Clements Center Fellows Complete a Year of Research, Writing, and Service

The Clements Center’s 2025–2026 class of postdoctoral, predoctoral, and military fellows wrapped up a productive year marked by book contracts, journal publications, conference presentations, original fieldwork, and transitions to new positions in academia, government, and military service.

America in the World Consortium Postdoctoral Fellow Joel Blaze taught two courses in the UT Department of History this year—Europe Since 1919 in the fall and World War II in Eastern Europe in the spring, both focused on conflict, security, and historical memory. Blaze was awarded an advance contract for his first book from McGill-Queen’s University Press and served as contributor and editor for a special issue on micro-historical approaches to violence in the former Yugoslavia.

Postdoctoral Fellow Daniel Chardell submitted the first draft of his book manuscript, under contract with Harvard University Press, for peer review. He published articles in Foreign Affairs and War on the Rocks, revised and resubmitted a piece for Diplomatic History, and wrote a book review for Middle East Journal. Chardell also organized a half-day workshop on “Rethinking the Unipolar Moment” and conducted archival research at Columbia University and the British National Archives for two future projects on armed humanitarian intervention and Persian Gulf security.

America in the World Consortium Postdoctoral Fellow Doron Feldman presented his research at conferences in North America and Israel and submitted a proposal on the implications of the Iran War for U.S.-Israel relations and small state security to a peer-reviewed special issue of the Czech Journal of International Relations. He also published op-eds on lessons for Taiwan from the Iran War and on the future of the Abraham Accords. Feldman will continue for a second year as an AWC Postdoctoral Fellow.

Postdoctoral Fellow Claudius Kim founded the East Asian Studies Reading Group at UT Austin, which brings together graduate students and scholars to discuss recent scholarship on East Asia. He received feedback on his book manuscript from UT affiliates and external faculty and completed substantial revisions. Kim will pursue academic appointments in the coming year.

Predoctoral Fellow Alina Bykova submitted her fifth dissertation chapter, workshopped two additional chapters, and launched a Substack newsletter on Arctic history and politics. She presented her research at four conferences and gave a talk on Arctic security. With support from the Clements Center, Bykova will travel to Freiburg, Germany this July to conduct research in the Nazi war archives before returning to Stanford for the final year of her PhD.

Predoctoral Fellow Hasta Colman made significant progress on her dissertation this year, including a six-week fieldwork trip across several countries in Asia, where she conducted more than 35 interviews with retired security officers, government officials, policy analysts, and activists. She built a dataset on China’s joint law enforcement operations abroad with Dr. Sheena Chestnut Greitens and contributed original research and writing to an NGA Tearline project on Chinese security cooperation. (Tearline is a National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency program that produces unclassified intelligence assessments for public release.) Colman will join the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University as an International Security Program Research Fellow.

Predoctoral Fellow Benjamin Schwabe prepared two articles for journal submission this year. One, titled “The Problem of Gratitude and the Conditions of Liberty in Machiavelli’s Political Thought,” is forthcoming in Political Research Quarterly. Schwabe also made significant progress on his dissertation on the political thought of Niccolò Machiavelli and presented his research at major political science conferences in Vancouver, New Orleans, and Chicago.

U.S. Army War College Fellow Lt. Col. Jamie Dobson completed her academic year at UT studying national and international public policy and authored Between Crisis and Competition: The Role of Strategic Narratives in Contemporary Geopolitics, examining U.S. strategic narratives across two case studies—the Cuban Missile Crisis and the modern competition over rare-earth minerals. Dobson will relocate to Tampa to serve as public affairs director of U.S. Special Operations Command.

Army Fellow Col. Chris Masson wrote three papers over the academic year on small unmanned aerial systems, the defense industrial base, and U.S. Army War College fellowships, one of which was published in the Defense Transportation Journal. He also produced 22 podcast episodes with UT faculty and students on the fellowship experience. Masson will take brigade-level command at Red River Army Depot in Texarkana on June 25, 2026.