The Outlook

Ambassador Frank Lavin served as Under Secretary for International Trade (2005-2007), acting as lead trade negotiator for China and India and overseeing global commercial policy, export promotion, and trade talks. Previously, he was U.S. Ambassador to Singapore (2001-2005), where he helped negotiate the U.S.-Singapore Free Trade Agreement. He has held senior finance and management roles in Hong Kong and Singapore with Bank of Ameri...

Dr. S. Vasu Vaitla is an international security scholar and practitioner with twenty-five years of experience across the U.S. Department of State, the United Nations, the U.S. Air Force, and Initiatives of Change (an international peacebuilding NGO.) He currently teaches security studies at Georgetown University. Most recently, Dr. Vaitla led strategic analysis on South Asia and the Indian Ocean region as a senior foreign affairs a...

Mark Brzezinski has a distinguished career in public service and the private sector. He currently is President and CEO of Brzezinski Global Strategies, a boutique strategic consulting firm. Mark served as U.S. Ambassador to Poland from 2021-2024. During the Obama Administration, Mark served as the U.S. Ambassador to Sweden between 2011-2015. During his tenure as Ambassador, U.S. commercial diplomacy efforts in the Nordic region wer...

Robert Malley is a lecturer and Senior Fellow at the Yale Jackson School and the author, with Hussein Agha, of Tomorrow is Yesterday: Life, Death, and the Pursuit of Peace in Israel/Palestine. He served as Special Envoy for Iran from January 2021 to April 2023. Prior to that, he was president and CEO of the International Crisis Group. Under President Barack Obama, he served as Special Assistant to the President, Senior Advisor to t...

Michael Rubin is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he specializes in Iran, Turkey, and the broader Middle East. A former Pentagon official, Dr. Rubin has lived in post-revolution Iran, Yemen, and both pre- and postwar Iraq. He also spent time with the Taliban before 9/11. For more than a decade, he taught classes at sea about the Horn of Africa and Middle East conflicts, culture, and terrorism, to deployed...

Professor Lind is an Associate Professor of Government at Dartmouth and the author of the new book, Autocracy 2.0: How China’s Rise Reinvented Tyranny. It argues that China has risen to become a superpower and technological leader – which defies the expectations of an influential school of economic thought that holds that liberal institutions are essential for innovation. Lind’s first book was Sorry States: Apologies in Internation...

Victor Lago ‘26, Madeline Shaw '25, and Sophia Sahni ‘28 sit down for a conversation with Mona El Naggar.

Mona El-Naggar is an international correspondent and documentary filmmaker with twenty years of experience producing and driving award-winning work for the New York Times. She is an expert in Middle East politics, religion, women, youth, and culture, and has reported in nearly every country in the Arab world. Based in Cairo...

Anika Mukker ‘26; Daphna Fineberg ‘26; Victor Lago ‘26; and Sophia Sahni ‘28 sit down for a conversation with Geeta Anand. 

Geeta Anand ‘89 is editor-in-chief of VTDigger. A Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist, author and former university dean, Anand brings nearly 30 years of experience in investigative and public service journalism to the role. Anand served as dean of the University of California Berkeley Graduate School of Journali...

Victor Lago ‘26, Sophia Sahni ‘28, Alex Rockmore ‘27, Hannah McGee ‘27, Amber Pascovici ‘29, and Victoria Webb ‘29 sit down for a conversation with Nicholas Opiyo.

Nicholas Opiyo is the Senior Director for Human Rights at the African Middle Eastern Leadership Project, and a Frontline Fellow with the Renew Democracy Initiative. He is an award-winning human rights attorney and democracy and justice advocate from Uganda, where he found...

Pranav Akella ‘27 sits down for a conversation with Rose Gottemoller.

Gottemoeller was the Deputy Secretary General of NATO from 2016 to 2019, where she helped to drive forward NATO’s adaptation to new security challenges in Europe and in the fight against terrorism. Prior to NATO, she served for nearly five years as the Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security at the U.S. Department of State, advising the Secreta...

Daphna Fineberg ‘26, Anika Mukker '26, Hrishik Roy ‘27, and Naomi Franzblau ‘28 sit down for a conversation with Dr. Yael Berda.  

Dr. Yael Berda is Assistant Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at Hebrew University and Academy Scholar for International and Area Studies at Harvard University. Previously, Berda was the Gerard Weinstock Visiting Lecturer in the Department of Sociology at Harvard University and an Academy Scho...

Daphna Fineberg ‘26, Pranav Akella ‘27, Alex Rockmore ‘27, and Sophia Kohmann ‘28 sit down for a conversation with Candace Rondeaux.

Candace Rondeaux directs Future Frontlines at New America. Future Frontlines is a public intelligence service for next generation security and democratic resilience. A journalist and public policy analyst, she is a professor of practice and fellow at the Melikian Center for Russian, Eurasian, and East ...

Daphna Fineberg ‘26, Pranav Akella ‘27, Sophia Kohmann ‘28, and Sophia Sahni ‘28 sit down for a conversation with Rania Aziz.

Rania Aziz is Sudanese activist who is deeply enmeshed in Sudan’s transformative landscape. She played a pivotal role in the revolution as a former member of the Sudanese Professional Association. Within the MANSAM Coalition, she championed women’s involvement in the transition government and spearheaded civi...

 Sophia Sahni ‘28, and  Pranav Akella ‘27 sit down for a conversation with Susan Stignant and Michael Woldemariam.

Susan Stigant is the director of Africa Programs at the U.S. Institute of Peace that last month established an Africa Center to deepen, elevate, and expand the Institute’s commitment to stem violent conflict in Sub-Saharan Africa. Ms. Stigant oversees the Institute’s programming on strategic regional engagement in the G...

Daphna Fineberg ‘26, Fiona Hood ‘26, Ryder Zufi ‘28, Eli Jacobs ‘28, Pranav Akella ‘27, and Madeleine Shaw ‘25 sit down for a conversation with Henry Wooster.

Henry T. Wooster serves as the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs.  He served as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan from September 2020 to July 2023, and prior to his Ambassadorship, as t...

Brook Mind '26 sits down for a conversation with Shiori Ito.

Shiori Ito is an Oscar and BAFTA nominated documentary filmmaker, journalist, writer, and co-founder of Hanashi Films, focusing on gender-based human rights issues. Named one of TIME magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in 2020, her voice continues to resonate globally through film, writing, and public speaking

Ito’s earlier work includes documentaries highlight...

Sophia Sahni '28, Pranav Akella '27, and Anika Mukker '26 sit down for a conversation with Wendy Cue.

Ms. Wendy Cue joined the Inter-Agency Standing Committee secretariat at the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in January 2018. Prior to this role, she served as Head of the OCHA Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean from July 2015. Wendy has more than 25 years of i...

Madeleine Shaw ‘25, Victor Lago ‘26, Amen Salha ‘26, Luke Hilborn ‘27, Ryder Zufi ‘28, Sophia Sahni ‘28 sit down for a conversation with Dr. Khalil Shikaki.

Khalil Shikaki is a professor of political science and director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah. He is also a senior fellow at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University. He is a co-founder of the Arab Barometer and ...

Madeine Shaw, Victor Lago. Sophia Sahni, Arian Chimenson, and Pranav Akella sit down for a conversation with Evgenia Kara-Murza, Vladimir Kara-Murza, and Tikhon Dzyadko.

Bios: 

Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Russian politician, author, and historian who was imprisoned from 2022 to 2024 for speaking out against the war in Ukraine. He’s a recipient of the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for commentary and a longtime advocate for democracy in Russia. ...