nature Human Behavior, Human Rights Quarterly, and the International Journal of Transitional Justice, and media outlets, podcasts, policy-focused reports and platforms in both Spanish and English with El Espectador, JusticeInfo.net and OpinioJuris.

At GRI, Adriana is working at the International Justice Lab, where she will be co-authoring a book on the politics of memory with Lab director Kelebogile Zvobgo. She will also be continuing her role as a post-doctoral researcher on the Norwegian Research Council-funded project on truth commissions and sexual violence anchored at the Chr. Michelsen Institute (Norway) and her ongoing policy and research-oriented collaborations on the subjects of reparations, truth commissions and unofficial truth and memory initiatives.

Sara Sayedi

Sara is a postdoctoral fellow affiliated with GRI-AidData and VIMS. Sara holds a Ph.D. in Wildlife and Wildland Conservation from Brigham Young University, an M.S. in Environmental Management from the University of Tehran, Iran, and a B.Sc. in Environmental Science from Isfahan University of Technology, Iran. Her primary research interests encompass climate change, geospatial analysis, water security, and decision-making under uncertainty.

Across both her academic and professional trajectories, Sara engages in interdisciplinary research, delving into the connections between different disciplines to unravel the interactions between ecosystems and human activities. Her doctoral research specifically centered on assessing risks across diverse Earth systems, specifically the permafrost carbon feedback and global fire regimes. By utilizing Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Remote Sensing techniques, Sara has contributed her expertise to a range of environmental projects.

Her involvement spans various topics, such as water quality assessment, vegetation degradation, and air pollution. Moreover, Sara has conducted research on water security within the context of ecosystem services, exploring the dynamics between land management practices and the influence of climate change on water resources.

At GRI, Sara's research will focus on water resources in Nepal. Her work revolves around conducting geospatial analyses for the Nepal Water Initiative (NWI), which aims to assess environmental threats to water resources in Nepal due to climate change and to empower conservation leaders to champion community-based conservation efforts. Sara will work on developing a time-series database of land and water resources and quantifying different water-related risks in the major river basins of Nepal using geospatial tools and machine learning.

Nara Sritharan

Nara Sritharan received her PhD in Economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in May 2022. Nara received her BSc in Economics from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark in 2013. Her dissertation research was focused on peacebuilding and ethnic reconciliation in post-conflict/conflict countries. Her primary case study is Sri Lanka, primarily the northern and eastern regions inhabited by ethnic minority groups. Her work has been supported by the Political Economic Research Institute Fellowship and the PERI Bernard Family Fellowship.

Her past work has focused on subnational foreign allocation in conflict/non-conflict zones and the intersection of domestic governmental politics and international donor politics. Her previous work has been published as blogposts and policy briefs through Security in Context and Human Security Lab.

At GRI, Nara is working on the AidData Tracking Underreported Financial Flows methodology, where she will work on sharpening the use of the extensive data collection through creating metadata, conducting research at the nexus of geospatial analysis and econometrics, and analyzing the environmental impact of the Belt & Road Initiative in the Global South. She will also be working on publishing her current working papers.

More details on Nara’s profile and research can be found at www.narayanisritharan.com.

Samuel Weldeegzie

Samuel Weldeegzie is a post-doctoral fellow at GRI where he teaches Econometrics and does research on urbanization and labour market outcomes in Africa. Samuel holds a B.A. Economics from Jimma University, Ethiopia and an M.A. Economics of Development from Erasmus University Rotterdam. Prior to William and Mary, Samuel received his Ph.D. in Economics from the Australian National University. He has examined the long run effect of conflict on human capital in Ethiopia and is broadly interested in areas of development and labour economics.

Julius Nyerere Odhiambo

Julius Nyerere Odhiambo is a postdoctoral fellow who works with GRI’s Ignite research lab. Odhiambo holds a BSc in Mathematics and Computer Science from Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, Kenya, an M.S. in Applied Statistics from Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, Kenya, and a Ph.D. in Public Health from The University of KwaZulu Natal, South Africa. He is a spatial epidemiologist whose research focuses on quantifying the joint burden of disease, health outcomes, and their associated determinants at policy-relevant thresholds, particularly in resource-constrained settings.

Odhiambo is working with his GRI mentor Professor Carrie Dolan to develop a methodological framework for spatially allocating COVID-19 vaccinations that optimizes coverage, existing facilities, proximity, and funding in Malawi and Kenya. They are also working to understand the role and extent of Chinese health financing in Africa. Odhiambo is an official collaborator on the Global Burden of Disease (GDB) Project (IHME, University of Washington). His research has been published in BMJ Global Health, BMC public health, and PLoS neglected tropical diseases.

Visit Odhiambo's Google Scholar page.

Shauna Gillooly

Shauna Gillooly received her PhD in Political Science at the University of California, Irvine in September 2021. Shauna received her B.S. (with honors) in International Affairs & Spanish Language from Florida State University in 2016, and her M.A. in Political Science from the University of California, Irvine in 2018. Her dissertation research was focused on the relationships between the international, national, and local levels during processes of peacebuilding and transitional justice amidst continued political violence. Her primary case study is Colombia, where she has conducted extensive fieldwork for the past four years. Her work has been supported by the Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad (DDRA) Fellowship, which provided funding for her fieldwork in the Pacific Coast of Colombia (Cauca, Nariño, and Valle del Cauca). 

Her past work has focused on social movement transitions to political parties in Latin America, as well as the impact of political violence legacies on voter behavior. Her previous work has been published in academic journals such as PS: Political Science and Politics, Politics, Groups, and Identities, The Journal of Peacebuilding and Development, and PLOS ONE. It has appeared in media outlets such as The Washington Post and The Conversation, and policy-focused platforms such as E-International Relations.

At GRI, Shauna is working on the TRIP Survey Project, where she will work on ongoing projects looking at data and perspectives from faculty and policy makers on the state of the International Relations discipline over the last 20 years. She will also be working on her book manuscript during her time as a post-doc, which examines the fragility of peace processes in Colombia and Northern Ireland.

More details on Shauna’s profile and research can be found at www.shaunangillooly.com.

Tanu Kumar

Tanu Kumar is a post-doctoral fellow who works with GRI’s Digital Inclusion and Governance Lab (DIGLab) and AidData. She also directs the Global Cities and Digital Democracies Lab. Kumar holds a B.A. from Bowdoin College and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley. She studies political behavior and service delivery in developing countries. One strand of her research explores how policies to house and provide essential services to growing urban populations shape, and are further shaped by, the behavior of urban citizens and politicians in India. Another strand looks at how low-income households use mobile phones.

With her GRI mentor Professor Phil Roessler, Kumar is working on a collaborative project (funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and BRAC) in Blantyre, Malawi, that aims to understand how providing women with smartphones affects household consumption, and whether interventions to promote cooperative intra-household use of the phone further affects outcomes. Kumar’s work has been published or is forthcoming with the Journal of Politics, the Journal of Development Economics, and World Development. Starting in summer 2022, Kumar will be an Assistant Professor in the Division of Politics and Economics at Claremont Graduate University.

Website: https://tanukumar.com/

Kelebogile Zvobgo

Kelebogile Zvobgo was GRI’s first ever pre-doctoral fellow (2019-21) and an inspiration for its growing post-doctoral program. She holds a B.A. (hons.) in International Relations and French Language & Literature from Pomona College and a Ph.D. in Political Science and International Relations from the University of Southern California. Zvobgo works on quasi-judicial and judicial bodies that have proliferated around the globe over the past half-century to address serious violations of human rights law and humanitarian law. In particular, her scholarship has centered on domestic truth commissions and international criminal tribunals, especially the International Criminal Court.

While at GRI, Zvobgo completed her dissertation entitled, Governing Truth: NGOs and the Politics of Transitional Justice. It asks why some governments but not others adopt transitional justice institutions, design them to succeed, and follow up on them with additional measures. Zvobgo argues and demonstrates that domestic and international civil society actors, who compose a global network, help drive government transitional justice policy through their advocacy, technical expertise, and operational assistance. In 2022, Zvobgo will receive the Lynne Rienner Publishers Award for Best Dissertation in Human Rights from the International Studies Association. Zvobgo is now turning her dissertation into a book manuscript.

During her time as a pre-doctoral fellow with GRI, Zvobgo published in leading peer-reviewed and public outlets like Journal of Human Rights, International Studies Quarterly, The Washington Post, and Foreign Policy. She also established the International Justice Lab (IJL) at GRI, which brings together faculty and students from across the United States to conduct collaborative research on human rights, transitional justice, and international law and courts. IJL aims to produce high-quality social science research that is relevant to policy makers, practitioners, and civil society advocates. Through IJL, Zvobgo employed a team of undergraduate researchers to assist with the last waves of data collection for her dissertation, one of whom joined Zvobgo in Guatemala for fieldwork. After her time as a pre-doctoral fellow with GRI,  Zvobgo joined W&M's Government Department as an Assistant Professor.

Website: https://www.zvobgo.com/