Ellison Center News
Robert Bedeski (Affiliate Professor) presented a paper entitled, “Human Security and China: Policy v. Theory” at the University of Victoria Conference on Human Security & China’s Foreign Policy. He also moderated a workshop on Canadian investment in Mongolia’s forestry and agriculture sector for Mongolian Prime Minister Batbold’s visit to Simon Fraser University in Vancouver on October 1. In December, Dr. Bedeski completed a book manuscript, The Asiatic State and its Mongol Legacy: Russia, China and the Theory of Anthropocentric Security Professor Bedeski will present a paper to the Midwest Political Science Association in Chicago on April 4, entitled: “A Unified Theory of Anthropocentric Security: A Synthesis of Hobbes, Confucius, and Descartes to Express the Biological, Social, and Political Inputs to Human Survival and Prosperity”.
Shoshana Billik (MAIS 2008 REECAS) was recently interviewed for the School of Russian and Asian Studies newsletter. The interview with Ms. Billik, who works for the National Council for Eurasian and East European Research as a program/information technology officer, can be found here: http://www.sras.org/shoshana_bella_billik_techy_russian.
Mark DiVirgilio (REECAS Program Coordinator, incoming) joined the Ellison Center in February as the new program coordinator. Mark comes to us with extensive knowledge of both the Jackson School and international education and has been working in the EU Center for five years where he manages the Brussels program among other projects. We are very fortunate that Mark could join us, and are pleased to welcome him to the Ellison Center.
Luka Dvaladze (MAIS REECAS 2008) recently accepted a position as an analyst on the South Caucasus for EUCOM’s Strategic Studies Section in North Carolina.
The Ellison Center Team (Marta Mikkelsen, Allison Dvaladze and Carrie O’Donoghue) was nominated for a 2011 Distinguished Staff Award under the team category. The nomination recognizes the team’s contributions to both the REECAS program and the Jackson School.
Jennifer Harkins (MAIS REECAS 2010) has accepted a new position as a legal assistant for Cushman Law in Seattle. Her position entails communicating with non-English speaking Russian clients and helping the firm to expand its clientele base within the Russian community.
Julia Hon (MAIS REECAS 2010) recently joined the Education Programs Division at IREX in Washington, DC. She is working on Title VIII programs and the University Administration Support Program supporting research and higher education development in Eastern Europe and Eurasia. Visit www.irex.org to learn more about IREX's programs to foster civil society, education and independent media.
Jason C. Jarrell (MAIS REECAS/MPA 2006) returned to the U.S. last year after four years in Moscow, Russia working for the oil and gas company TNK-BP on the Alfa Fellowship and then as vice president for an international public affairs and communications firm. Mr. Jarrell now heads up international programs at the Public Affairs Council (www.pac.org) in Washington, DC, an international business association of public affairs professionals representing business, trade associations, non-profit organizations, and consultancies. He was also recently inducted as a new member of the Atlantic Council.
Andrew Mullins (MAIS REECAS Candidate 2011) has just been awarded the 2010 Rado L. Lenček Graduate Prize for his research paper titled “On the Border: National Construction in Finland and Slovenia, Minority Policy, and the Nationalism of Minor Difference.” The Lenček prize is awarded annually by the Society for Slovene Studies for the best research submission in Slovene studies by a North American graduate student.
Andrew’s current research has to do with the role in contemporary Slovene social and political discourse of the 1945 mass executions by Tito’s victorious communist Partisans of Slovenes who collaborated with the Nazi German forces of occupation during World War II.
Carrie O’Donoghue (Program Coordinator, outgoing) after 10 years as Program Assistant and then Program Coordinator, Carrie left the Ellison Center in winter quarter. Carrie was a incredible asset to the center and instrumental in launching new initiatives, not least of which were the numerous databases she painstakingly built to benefit all 8 Title VI Centers in the Jackson School. We will miss Carrie’s contribution to the team, but wish her well on her next adventure. Carrie and her family have set off to sail the world on the SV Madrona. To follow their adventures visit: SVMadrona.blogspot.com
Glennys Young’s book, The Communist Experience in the Twentieth Century: A Global History through Sources, will be published by Oxford University Press in August, 2011. Her essay, "Bolsheviks and Emotional Hermeneutics: The Great Purges, Bukharin, and the February-March Plenum of 1937," will appear in Mark Steinberg and Valeria Sobol, eds., Interpreting Emotion in Russia and Eastern Europe (DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, June 2011.)
Dr. Young also recently returned from a working conference, "The Spanish Civil War's Impact on Spanish and Soviet Political Cultures," held at the University of Pittsburgh on February 18-19, and sponsored by Pitt's Office of the Provost, Office of the Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences, Center for Russian and East European Studies, and the European Studies Center. At the conference, she presented a paper entitled, “Spaniards Out of Karaganda? Refugee Relief, Late Stalinism, and the Legacy of the Spanish Civil War." Dr. Young is Associate Professor in the Department of History and Director of Graduate Studies at the Jackson School of International Studies.
