SIS Research May Newsletter

End-of-Year Faculty Research Accomplishments

SIS Research Newsletter

Dear SIS Community,

We are pleased to share with you our final update on faculty research accomplishments for AY 24-25! This includes grants, awards, and a variety of publications from the past few months, as well as a recap of our 2024-25 Scholar-Teacher of the Year and the last two book launches of the semester.

We wish you all a wonderful summer. Know that the work of SIS Research doesn’t take a summer pause. Please continue to reach out to discuss research funding opportunities and how best to promote your work, and we will be continuing to reach out to you. In the meantime, be sure to keep an eye on our social media pages and website for research highlights and updates.

Nick O'Connell, Research Development - noconnell@american.edu
Emma Vitale, Research Promotion - vitale@american.edu
Externally Funded Project Implementation Support - sisofo@american.edu
Simon Nicholson, Associate Dean for Research - simon.nicholson@american.edu

External Grants and Fellowships

Jonathan Fox, “Program Support to Accountability Research Center,” Open Society Foundation, $1,000,000
Simon Nicholson, “Ocean Carbon Removal Initiative Support’” Carbon180, $260,000

External Awards and Recognition

Steven Bradford, selected as a Boren Fellow and as an American Political Science Association Diversity Fellow for the Spring 2025 Cycle

SIS/AU Intramural Funding and Awards

AU Morton Bender Prize
- Susanna Campbell
CSI Advisor of the Year
- Jeff Bachman
SIS 2025 Scholar-Teacher of the Year
- Guy Ziv
SIS 2025 Research Fellows Award
- Sumitra Badrinathan and Sarah Khan: SIS Collaborative Research Award (CRA) for their project on how gender shapes individuals’ susceptibility to misinformation, and their resistance to efforts to counter it
- Samantha Bradshaw: SIS High-Performing Scholar (HPS) Award for her research project examining how institutions and policymakers balance digital infrastructure expansion with sustainable water management to ensure equitable resource distribution
- Jesse Ribot: SIS High-Performing Scholar (HPS) Award for his research project exploring how ‘market grabbing’ from agricultural and forestry products causes seasonal hunger in Senegal
Dean's Research Awards Summer 2025
- Trey Herr, “Modeling Influence in Cybersecurity Regulation”
- Hansong Li, “International Law for a Different World Order? An Inter-Normative Approach”
- Nina Yamanis, “Assessing the post-PEPFAR landscape for HIV prevention and care programming for a key population in Tanzania”
- Guy Ziv, “The Impact of the National Religious Sector’s Growing Military Influence on Israel’s Democratic Future”
SIS Faculty Awards
- SIS William Cromwell Award for Outstanding Teaching: Tamar Gutner and Victoria Kiechel
- SIS Outstanding Teaching in an Adjunct Position: Nancy Sachs
- SIS Outstanding Scholarship, Research, Creative Activity, & Other Prof. Contributions: Sumitra Badrinathan & Walter Flores
- SIS Outstanding Contributions to Fostering Collaborative Scholarship: Samantha Bradshaw and Judith Shapiro
- SIS Distinguished Service Award: Claire Brunel
- SIS Darrell Randall Award for Outstanding Service: Anders Hardig, David Simpson, and Nina Yamanis
- Outstanding Faculty Administrator: Claudine Kuradusenge-McLeod
- SIS Outstanding Contribution to Promoting Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Award: Mohammed Abu-Nimer
- SIS Outstanding Faculty Mentor: Elizabeth Cohn
- SIS Gunther Eyck Award: Jonathan Crock
PhD Program Awards
- Excellence in Research Assistance: Esther Brito Ruiz
- Samuel Sharp Memorial Prize, for best paper: Aakansha Jain
- William C. Olson Award for teaching: Sahil Mathur
- Mentor Award: Austin Hart & Malini Ranganathan
SIS Faculty Exceptional Research Awards
- Claire Brunel
- Claudine Kuradusenge-McLeod
Van Kirk Fund Award
- Joseph Torigian

Amitav Acharya, The Once and Future Order: Why Global Civilization Will Survive the Decline of the West, Hachette Book Group, 2025.
Shameer Modongal, Navigating A Complex Terrain: India's Strategic Engagements with West Asia During the NDA Government, VIJ Books, 2025.

Peer-Reviewed Articles

Jeff Bachman, "From Drone Strikes to Coalition Bombings: The United States and Ruination of Yemen," Middle East Critique, May 2025. [link]
Jeff Bachman and Esther Brito Ruiz, "The politics of war and aggression: scholarly biases in public discourse on the invasions of Iraq and Ukraine," Critical Studies on Security, May 2025. [link]
Sumitra Badrinathan, "Who Wants Impartial News? Investigating Determinants of Preferences for Impartiality in 40 Countries," International Journal of Communication, March 2025. [link]
Daniel Esser, "Why do bureaucrats want mandatory training? A conjoint mixed-methods analysis of individual learning preferences in German, Norwegian, and South Korean donor agencies," Development Policy Review, March 2025. [link]
Dana Fisher, "Ground-Truthing Political Elites in the Public Sphere: Measuring the Arena Effects of Elite Opinion," Research & Politics, March 2025. [link]
Agustina Giraudy, "What Can Latin America Tell Us about Subnational Democratic Erosion in the United States?" Cambridge CORE's Perspectives on Politics, March 2025. [link]
Tamar Gutner, "Navigating Aspects of Entanglement. Collaboration, Cooperation, Coordination, and the Case of the IMF and World Bank," International Studies Review forum: Introducing Organizational (Dis)Entanglements: How Scholarship on Regime Complexity and Power Dynamics Helps Make Sense of International Order-Making, April 2025. [link]
Jennifer Poole, "The impact of digital technology on worker tasks: Do labor policies matter?" Journal of Development Economics, March 2025. [link]
Guy Ziv, “From Populist Politician to Sober Statesman: Naftali Bennett’s One-Year Premiership,” Israel Studies Review, April 2025. [link]

Working and Policy Papers

Akbar Ahmed, "Three Global Spiritual Leaders in a Time of War and Violence," The Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice, March 2025. [link]

We encourage you to visit us on Twitter/X at @research_sis to see more about what our faculty have been up to. To name just a few, in the past few months our faculty were busy writing and talking about:

Guy Ziv was named the 2024-25 Scholar-Teacher of the Year at our celebration on April 23rd. In addition to being a dedicated teacher and mentor, Guy is a prolific researcher with a steady stream of peer-reviewed articles, two books, and a textbook. He is also a frequent commentator in top US and Israeli newspapers and on global media outlets

Before announcing Guy as the STOTY, last year's winner Rachel Sullivan Robinson presented on her impactful research on global health interventions in sub-Saharan Africa as well as the lessons she has learned from conducting research and teaching students at SIS.

Moderated by Piper Campbell, Josh and panelists Emma Ashford (Stimson Center) and David Edelstein (Georgetown University) discussed how the concepts of strategy and grand strategy interact and the implications for war and peace, which the panelists commented are particularly fraught under the Trump administration and its more transactional-style foreign policy.

In a panel moderated by Miles Kahler, Clemence Landers (Center for Global Development) and Deborah Brautigam (Johns Hopkins SAIS) joined Tammi in an important discussion about multilateral development banks and US-China global governance under the new Trump administration.

We have three book launches already scheduled for this next academic year— congratulations to our authors, and stay tuned for more details!

October 9, 4-5:30pm, Founders Room
- Amitav Acharya, The Once and Future World Order: Why Global Civilization Will Survive the Decline of the West
Date and Time TBA:
- Laura Field, Furious Minds: The Making of the MAGA New Right
Date and Time TBA:
- Joseph Torigian, The Party's Interests Come First: The Life of Xi Zhongxun, Father of Xi Jinping

Nick O’Connell is working to identify relevant funding opportunities and connecting them to particular faculty and projects. Here are a few upcoming opportunities of more general interest. Please be in touch with Nick (noconnell@american.edu) if you’d like to learn more.

Spencer Foundation, Rapid Response Bridge Funding Program – LOIs Due May 30, 2025 (Rapid Response Bridge Funding Program | The Spencer Foundation)
Wenner-Gren Foundation – Anthropological Workshops and Conferences – LOIs due June 1, 2025 (Conference and Workshop Grant | Wenner-Gren Foundation)
Smith Richardson Foundation, Strategy & Policy Fellows Program – Proposals Due June 9, 2025 (Strategy & Policy Fellows Program - SRF)
Society of Family Planning – Several Funding Opportunities – LOIs Due July 7, 2025 (Society of Family Planning: Funding Opportunities)
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Research to Advance Racial and Indigenous Health Equity – LOIs Due July 16, 2025 (Research to Advance Racial and Indigenous Health Equity)
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Exploring Equitable Futures – LOIs Due October 15, 2025 (Exploring Equitable Futures)