The Outlook

Amb. Frank Lavin joins Victor Lago '26 and Anika Mukker '26 on The Outlook.Frank Lavin served as Under Secretary for International Trade at the U.S. Department of Commerce in the George H.W. Bush administration. In that capacity, Lavin served as lead trade negotiator for both China and India and was responsible for commercial policy, export promotion, and trade negotiations across the globe. Lavin was previously U.S. ambassador to Singapore, where he helped negotiate the U.S.-Singapore Free Trade Agreement. Lavin is active in U.S.-Asia policy, U.S. domestic politics, and trade policy matters. He serves as a Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution as well as a Trustee of the Asia Foundation and as a Director of the Asia Society of Northern California. In the private sector, Lavin served in senior finance and management positions in Hong Kong and Singapore with Edelman, Bank of America, and Citibank. Lavin also served in the George W. Bush and Reagan Administrations, working in the Department of Commerce, Department of State, National Security Council, and White House. In the Reagan Administration, Lavin served as White House Political Director. He is a columnist for Forbes.com and has been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and elsewhere. Lavin is also the author of Inside the Reagan White House, The Smart Business Guide to China E-Commerce, co-author of Export Now, and author of Home Front to Battlefront, a World War II history book. Lavin is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and serves on the Advisory Board of ECIPE, a Brussels-based think tank. Lavin has participated in two humanitarian missions to Ukraine. He formerly served as a Lt Commander in the U.S. Naval Reserves. Lavin earned a BS from the School of Foreign Service; an M.S. in Chinese Language and History from Georgetown University; an M.A. in International Relations and International Economics from Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies; and an M.B.A. in Finance from the Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania. 

Professor Lind is an Associate Professor of Government at Dartmouth and the author of the new book, Autocracy 2.0: How China’s Rise Reinvented Tyranny. It argues that China has risen to become a superpower and technological leader – which defies the expectations of an influential school of economic thought that holds that liberal institutions are essential for innovation. Lind’s first book was Sorry States: Apologies in International Politics, which examines the effect of war memory on international reconciliation. She has authored scholarly articles in International Security and International Studies Quarterly, and writes for wider audiences in outlets such as Foreign Affairs and National Interest. Lind is also editor in chief of Blue Blaze, a multi-author Substack focusing on international relations and US foreign policy.  Professor Lind is affiliated with the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies at Harvard, as well as Chatham House, London. In recent years she has been a visiting scholar at Waseda University, Japan, and at the School for Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. Lind has worked as a consultant for RAND and for the Office of the Secretary, U.S. Department of Defense. 

Michael Rubin is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he specializes in Iran, Turkey, and the broader Middle East. A former Pentagon official, Dr. Rubin has lived in post-revolution Iran, Yemen, and both pre- and postwar Iraq. He also spent time with the Taliban before 9/11. For more than a decade, he taught classes at sea about the Horn of Africa and Middle East conflicts, culture, and terrorism, to deployed US Navy and Marine units.   Dr. Rubin is the author, coauthor, and coeditor of several books exploring diplomacy, Iranian history, Arab culture, Kurdish studies, and Shi'ite politics, including "Seven Pillars: What Really Causes Instability in the Middle East?" (AEI Press, 2019); "Kurdistan Rising" (AEI Press, 2016); "Dancing with the Devil: The Perils of Engaging Rogue Regimes" (Encounter Books, 2014); and "Eternal Iran: Continuity and Chaos" (Palgrave, 2005).   Dr. Rubin has a PhD and an MA in history from Yale University, where he also obtained a BS in biology.  

Robert Malley is a lecturer and Senior Fellow at the Yale Jackson School and the author, with Hussein Agha, of Tomorrow is Yesterday: Life, Death, and the Pursuit of Peace in Israel/Palestine. He served as Special Envoy for Iran from January 2021 to April 2023. Prior to that, he was president and CEO of the International Crisis Group. Under President Barack Obama, he served as Special Assistant to the President, Senior Advisor to the President for the Counter-ISIL campaign, and White House Coordinator for the Middle East, North Africa and Gulf Region in 2015-2016 and, before that, as Senior Director for the Gulf Region and Syria.   Before joining the National Security Council staff in February 2014, Malley founded and directed the International Crisis Group's Middle East and North Africa Program from January 2002. Prior to that, he was a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.  Until January 2001, Malley was Special Assistant to President Clinton for Arab-Israeli Affairs and Director for Near East and South Asian Affairs at the National Security Council. Mr. Malley first joined the National Security Council staff in August 1994 as Director for Democracy. In July 1997, he became Executive Assistant to the National Security Advisor from July 1997 to September 1998, acting as an informal chief of staff for Samuel R. Berger.   Malley served as a law clerk to Justice Byron R. White of the United States Supreme Court in 1991-1992.  Malley is a graduate of Yale University, Harvard Law School and Oxford University, England, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. He is the author of The Call from Algeria: Third Worldism, Revolution and the Turn to Islam, and of articles published in the New York Review of Books, Foreign Affairs, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Le Monde, and several other publications.  

Mark Brzezinski has a distinguished career in public service and the private sector. He currently is President and CEO of Brzezinski Global Strategies, a boutique strategic consulting firm. Mark served as U.S. Ambassador to Poland from 2021-2024. During the Obama Administration, Mark served as the U.S. Ambassador to Sweden between 2011-2015. During his tenure as Ambassador, U.S. commercial diplomacy efforts in the Nordic region were consolidated in the U.S. Embassy in Sweden. Mark arranged the first-ever U.S. Presidential visit to Stockholm in 2013, which brought together all five heads of governments of the Nordic countries for a summit that galvanized a U.S.-Nordic strategic approach on energy, innovation and sustainability. For his service, Mark was awarded the Royal Order of the Polar Star by the King of Sweden, a high honor rarely bestowed on a foreign ambassador. From 1999 to 2001, Mark served on President Clinton's National Security Council staff, first as a Director for Russia and Eurasia, and then as a Director for the Balkans. 

Dr. S. Vasu Vaitla is an international security scholar and practitioner with twenty-five years of experience across the U.S. Department of State, the United Nations, the U.S. Air Force, and Initiatives of Change (an international peacebuilding NGO.) He currently teaches security studies at Georgetown University. Most recently, Dr. Vaitla led strategic analysis on South Asia and the Indian Ocean region as a senior foreign affairs and intelligence analyst at the U.S. Department of State, contributing to the President’s Daily Brief and briefing Cabinet officials and Members of Congress. He also received multiple departmental honors in previous roles for formulating US policy in the UN Security Council to counter foreign terrorist fighters, advancing global efforts to prevent radicalization to violence, and strengthening multilateral sanctions.

Ambassador Frank Lavin served as Under Secretary for International Trade (2005-2007), acting as lead trade negotiator for China and India and overseeing global commercial policy, export promotion, and trade talks. Previously, he was U.S. Ambassador to Singapore (2001-2005), where he helped negotiate the U.S.-Singapore Free Trade Agreement. He has held senior finance and management roles in Hong Kong and Singapore with Bank of America and Citibank and earlier served in the Reagan and Bush (41) Administrations, including as White House Political Director. Ambassador Lavin is a Teaching Fellow at the University of Southern California, Hoover Institution Visiting Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations member, Forbes columnist, and author of several books, including his most recent Inside the Reagan White House. He holds a B.S. and M.S. from Georgetown, an M.A. from Johns Hopkins SAIS, and an M.B.A. from Wharton, and served as a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Naval Reserves. 

Anika Mukker ‘26; Daphna Fineberg ‘26; Victor Lago ‘26; and Sophia Sahni ‘28 sit down for a conversation with Geeta Anand. Geeta Anand ‘89 is editor-in-chief of VTDigger. A Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist, author and former university dean, Anand brings nearly 30 years of experience in investigative and public service journalism to the role. Anand served as dean of the University of California Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and worked as a foreign correspondent for The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, reporting from India on a range of international issues. Anand began her career in Vermont, covering southern Vermont and Rutland for The Rutland Herald, where her reporting on credit reporting errors led to congressional action. She later covered City Hall for The Boston Globe and is the author of “The Cure,” a book about a family’s search for medical answers that was adapted into the film “Extraordinary Measures,” starring Harrison Ford

Victor Lago ‘26, Madeline Shaw '25, and Sophia Sahni ‘28 sit down for a conversation with Mona El Naggar.Mona El-Naggar is an international correspondent and documentary filmmaker with twenty years of experience producing and driving award-winning work for the New York Times. She is an expert in Middle East politics, religion, women, youth, and culture, and has reported in nearly every country in the Arab world. Based in Cairo, she authors stories that cover gender issues, war and conflict, and the changing political and social dynamics shaping everyday life. El-Naggar holds a BA in Political Economy from Georgetown University and a MA in News and Documentary from New York University. She was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for international reporting, an Emmy Nominee for news and documentary, and the recipient of numerous awards, including the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA) Best of Photojournalism Award.

Victor Lago ‘26, Sophia Sahni ‘28, Alex Rockmore ‘27, Hannah McGee ‘27, Amber Pascovici ‘29, and Victoria Webb ‘29 sit down for a conversation with Nicholas Opiyo.Nicholas Opiyo is the Senior Director for Human Rights at the African Middle Eastern Leadership Project, and a Frontline Fellow with the Renew Democracy Initiative. He is an award-winning human rights attorney and democracy and justice advocate from Uganda, where he founded a civil rights charity and was targeted and attacked for his work. Nicholas has fought for electoral security, free speech, free press, and LGBTQ rights in Uganda. 

Pranav Akella ‘27 sits down for a conversation with Rose Gottemoller.Gottemoeller was the Deputy Secretary General of NATO from 2016 to 2019, where she helped to drive forward NATO’s adaptation to new security challenges in Europe and in the fight against terrorism. Prior to NATO, she served for nearly five years as the Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security at the U.S. Department of State, advising the Secretary of State on arms control, nonproliferation and political-military affairs. While Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, Verification and Compliance in 2009 and 2010, she was the chief U.S. negotiator of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) with the Russian Federation. Prior to her government service, she was a social scientist at RAND and a Council on Foreign Relations international affairs fellow, as well as a senior associate with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, with joint appointments to the Nonproliferation and Russia programs. She served as the Director of the Carnegie Moscow Center from 2006 to 2008, and is currently a nonresident fellow in Carnegie's Nuclear Policy Program. She is also the William J. Perry Lecturer at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Research Fellow at the Hoover Institute, where she teaches and mentors students in the Ford Dorsey Master’s in International Policy program and the CISAC Honors program; contributes to policy research and outreach activities; and convenes workshops, seminars and other events relating to her areas of expertise, including nuclear security, Russian relations, the NATO alliance, EU cooperation and non-proliferation.

Daphna Fineberg ‘26, Pranav Akella ‘27, Alex Rockmore ‘27, and Sophia Kohmann ‘28 sit down for a conversation with Candace Rondeaux.Candace Rondeaux directs Future Frontlines at New America. Future Frontlines is a public intelligence service for next generation security and democratic resilience. A journalist and public policy analyst, she is a professor of practice and fellow at the Melikian Center for Russian, Eurasian, and East European Studies and the Center on the Future of War at Arizona State University. She is a columnist for the World Politics Review and a contributing writer for the Daily Beast. Catalyzing the global human pursuit of dignity, justice, equity, transparency, and accountability is a through line in all her work. Her forthcoming book, “Putin’s Sledgehammer: The Wagner Group and Russia’s Collapse into Mercenary Chaos,” will be published in May 2025 by Public Affairs. Before joining New America, Rondeaux served as a senior program officer at the U.S. Institute of Peace where she launched the RESOLVE Network, a global research consortium on conflict and violent extremism and as a strategic advisor to the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.  She holds a B.A. in Russian area studies from Sarah Lawrence College, an M.A. in journalism from New York University, and an M.P.P. in public policy from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. 

Daphna Fineberg ‘26, Anika Mukker '26, Hrishik Roy ‘27, and Naomi Franzblau ‘28 sit down for a conversation with Dr. Yael Berda.  Dr. Yael Berda is Assistant Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at Hebrew University and Academy Scholar for International and Area Studies at Harvard University. Previously, Berda was the Gerard Weinstock Visiting Lecturer in the Department of Sociology at Harvard University and an Academy Scholar at the Harvard Academy for International & Regional Studies, WCFIA from 2014-2017. Berda has taught at Princeton, NYU, Tel Aviv University and Jindal Global University. She received her PhD from Princeton University; her MA from Tel Aviv University, and her LLB from Hebrew University faculty of Law. She was a practicing Human Rights lawyer, representing clients in Military, District and Supreme courts in Israel. Her most recent book is Living Emergency: Israel's Permit Regime in the West Bank (Stanford University Press, 2017). Berda is currently working on a book manuscript entitled: "The File and the Checkpoint: The Administrative Memory of the British Empire". Her other research projects are about the construction of loyalty of civil servants in Israel and India, the use of emergency laws to shape the political economy of colonial states, and colonial legacies of law and administration that shape contemporary homeland security practices in postcolonial states. She publishes, teaches and speaks on the intersections of sociology of law, bureaucracy and the state, race and racism and sociology of empires.

Brook Mind '26 sits down for a conversation with Shiori Ito.Shiori Ito is an Oscar and BAFTA nominated documentary filmmaker, journalist, writer, and co-founder of Hanashi Films, focusing on gender-based human rights issues. Named one of TIME magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in 2020, her voice continues to resonate globally through film, writing, and public speakingIto’s earlier work includes documentaries highlighting social justice and personal stories from across the globe. Her debut feature, Black Box Diaries, premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival and has since been released worldwide. The film won a Peabody Award, received Oscar and BAFTA nominations, and earned more than twenty international prizes. Screened in over fifty countries, it has sparked global conversations on gender, power, and justice.Ito is the author of Black Box (2017), a memoir based on her own experience of sexual violence that exposed systemic sexism in Japan. In 2018, it won the Free Press Association of Japan’s Best Journalism Award and has since been translated into ten languages including English. Her latest book, Swim Naked (2023), was published in Japan and China, exploring themes of resilience, vulnerability, and survival.Ito’s work has appeared in outlets such as the BBC, Al Jazeera, and The Economist. She was recognized by Newsweek Japan as one of the “100 Most Respected Japanese People in the World” in 2019 and named One Young World’s Journalist of the Year in 2022.

Daphna Fineberg ‘26, Fiona Hood ‘26, Ryder Zufi ‘28, Eli Jacobs ‘28, Pranav Akella ‘27, and Madeleine Shaw ‘25 sit down for a conversation with Henry Wooster.Henry T. Wooster serves as the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs.  He served as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan from September 2020 to July 2023, and prior to his Ambassadorship, as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Maghreb and Egypt. He is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service. Previously, he was the Deputy of Chief of Mission in Paris and Chargé d’Affaires, a.i. at U.S. Embassy Amman. Prior to those assignments, he was Political Counselor at U.S. Embassy Islamabad.Henry T. Wooster serves as the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs.  He served as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan from September 2020 to July 2023, and prior to his Ambassadorship, as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Maghreb and Egypt. He is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service. Previously, he was the Deputy of Chief of Mission in Paris and Chargé d’Affaires, a.i. at U.S. Embassy Amman. Prior to those assignments, he was Political Counselor at U.S. Embassy Islamabad.

 Sophia Sahni ‘28, and  Pranav Akella ‘27 sit down for a conversation with Susan Stignant and Michael Woldemariam.Susan Stigant is the director of Africa Programs at the U.S. Institute of Peace that last month established an Africa Center to deepen, elevate, and expand the Institute’s commitment to stem violent conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa. Ms. Stigant oversees the Institute’s programming on strategic regional engagement in the Greater Horn of Africa, with the African Union as well as constitutional reform and national dialogue processes. She is also the co-director of Senior Study Group on Peace in the Red Sea Arena convened by the U.S. Institute of Peace. Ms. Stigant previously managed constitutional development, citizen engagement and election observation programs with the National Democratic Institute. She was the NDI program director in South Sudan from 2005-2011 where she supported the implementation of the peace agreement. She previously worked with the Forum of Federations on comparative federalism and with the research unit of the Western Cape Provincial Parliament in South Africa.Michael[a] Woldemariam is an associate professor in the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, College Park, and a Senior Fellow at the Center for International & Security Studies at Maryland. Woldemariam’s teaching and research interests are in African security studies, with a particular focus on armed conflict in the Horn of Africa. Woldemariam’s scholarly work has been published in a wide-range of peer-reviewed journals, most recently in Contemporary Security Policy and Studies in Conflict and Terrorism. His popular essays have appeared in outlets such as Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and Current History. His first book, Insurgent Fragmentation in the Horn of Africa: Rebellion and Its Discontents, was published with Cambridge University Press in 2018. In addition to his scholarly work, Woldemariam has consulted with a number of international organizations, primarily on issues related to politics, governance, and security in the Greater Horn of Africa region. He holds a BA from Beloit College, and MA and PhD degrees from Princeton University. Prior to joining SPP, Woldemariam was a tenured faculty member at Boston University’s Pardee School of Global Studies and the Director of its African Studies Center. He has also worked as a research specialist with Princeton University’s Innovations for Successful Societies program and held fellowships from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and Penn State’s African Research Center. In 2020-21, Woldemariam served on the Democratic staff at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee through a Council on Foreign Relations fellowship.

Daphna Fineberg ‘26, Pranav Akella ‘27, Sophia Kohmann ‘28, and Sophia Sahni ‘28 sit down for a conversation with Rania Aziz.Rania Aziz is Sudanese activist who is deeply enmeshed in Sudan’s transformative landscape. She played a pivotal role in the revolution as a former member of the Sudanese Professional Association. Within the MANSAM Coalition, she championed women’s involvement in the transition government and spearheaded civil service reforms. As the founder of the Interconnect Initiative, she underscores the importance of movement building and psychological resilience. Actively engaging on both local and international platforms, she generously shares her expertise with activists worldwide, fostering solidarity and empowering marginalized voices in the pursuit of social change.

Sophia Sahni '28, Pranav Akella '27, and Anika Mukker '26 sit down for a conversation with Wendy Cue.Ms. Wendy Cue joined the Inter-Agency Standing Committee secretariat at the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in January 2018. Prior to this role, she served as Head of the OCHA Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean from July 2015. Wendy has more than 25 years of international and UN experience in humanitarian affairs, human rights, and sustainable development. Her previous assignments include as Head of the OCHA Office in Nepal, Chief of the Emergency Preparedness Section, Coordinator for the Nepal Risk Reduction Consortium, Chief of the Joint UNEP/OCHA Environment Unit, Field Manager for the Pandemic Influenza Contingency, and Team Leader for human rights investigations in Rwanda and Haiti. Her professional journey began in 1992 when joined the Organization of American States/UN human rights mission to Haiti. In 1997, she monitored human rights in Rwanda during the post-genocide years. She joined OCHA in 1999, reporting on the conflict and coup d’état in Guinea-Bissau. Wendy has led UN emergency teams in coordinating initial responses to major disasters, including the tsunami in Sri Lanka, floods in Pakistan, volcano eruption in Cabo Verde, hurricane in Haiti, and Ebola response in the DR Congo.Ms. Cue has a degree in Engineering Sciences and Romance Languages from Dartmouth College and a Master’s in International Relations from the School of Advanced International Studies of the Johns Hopkins University.

Madeleine Shaw ‘25, Victor Lago ‘26, Amen Salha ‘26, Luke Hilborn ‘27, Ryder Zufi ‘28, Sophia Sahni ‘28 sit down for a conversation with Dr. Khalil Shikaki.Khalil Shikaki is a professor of political science and director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah. He is also a senior fellow at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University. He is a co-founder of the Arab Barometer and the Arab Reform Initiative and a co-author of the annual report on the Arab Democracy Index. Since 1993, Shikaki has conducted hundreds of polls among Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and, since 2000, dozens of polls among Israelis. His research has focused on Palestinian state building, public opinion, security sector reform, transition to democracy, and the impact of domestic Palestinian politics on the peace process.

Madeine Shaw, Victor Lago. Sophia Sahni, Arian Chimenson, and Pranav Akella sit down for a conversation with Evgenia Kara-Murza, Vladimir Kara-Murza, and Tikhon Dzyadko.Bios: Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Russian politician, author, and historian who was imprisoned from 2022 to 2024 for speaking out against the war in Ukraine. He’s a recipient of the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for commentary and a longtime advocate for democracy in Russia. A close colleague of the late opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, Vladimir played a pivotal role in the adoption of the Magnitsky sanctions against Russian human rights violators. Despite surviving two assassination attempts through poisoning, he continues to be a relentless voice for freedom. Beyond his political work, he’s also an accomplished filmmaker, having directed three documentaries. Vladimir has led international efforts to honor Nemtsov, including street designations and his recent film, ‘Nemtsov’. He is the founding chairman of the Nemtsov Foundation and served as vice president at Open Russia and the Free Russia Foundation—two organizations that were later labeled "undesirable" by the Russian government. Evgenia Kara-Murza. As Advocacy Director of the Free Russia Foundation, Evgenia plays a critical role in advancing public diplomacy and global outreach for Russian civil society. Following the politically-motivated imprisonment of her husband, Vladimir Kara-Murza, Evgenia has worked to hold Russian officials accountable for violating international commitments to human rights, democracy, corruption, and rule of law. As part of the Free Russia Foundation, she’s a powerful voice in the global campaign supporting Russian anti-war and pro-democracy activists, both inside and outside the country.Tikhon Dzyadko, editor-in-chief of TV Dozhd, which was formerly the only independent TV station in Russia. In March 2022, Russian authorities blocked access to TV Rain in response to its coverage of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Under Tikhon’s leadership, TV Rain relaunched from Latvia and later continued broadcasting from the Netherlands after securing a Dutch license in 2023. Despite ongoing pressures from the Kremlin, TV Rain remains a crucial platform for independent journalism, airing through YouTube to reach audiences both inside and outside Russia. Tikhon is a former deputy editor-in-chief and host of the RTVI channel and a former correspondent and presenter of the radio station Ekho Moskvy.

Alex Rockmore, Vidhi Piparia,  and Himmat Grewal sit down for a conversation with Justice Tsogt Tsend. Justice Tsend studied law at the National University of Mongolia. Receiving a degree from Willamette University College of Law. He was awarded his degree in administrative law from the Graduate School of Law, Nagoya University in 2017. And in 2023, Justice Tsend was awarded an L.L.M after completing the Master of Judicial Studies program at Duke Law School. Justice Tsend began a distinguished judicial career in 2004 when he was appointed as a judge at the newly established Administrative Court of Mongolia. He worked for the First Instance and Intermediate Appellate Court for 16 years, including two years as the Chief Judge of the Administrative Court of Appeals in Mongolia. On December 15th, 2020, Justice Tsend was appointed to the Mongolian Supreme Court. Justice Tsend is also an academic, teaching clinical law, administrative law, and judicial studies since 2002 at Legal Clinic and holding a professorship in the Public Law Department at the National University of Mongolia School of Law. Since 2018. Justice Tsend is one of the forerunners in the development of administrative litigation and judicial review in Mongolia. He is also responsible for the very first database of administrative judicial decisions, which eventually led to the establishment of an open access database of all judicial decisions in Mongolia, as well as the first online research database. Justice Tsend has also published two books and many articles on administrative law and the judiciary.

Walker Wilson and Parnav Akella sit down for a conversation with Margot Wallström. Today we're excited and honored to be joined by Margot Wallström. Margot Wallström served as the European Commissioner for the environment, European Commissioner for Institutional Relations and Communication Strategy, as well as the Vice President of the European Commission from 2004 to 2010. She was also appointed as the first special representative on sexual violence conflict to the United Nations in 2010. In addition, she was Sweden's Minister for Nordic Cooperation from 2016 to 2019. Wallström has also served as Deputy Prime Minister of Sweden and Minister for Foreign Affairs from 2014 to 2019. Since leaving government, Wallström continues her international advocacy for women's rights and democratic values.

Julia Stewed, Prescott Herzog, and Nelson Zhang sit down for a conversation with Dr. Babu Rahman. Dr. Rahman has been a British diplomat since 1998. He is a Research Analyst in the Diplomatic Service, specializing in the UN, with a particular focus on conflict and human rights. As a Research Analyst, he provides objective research, analysis, and advice to support policymaking. He has also performed a number of front-line diplomatic roles, including numerous UN negotiations in New York and Geneva, and in 2006 serving at the UK Embassy in Kabul. He has worked extensively on civil-military integration through secondments to the UK’s cross-government Stabilization Unit and working alongside UK, NATO, and African Union forces in the field. Between 2013 and 2015, he took leave from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to serve as Senior Special Assistant to the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative to Somalia, based in Mogadishu. Between 2015 and 2017, he was Deputy Head of Research Analysts in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. From 2019 to 2020, he was the Special Adviser to the NATO Senior Civilian Representative in Afghanistan. He holds a PhD in International Politics from Aberystwyth University in Wales and was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire by Her Late Majesty the Queen in 2015 for services to peacebuilding in Somalia. 

Madeleine Shaw, Victor Lago, Amen Salha, Pranav Akella, Josephine Kramer, Taanvi Gowdar, and Daniel Park sit down with retired Ambassador Erica Barks-Ruggles. Ambassador Barks-Ruggles served for 32 years in senior leadership and diplomatic positions; most recently leading the successful U.S. effort to rejoin UNESCO, setting up the U.S. Mission from scratch and re-establishing U.S. leadership in the U.N.'s lead institution on AI and emerging technology ethics, education standards, and cultural preservation. She served as the Senior Representative and Head of Delegation to four major International Telecommunication Union conferences in 2022 and oversaw all U.S. policies and relationships with the United Nations while leading the Bureau of International Organization Affairs (IO). Prior to that, she was Senior Diplomatic Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center and Acting Chancellor of the College of International Strategic Affairs (CISA) at the National Defense University. From 2015 to 2018, Barks-Ruggles served as the Ambassador of the United States to the Republic of Rwanda. Earlier in her career as a diplomat and civil servant, she served as the Deputy to the United States Permanent Representative to the United Nations serving on the Deputies Committee of the National Security Council, and as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor overseeing international human rights, and democracy programming in the Middle East and South and Central Asia.

 Vidhi Piparia,  Madeleine Shaw, and Adam Saltzman sit down for a conversation with Dahlia Scheindlin. Dahlia Scheindlin is a fellow at Century International, based in Tel Aviv. She is a public opinion expert and an international political and strategic consultant,  as well as a scholar, writer, and columnist aT Haaretz English; she holds a PhD from Tel Aviv University and she is the author of The Crooked Timber of Democracy in Israel, published in September 2023. She has advised and conducted research on nine national campaigns in Israel over twenty-five years, and has provided research and advising for elections, referendums, and civil society campaigns in fifteen different countries and regions. In the past, she has worked as a senior analyst for the Washington-based global firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research (GQRR), the director of international campaigns at GCS Issue Management, and a researcher at the Israel Democracy Institute. As an independent consultant, she conducts extensive public opinion and policy research on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, the peace process (including working for Prime Minister Ehud Barak during the Camp David negotiations in 2000, through GQRR). She also consults on the issues of democracy, human rights, minority relations, religious identity, Arab–Jewish relations, and foreign affairs for a range of local and international NGOs. She conducts the ongoing joint Israeli–Palestinian public opinion survey together with the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research.

Victor Lago, Madeleine Shaw, and Pranav Kela sit down to talk with Captain Omer Rafiq. Captain Omer Rafiq is a Captain in the United States MarineCorps Reserves, currently serving at Special Operations Central Command in Tampa, FL. He enlisted in the reserve component of the Marine Corps in August 2010. Following initial training, he deployed to Helmand Province, Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. Commissioned as an infantry officer in 2016, he deployed across the globe to Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and East Africa. Most recently, he was one of two US Department of Defense officials on the ground in Port of Sudan supporting the evacuation of US and allied nation citizens from Sudan amidst the recent civil war.

Elizabeth Shackelford is the Magro Family Distinguished Fellow in International Affairs for the Spring 2024 term. She served as a career diplomat in the U.S. State Department, with postings in Warsaw, Poland, South Sudan, Somalia, and Washington, D.C. Her outstanding work in South Sudan during the civil war earned her the prestigious Barbara Watson Award for Consular Excellence. She gained international recognition for her principled resignation in protest of the State Department policies of the Trump administration, which sparked important discussions about diplomacy and governance. That led to her book, The Dissent Channel: American Diplomacy in a Dishonest Age, which chronicles the challenges facing US foreign policy in the modern world. 

Josh Paul resigned from the State Department in October 2023 due to his disagreement with the Biden Administration's decision to rush lethal military assistance to Israel in the context of its war on Gaza. He had  spent over 11 years working as a Director in the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs. He previously worked on security sector reform in both Iraq and the West Bank, with additional roles in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, U.S. Army Staff, and as a Congressional staffer. Josh holds Masters degrees from the Universities of Georgetown and St Andrews, Scotland. 

Stuart Reid is an executive editor at Foreign Affairs magazine and author of The Lumumba Plot: The Secret History of the CIA and a Cold War Assassination. He has written for publications including The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Bloomberg Businessweek, Politico Magazine, and Slate. Stuart grew up in Ontario and Ohio, and received a bachelor’s degree in Government from Dartmouth College.

Vivian Salama covers national security for the Wall Street Journal, based in Washington. She has covered U.S. foreign policy and national security issues for nearly two decades, reporting from more than 80 countries. Before moving to Washington, she served as Baghdad bureau chief for the Associated Press, during which time she covered the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, as well as Iran's growing influence across the region. She also covered the refugee and IDP crisis spurred by the violence, visiting camps across the Middle East. The experience inspired Salama to write a children's book -- The Long Journey Home -- about an innocent Syrian boy who is forced to flee his home because of the war.

Dr. Rose M. Mutiso is the Co-Founder and CEO of The Mawazo Institute, which supports the next generation of female scholars and thought leaders in East Africa, and promotes public engagement with research. She is also the Research Director of the Energy for Growth Hub, a global network connecting research and policymakers to build high-energy systems to power for industry, commerce, and job creation in developing countries. Rose has worked extensively as a researcher and practitioner focused on technology and policy dimensions of energy, environment and innovation globally. Most recently, her work has focused on power sector issues in Africa. She is a Materials Scientist by training with research experience in the fields of nanotechnology and polymer physics. Rose did her undergraduate and doctoral studies at Dartmouth College and the University of Pennsylvania, respectively. She was born and raised in Nairobi, Kenya, where she currently lives, and also splits some of her time in London, UK.

Daniel Fitzgerald Runde is a senior executive and strategist in international development, international trade, investment, global business and organizational change. Runde is the author of the book, "The American Imperative: Reclaiming Global Leadership through Soft Power."

Interview with Micheal Kofman.  Michael Kofman is the director of the Russia Studies Program at CNA and an adjunct fellow at the Center for a New American Security. He specializes in the Russian armed forces, military thought, capabilities and strategy. His work is interdisciplinary, integrating defense strategy, military analysis and history. He is also a contributing editor at War on the Rocks, which regularly publishes his articles on the Russia-Ukraine War, Russian strategy, the Russian military, and related subjects in the field of security studies.

World Outlook discusses journalism, Putin’s biography, domestic political implications for Putin due to the successful Ukranian resistance, the theory of Eurasianism in Russian political discourse, the ideological dispositions of Putin, Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, and the ability of international pressure and sanctions in bringing to an end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with Philip Short, and the positioning of India and China during this invasion. A former foreign correspondent in Moscow, Beijing, and Washington, D.C., for the BBC, the Economist, and the Times of London, Short authored definitive biographies of Mao, Pol Pot, and François Mitterrand. Recently, he has published the biography, Putin, which draws on deep research to reveal the Putin behind the invasion of Ukraine which has dragged Russia back to a dark past. Short spent the 2018-19 academic year with the Dickey Center at Dartmouth College as the Magro Family Distinguished Visitor in International Affairs, while conducting research for Putin.

World Outlook senior editor Sri Sathvik Rayala '24 and associate editors Madeleine Shaw '25, Quinn Hall '26, and Anika Mukker '26 discuss propaganda tools of illiberal governments, democratic movements, challenges proponents of liberal democracy face, motivations that drive proponents of democracy to challenge the status quo, the utility of social media for democratic activists in the Global South, the war against truth by illiberal regimes, and more with Garry Kasparov and Evan Mawarire. Kasparov is a world-renowned Chess Champion, founder of the Renew Democracy Initiative, author, and democracy and human rights advocate from Russia. Mawarire is the creator of the #ThisFlag movement, advocate, speaker, and trainer on nonviolent citizen-driven change, democracy development and human rights from Zimbabwe. 

World Outlook senior editor Sri Sathvik Rayala '24 and associate editors Madeleine Shaw '25 and Quinn Hall '26 discuss the relations between Russia, India, and China following the invasion of Ukraine, the threat of nuclear proliferation in Eastern Europe, the stability of the European Union, the possibility of off ramps for de-escalation in the Russo-Ukrainian War, the women-led protests in Iran, and the tensions in the relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia with Joseph Cirincione. Cirincione is one of America’s foremost national security experts on nuclear non-proliferation who served as Director for Non-Proliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

World Outlook senior editor Sri Sathvik Rayala '24 and associate editors Madeleine Shaw '25 and Adam Tobeck '25 discuss civil conflict in Mali, the 2015 peace accord in Mali, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, population growth, climate change, inequality, migration, the various initiatives performed by the foreign service for Americans and the international community, and more with Ambassador Bisa William—a career diplomat whose tours include France, Mauritius, and Panama and who served as the ambassador to Niger for three years following her appointment by President Obama in 2010. 

World Outlook senior editor Sri Sathvik Rayala '24 and associate editors Madeleine Shaw '25 and Adam Tobeck '25 discuss the Russian invasion of Ukraine, refugees and migration, human rights issues, and more with Ambassador Keith Harper, who served as U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations Human Rights Council from 2014 to 2017 during the tenure of the Obama Administration. 

Annie Pforzheimer,  Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Afghanistan (2018-19), and Dr. Tina Dooley-Jones, Mission Director to USAID Afghanistan (2020-2021),  joined World Outlook editors Ben Vagle '22 , Charlie Bateman '22, and  Sathvik Rayala '24 to discuss topics concerning Afghanistan, including the U.S. withdrawal, the efficacy of U.S. foreign aid in Afghanistan,  the fate of Afghan refugees, and the role of women in U.S. foreign policy.

World Outlook editors Ben Vagle '22 and Sathvik Rayala '24  discuss American civil discourse with David Mindich, the Chair of the Department of Journalism at Temple University and the author of Tuned Out: Why Americans Under 40 Don't Follow the News.

For the season finale, The Outlook has a special episode, with a discussion on Professor Rezvani's work on partially independent territories, a segment filled with takes on the Julian Assange extradition from World Outlook members, and a Q/A with Ambassador Rubin. Thank you for a great first season and thank you to the Class of 2020 for putting in so much time and effort into this organization! 

Update on the implications of elections in Italy's Emilia-Romagna region and Trump's "Deal of the Century" in Israel.