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New Colleagues at KFG

Dec 03, 2015

New Fellows 2015

New Fellows 2015

A number of distinguished and interesting people joined the KFG recently. We are glad to introduce our new Senior Scholars, PostDocs, and PhD Candidates.


Senior Scholars


Kathleen Hancock

Kathleen J. Hancock is Associate Professor of Political Science at the Colorado School of Mines, a top science and technology university. She specializes in energy politics, with a focus on Africa and Russia and Eurasia. She is the author of Regional Integration: Choosing Plutocracy (Palgrave 2009) and a number of articles on energy issues as well as the editor of the Special Issue on Renewable Energy in Africa: Contributions from the Social Sciences in Energy Research & Social Science 5 (2015). She is co-organizer of the Energy Africa conference held in Golden, Colorado. Before earning her PhD at the University of California, San Diego (2001), Hancock was a senior analyst for the U.S. Government Accountability Office, a research branch of the U.S. Congress. She also holds a Masters degree in Science, Technology, and Public Policy.


Jeffrey T. Checkel (renewed stay)

Jeffrey T. Checkel is Professor of International Studies and Simons Chair in International Law and Human Security at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver. He is the author of Ideas and International Political Change: Soviet/Russian Behavior and the End of the Cold War (Yale University Press, 1997), editor of International Institutions and Socialization in Europe (Cambridge University Press, 2007), co-editor (with Peter J. Katzenstein) of European Identity (Cambridge University Press, 2009), editor of Transnational Dynamics of Civil War (Cambridge University Press, 2013), and co-editor (with Andrew Bennett) of Process Tracing: From Metaphor to Analytic Tool (Cambridge University Press, 2014).

After finishing his PhD at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Political Science, Program in Defense and Arms Control Studies in 1991, Checkel worked as an Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh and afterwards as a Visiting Scholar at the University of Konstanz. He then worked at the Arena Centre for European Studies, Oslo from 1998-2001, and at the University of Oslo until 2008.

In addition to his position at Simon Fraser University, Checkel is also Global Fellow and Research Professor at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) and the winner of the Alexander-von-Humboldt Research Award.


Soo Yeon Kim (short-term)

Soo Yeon Kim is Associate Professor of Political Science at the National University of Singapore. She holds a PhD in Political Science from Yale University and a B.A. in Political Science and International Studies from Yonsei University. Soo Yeon Kim's main research area is trade politics. She is the author of Power and the Governance of Global Trade: From the GATT to the WTO (Cornell University Press, 2010). Her current research focuses on production networks, multinational firms, and the politics of free trade agreements in Asia. Soo Yeon Kim's recent publications include "Does Enforcement Matter? Judicialization in PTAs and Trade Flows" (World Trade Review, 2015), "Regionalization in Search of Regionalism: Production Networks and Deep Integration Commitments in Asia's PTAs" (in Andreas Dür and Manfred Elsig, eds. Trade Cooperation: The Purpose, Design and Effects of Preferential Trade Agreements, Cambridge University Press, 2015) and "Deep Integration and RTAs" (in Lisa Martin, ed. The Oxford Handbook of the Politics of International Trade, Oxford University Press, 2015).


Jean Garrison (October & December 2015, May 2016)

Jean Garrison is director of the Center for Global Studies and Professor of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Wyoming in the United States. Previously she served as interim chair for the Department of Modern and Classical Languages (2014-15) and Director of the Global and Area Studies Program (formerly International Studies) from 2008-14. In Fall 2015 and May 2016 she stays at the KFG researching climate and energy security policy.   

Garrison is past recipient of a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellowship and has worked in the Office of Chinese and Mongolian Affairs in the U.S. State Department. She also has been a visiting fellow with the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation in Washington, DC. She is the author of three books: China and the Energy Equation in Asia (Lynne Rienner, 2009), Making China Policy (Lynne Rienner, 2005), and Games Advisors Play (Texas A&M University Press, 1999) and numerous articles and book chapters. Her research focuses on U.S. foreign policy with an emphasis on U.S.-China relations, leadership, small group dynamics, and energy and climate security. At the University of Wyoming, she has been the recipient of a number of awards including the President’s Stewardship Award, Outstanding Research in the College of Arts and Sciences, and Outstanding Advising in the College of Arts and Sciences. Garrison holds a PhD from the University of South Carolina and a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Wyoming.


Simon Koschut (Visiting Professor)

Simon Koschut is a Visiting Professor in International Relations and European Integration at the Otto Suhr Institute at the Freie Universität Berlin, Germany. Previously, he was a Fritz Thyssen Fellow at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University, Assistant Professor at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, and Interim Assistant Professor at the Freie Universität Berlin. His recent publications include Friendship and International Relations (with Andrea Oelsner, Palgrave Macmillan 2014) as well as articles in the Review of International Studies, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, and Cooperation and Conflict. His new book Undoing Peace: Normative Change and the Disintegration of Security Communities will be published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2016. Simon Koschut received his PhD from the University of Potsdam in 2009. He studied Political Science and North American Studies in Berlin, Potsdam, Chapel Hill, and Bonn.



PostDocs


Merran Hulse

KFG Research Project

South Africa in SADC and Nigeria in ECOWAS: Benevolent Leaders or Self-Interested Hegemons?

Main Fields of Interest

  • Regionalism in Africa
  • EU – Africa Relations
  • African Political Economy
  • Regional Powers

Brooke Coe

KFG Research Project

The Role of Collective Image in Regional Norm Dynamics

Main Fields of Interest

  • Regional Norms and Institutions
  • International Relations of the Global South
  • Human Rights and Human Security

Stefano Palestini Céspedes

KFG Research Project

Regional Development Banks (RDBs): Linking Regionalism and Regionalization?

Main Fields of Interest

  • International Political Economy
  • Comparative Regional Organizations and Institutions
  • Latin American Politics, Policy and International Relations
  • Political Economy of Development

Laurissa Mühlich

KFG Research Project

The Stabilizing and Destabilizing Role of Regional Powers in Regional Monetary Cooperation

Main Fields of Interest        

  • Regional Monetary Cooperation and Integration
  • Development Economics
  • Monetary Policy and Theory
  • International Monetary and Financial System
  • Financial Development

Mor Mitrani (Jerusalem Program)

Main Fields of Interest

  • International Discourse
  • Globalization and Global Governance 
  • International Rules and Practices
  • Interactional and Relational Perspective to IR




PhD Candidates


Ann-Sophie Gast

KFG Research Project

Integration and Fragmentation – Explaining Varieties of Regionalism in the Post-Soviet Space

Research Interests

  • Transformation Processes in the Post-Soviet Space
  • Regional Integration and Regional Organizations
  • Regional Security Cooperation and Integration
  • European Integration and Europeanization Processes

Sonja Schiffers

KFG Research Project

Russia and Turkey as Normative Powers. Challenging Liberal Democracy in a Multipolar World Order?

Research Interests

  • Foreign and Domestic Policies of the Post-Soviet States and Turkey
  • Human Rights, Liberal democracy and Authoritarianism
  • Identity in International Relations 

Salome Minesashvili

KFG Research Project

European Identity vis-a-vis National Identity - Domestic Contestation in Scrutiny: The Case of Georgia

Main Fields of Interest

  • Foreign Policy Analysis
  • International Relations Theories
  • Transformation Processes in the Post-Soviet Space
  • EU-Eastern Neighborhood Relations 

Mathis Lohaus (previously BTS)

KFG Research Project

Establishing a Common Set of Rules? A Comparative Analysis of International Efforts in the Fight against Corruption

Main Fields of Interest

  • (Anti-)Corruption
  • Regional Organizations
  • International Law
  • Human Rights

Lusine Samvel Badalyan

KFG Research Project 

The Politics of Monitoring Democratic Progress: Unpacking the EU’s Assessments of Democratization in the Eastern Partnership Countries

Main Fields of Interest

  • International Relations Theory
  • Political Economy
  • EU External Economic and Trade Policies
  • EU Democracy Promotion Policy
  • Clientelism

Kilian Spandler

KFG Research Project

Comparing Regional International Societies: Decolonization, Regionalization and Enlargement in Europe and Southeast Asia

Main Fields of Interest

  • Comparative Regionalism
  • Institutional Change
  • The English School of International Relations