Fall 2021 Young Global Professionals

Digital Forensic Research Lab

Alisha is a senior completing her undergraduate studies at Hunter College, where she is double majoring in Political science and Economics with a concentration in legal studies. On campus, she serves as a board member of a student advocacy organization, the New York Public Interest Research Group. Prior to joining the Atlantic Council, Alisha had the opportunity to intern with Represent US, an advocacy organization focused on US democracy. Alisha also worked for a political consulting firm where she conducted opposition research, and as a research intern for both a Senate and city council campaign. Alisha is deeply interested in the intersection of technology and human rights. In her free time, she enjoys yoga, cooking and playing with her dog!

GeoEconomics Center

Naomi Aladekoba is a rising senior at Spelman College where she majors in International Studies with a concentration in International Development, and minors in Spanish and Asian Studies. Prior to joining the Atlantic Council, Naomi completed the MIT Summer Research Program where she conducted research on the effects of China’s Belt and Road Initiative on participating states. Naomi is passionate about international development and trade, Chinese foreign policy, US-China relations, and human rights. Naomi has worked as an intern for the Lagos branch of the National Commission for Refugees, Migrants, and IDPs. She has also volunteered as a Spanish translator for USDA food aid recipients during the pandemic. In the future, she aims to contribute to the discovery of solutions to the inequalities that exist in our current international system. Naomi is Nigerian American and grew up in the DC-Maryland-Virginia area. She currently resides in Arlington, Virginia and Lagos, Nigeria. In her free time, Naomi enjoys singing, playing her guitar, reading, roller skating and practicing Mandarin and Spanish.

Digital Forensic Research Lab

Beth is a recent graduate of the Fletcher School at Tufts University, where she studied international conflict resolution, human security and gender analysis. She is particularly interested in the impacts of influence operations on peace processes and humanitarian crises, and her master’s thesis examines the role of dis/misinformation, propaganda and hate speech in the ongoing conflict in Ethiopia. While at Fletcher, Beth was a research assistant with the Fares Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies, the Feinstein International Center, and Conflict Dynamics International. Prior to graduate school, she was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ethiopia, where she taught English and worked with the International Rescue Committee on gender-sensitive programming in humanitarian settings. Beth received her BA in Government and Classics from Wesleyan University. She currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, and enjoys playing soccer, running, hiking and cooking.

Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center

Yuval Baharav is a fall 2021 Atlantic Council Young Global Professional, supporting the work of the Adrienne Arsht – Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center. Prior to joining the Center, Yuval served as a community organizer with migrant communities and worked on domestic electric vehicle and charging infrastructure policy. Yuval graduated summa cum laude from the University of California, San Diego and holds a BS in Cognitive Behavioral Neuroscience and Philosophy. At UCSD, she researched adolescent neurodevelopment on a NIH study, interned with the climate action organization SD350, and was a Teaching Assistant for the Rady School of Management’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) courses. Yuval hopes to use her experience in climate security, human decision making, and institutional ethics to advance policy solutions that increase resilience to climate, migration, and international security challenges.

Atlantic Council in Turkey

Selin Batıtürk just completed her master’s degree at the College of Europe where she pursued European Union International Relations and Diplomacy Studies. Her thesis focused on the transfer of EU policies in renewables and energy efficiency to Turkey. The work gained TÜSİAD award for the best thesis on EU enlargement policies. She received her B.A. with high honors from Boğaziçi University where she majored in political science and international relations, as well as business administration. Prior to joining Young Global Professionals, she interned at Turkish Consulate General in Paris. She was young scholar in Global Relations Forum where she found the chance of deepening knowledge on transatlantic affairs. Her main fields of interest are energy politics, energy transition, US-Turkey relations and EU-Turkey relations. Selin is from Istanbul, Turkey. She has proficiency in French and English, and basic knowledge of Arabic.

Africa Center

Wilson Beaver is a graduate student at the Georgetown School of Foreign Service. Wilson served five years in the Army, where he worked in multilateral exercises and operations with NATO partner forces and deployed to the Middle East. While an undergraduate at LSU he studied abroad for three semesters in Istanbul, Turkey and Graz, Austria, where he studied Germanic, Slavic, and Middle Eastern languages and politics and minored in German. In 2009, Wilson took part in the State Department’s National Security Language Initiative program in Russia, where he lived with a host family and volunteered as an English teacher. Wilson is originally from Norfolk, Virginia, but has lived nine years abroad, including two years of high school in the Netherlands and preschool and kindergarten in France. Wilson is proficient in German, Russian, and French.

Global Energy Center

Jordan is a recent graduate of Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service, where he obtained a Master’s degree in Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies and an Honors Certificate in International Business Diplomacy. He became interested in energy and geopolitics initially when researching the Power of Siberia deal in 2014, and has pursued this field ever since. In his Master’s capstone project, he explored political economy and federalism in Russia, comparing several regions by their foreign trade with China. Previously, Jordan conducted sentiment analysis for Hillhouse Analytics regarding Central Asian media sources and the energy transition, and taught English in Harbin, China. He attended Amherst College, where he majored in Russian and wrote a thesis on subjectivity in Soviet literature. Jordan is from Richmond, Virginia.

Future Europe Initiative

Phoenix is a senior at the University of Florida majoring in International Studies with a concentration in Journalism, East-Central Europe, EU Politics and Hungarian. She has worked for WUFT News as a segment anchor covering top international news stories. Phoenix plans to pursue a career as an international affairs reporter and has journalistic experience in the United States and Europe – where she notably reported for New Europe in the Brussels, Belgium. She is a current recipient of the FLAS Fellowship from the U.S. Department of Education for her intermediate studies of the Hungarian language and is a former Benjamin A. Gilman Scholar of the U.S. Department of State. She has conducted research as a UF USP Scholar analyzing Hungary’s counter-terrorism strategies during the European migration crisis. Outside of class, Phoenix is the President of the UF European Union Club and UF Hungarian Club.

Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security—New American Engagement Initiative

Sam is a senior at Tufts University, where he studies International Relations with a concentration in International Security. Prior to joining the Atlantic Council, Sam served as a fellow on several electoral campaigns and interned in state legislative offices. Most recently, he was an intern at the District Office of Congresswoman Lori Trahan. This fall he is working on a senior thesis focused on US grand strategy in the Taiwan Strait. Outside of work Sam loves to play guitar, read, and spend time with his family.

Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center

Willow Fortunoff is a 2020 Truman Scholar and recent graduate of Macalester College, where she studied political science, international studies, and Spanish with a concentration in human rights. Her academic career culminated in an honors thesis on the interplay between race, national identity, and immigration in Argentina. Prior to joining the Atlantic Council, she worked on the Congressional Affairs team at the German Marshall Fund where she contributed to programming on emerging issues within the transatlantic relationship. In the summer of 2020, she worked as a Latin America Program Manager for the international nonprofit Alight: supporting migrant shelter directors across Mexico and El Salvador in receiving COVID-19 medical training, facilitating micro-loan funding, and distributing health messaging. Willow is interested in the next generation of U.S. foreign policy towards Latin America with a focus on subnational diplomacy, climate change and immigration.

Global Energy Center

Madalin How attends George Washington University where she’s majoring in International Affairs with a concentration in International Economics and a minor in sustainability. Over the summer, Madalin worked for a policy risk and due diligence firm on their energy sector team. Currently, Madalin is a student representative on the council for National Capital Area Chapter of the United States Association for Energy Economics (NCAC-USAEE); and is also Vice President of George Washington University’s Women in Finance Alliance.

Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center

Felix is a game designer based in beautiful North Bend, Washington. They’re a recent graduate with a Bachelor of Arts in Game Design from DigiPen Institute of Technology. There, they also worked as a student ambassador, a Teacher’s Assistant mentoring other students on the games they developed, and ran the school’s Wellness Club. During the summer of 2020, the murder of George Floyd and the prolific news coverage of outrage around the world catalyzed them to take personal responsibility in their work for a vital issue affecting humanitarian needs. They’re now building games that inform and engage players in taking action to reverse and prepare for climate change.

GeoTech Center

Maxwell Kushnir is a MSc in Foreign Service candidate at Georgetown University. He is interested in diplomacy, big tech, Western European affairs and post-Soviet security policy. Before Georgetown, Maxwell was an NGO Advisor in Ukraine with the Peace Corps where he consulted on strategic planning and project management. Maxwell received his MA with honors from the University of Edinburgh and is an Erasmus+ exchange alum to the Higher School of Economics, Moscow. Aside from IR, Maxwell is developing a chess iOS app called Chessbridge and enjoys rock climbing.

Future Europe Initiative

Nicole Lawler is a 2020 graduate from the London School of Economics (LSE) where she obtained a MSc degree in European and International Public Policy specializing in Democracy and Governance in Europe. In 2019, Nicole graduated from Smith College where she earned a BA in Government with a concentration in International Relations. During her undergraduate studies, Nicole completed an internship at the D.C. Mayor’s Office and spent her year abroad as a General Course student at LSE. Prior to joining the Atlantic Council, Nicole completed a traineeship at the EU Delegation to the U.S. in the Trade and Agriculture Section—where she followed policy developments on both sides of the Atlantic. Nicole hopes to continue pursuing her interests in European politics and policy, transatlantic relations, and foreign policy broad scale.

Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security—Forward Defense

Jake Mezey is a recent graduate of Yale University where he earned a B.A. in History. He also studied Russian and wrote his senior thesis on the 1992 Transnistria War. His main areas of interest are defense policy, international security, and military theory. In his free time, Jake enjoys playing chess, backpacking, and wrestling.

Rafik Hariri Center and Middle East Programs

Yaseen Rashed is a 4th-year student at The George Washington University where he is majoring in political science with a minor in history. Previously, Yaseen worked with the Libyan American Alliance where he conducted policy research for the bi-partisan Libya Stabilization Act which was passed by Congress to better assert the United States’ foreign policy position in the region’s conflict. Yaseen lived in Libya following the 2011 revolution and his experiences there led him to want to pursue a career in foreign policy specifically focusing on issues in the MENA region.

Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center

Originally from Alexandria, Virginia, Stephen Sisel recently completed a Master’s degree at the University of St Andrews in International Development Practice, with a focus on disaster resilience and policy. While at St Andrews, Stephen was an active member of the Fellowship of St Andrews, a student-run social enterprise specializing in community development and outreach within Fife County, Scotland. Stephen previously served as both an intern and legislative staffer in the United States Senate as well as an intern at the Institute for Sustainable Development in Alexandria Virginia, a think tank specializing in disaster management and community resilience.

Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security—Forward Defense

Tim Trevor has recently completed the Master of Arts History program at California State University Long Beach, where he wrote his thesis on early aviation in the United States as a form of public spectacle. Prior to entering the MA program, Tim spent nearly fifteen years as a professional systems engineer and worked in the aerospace and defense industries in the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom, where he was born and grew up. Projects he has been involved with include the F35 Lightning II fighter aircraft and Airbus A400M transport aircraft, as well as various technology demonstrator programs involving the MQ9 Reaper unmanned aerial vehicle. Tim holds a Master of Engineering degree in Avionic Systems from the University of Bristol.

GeoEconomics Center

Perry is a rising senior at Yale University studying Global Affairs and Mandarin. As a first generation Chinese American, his personal experiences have informed his interest in US-China relations. He is passionate about understanding this defining relationship of the 21st century from both a geopolitical and economic lens, and hopes to pursue a career in the foreign policy community upon graduating. On campus, he is heavily involved within the Asian American Cultural Center as a Peer Liaison and plays on the rugby team. Born and raised in Brooklyn, he enjoys listening to hip-hop and R&B music from local artists and fervently supports the Nets.

Cyber Statecraft Initiative

Logan Wolff is a recent graduate from The Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University where he studied International Affairs with concentrations in Intelligence and Cyber Policy. He is originally from Peoria, Illinois, where he lived until he moved to College Station to attend Texas A&M University. His professional interests include understanding how non-state actors impact international relations, the disconnect between policymakers and practitioners, and how great power competition is sustained through information operations. He spends most of his free time reading, studying Russian or Spanish, or trying new cooking recipes.