Fellowships Encourage Scholars in Nuclear Security, History and Policy

The Belfer Center has grown this year with the addition of two new fellowships.

Three 2010-2011 Nuclear Security Fellows will spend a year in residence at the Belfer Center and conduct research under the auspices of the Center's International Security Program and Project on Managing the Atom. The fellowships, to begin in September 2010, are supported by a generous gift from the Stanton Foundation.

Karthika Sasikumar, who will be a junior faculty fellow, will research the adoption and adaptation of deterrence theory in South Asia, civil-military relations in nuclearizing countries, and the implications of a "renaissance" in nuclear power.

Yun Zhou, currently a research fellow with the Center's Managing the Atom project, will be a post-doctoral fellow. Her research will focus on the requirements and consequences- for nuclear safety, security, and nonproliferation-of a major expansion of nuclear energy in China and elsewhere around the world.

Mahsa Rouhi is a Ph.D. candidate who will continue her dissertation research and writing on Iran's foreign and security policymaking, with a special focus on Iran's nuclear-related policymaking.

The Ernest May Fellowship is a new initiative to help build the next generation of men and women who will bring professional history to bear on strategic studies and major issues of international affairs. The fellowship honors Ernest May, a member of the Belfer Center's board of directors who passed away in June 2009.

The Ernest May Fellowships have been awarded to James Esdaile and Ian Klaus, doctoral candidates in Harvard's history department. Esdaile's dissertation is on the role of finance through the decline of the British Empire and onset of Cold War. Klaus' dissertation is on the place of fraud in military and commercial expansion of the 19^th century British Empire.

Niall Ferguson, Laurence Tisch Professor of History at Harvard and member of the Center's board of directors, will serve as point of contact and mentor for the fellows.