Security / Defense

Research Interest

Alexander Stephenson

Graduate Student
Political Science

Alexander Stephenson is a PhD Student in the Travers Department of Political Science at UC Berkeley. His primary research interests are military organizations, policing, the determinants of political violence, and causal inference. He is also interested in creating tools to make software easier to use for non-technical political scientists. Stephenson holds a B.A. from the University of Minnesota focused on Political Science and Statistics.

He is also a mentor for the IIS Undergraduate Fellowship Program.

Chai Peddeti

Graduate Student
Nuclear Engineering

Chai Peddeti is a first year PhD student in the Nuclear Engineering Department at the University of California, Berkeley, specializing in Nuclear Materials. His work involves analyzing irradiated material using various laser-based spectroscopy techniques. Peddeti is interested in non-proliferation, nuclear policy relating to nuclear materials, global relations, and nuclear security.

Anthony Morreale

Graduate Student
History

Anthony Morreale is a Ph.D. Candidate in History at the University of California, Berkeley, focusing on Southeast Asia.. His dissertation researches the history of Vietnamese nationalism and Sinophobia. His interests span Southeast Asian political and social history, and he also translates Vietnamese literature into English.

Anatol Klass

Graduate Student
History

Anatol Klass is a doctoral student in History at the University of California, Berkeley. He researches the modern Chinese state’s encounters with international organizations and international law in the twentieth century. His work explores Chinese state-building and the construction of global governance regimes as interrelated processes.

Joseph A. Ledford

Graduate Student
History

Joseph A. Ledford is a Ph.D. candidate in the History Departmentat the University of California, Berkeley, where he specializes in the history of U.S. foreign relations and the American presidency. His research and writing generally focus on the exercise of American power in the world, as well as presidential power and the relationship between domestic politics and foreign affairs. He maintains a broad interest in matters of intelligence, strategy, and war.

Manseok Lee

Graduate Student
Goldman School of Public Policy

Manseok Lee is a Ph.D. candidate in public policy at UC Berkeley and an active duty army major of the Republic of Korea. His research interests include international order in East Asia, strategic stability, nuclear nonproliferation regime, North Korea’s nuclear strategy, and US-China relations. Previously, he held an instructor position in war history at the Army College of Korea, worked for the Ministry of National Defense of Korea, and was a research associate at the Center for Global Security Research in the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Manseok received master's degrees both...

Vanessa Navarro-Rodriguez

Graduate Student
Political Science

Vanessa is a Ph.D. student in political science at the University of California, Berkeley, studying gendered violence and international relations. Her research currently examines the prevalence of sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) by peacekeepers during UN peacekeeping operations.

Carlos Schmidt-Padilla

Graduate Student
Political Science

Carlos Schmidt-Padilla is a doctoral candidate in Political Science at the University of California at Berkeley. His research interests encompass the political economy of development of Latin America and of sub-Saharan Africa. In particular, he studies questions concerning crime, human capital, immigration, and policing under weak institutional settings.

Biz Herman

Graduate Student
Political Science

Biz Herman is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at University of California, Berkeley. Her research focuses on the politics of history, conflict, and group belonging. Her dissertation research examines the ways in which the mental health implications of forced migration and conflict impact intergroup dynamics and social cohesion.

Bethany L. Goldblum

Associate Research Engineer

Bethany L. Goldblum is an Associate Research Engineer in the Department of Nuclear Engineering and the executive director of the Nuclear Science & Security Consortium at the University of California, Berkeley. She is also a staff scientist in the Nuclear Science Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Goldblum studies fundamental and applied nuclear physics, proliferation detection, and nuclear weapons policy.