Home > For Scholars > Fellowship Program > Past WAPPP Fellows > Fellows 2010-2011
Fellows 2010-2011
Christine Benesch
Researcher, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology
Christine Benesch is a researcher with the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and recently completed her Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Zurich, Switzerland. Her research interests include political economy, behavioral economics and media economics, and she has examined local television markets and elections as well as the effects of television consumption on subjective well-being. During her fellowship at WAPPP, Christine worked on a project examining media markets, media consumption and the political involvement of women and men.
Paula Caplan
Voices of Diversity Project Director, DuBois Institute, Harvard University
Paula Caplan is a clinical and research psychologist and the Director of the Voices of Diversity Study based at the DuBois Institute at Harvard. Previously, she was a Full Professor of Applied Psychology and head of two graduate programs (one of which included the Feminist stream in Community Psychology) at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) of the University of Toronto, as well as Head of the OISE Centre for Women’s Studies in Education. She also taught in the University of Toronto's undergraduate Women's Studies Programme. More recently, she served as a lecturer in Harvard’s Psychology Department and in the Program on Women, Gender and Sexuality. During her fellowship at WAPPP, Paula worked on two projects: the Voices of Diversity study and a book project on returning women and men veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Paula holds a Ph.D. and a M.A. in Psychology from Duke University and an A.B. in English from Radcliffe College.
Kathleen Coyne-McCoy
Regional Director, EMILY’s List
Kathleen Coyne-McCoy is the Regional Director for EMILY’s List, an organization dedicated to electing pro-choice, Democratic women to federal, state and local office. She has designed and implemented training programs for women candidates seeking political office and has helped elect over 100 women to state and local office. During her fellowship at WAPPP, Coyne-McCoy worked to develop a training manual designed for the members of the From Harvard Square to the Oval Office program. Her training will focus on topics such as strategic steps in making the decision to run, getting ready to run, building a campaign plan, creating campaign message, working with the media, and fundraising. Coyne-McCoy holds a M.S.W. from Rhode Island College and a B.A. in Social Work from Providence College.
Sreedhari Desai
Post-doctoral Research Fellow at the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics
Sreedhari Desai is a post doctoral research fellow at the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University. Her research interests are primarily in the domain of ethics and include issues related to gender diversity. For instance, in one of her projects, she examines how the presence of high levels of firm-specific risk may lead to a thickening of the glass ceiling and lead to fewer women at the top of American corporations. During her fellowship year at WAPPP, Sreedhari’s research focused on how having a stay-at-home versus working wife influences male employees’ attitudes and behavior toward their female counterparts and subordinates. Sreedhari holds a Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior from the University of Utah, an M.S. in Finance, also from the University of Utah, and a B.S. in Metallurgical Engineering from the Punjab Engineering College. In the fall of 2011, she began a position as Assistant Professor at the Kenan-Flagler Business School in the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Maya Eichler
Gender and International Security Fellow, joint with the International Security Program at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
Maya Eichler joined WAPPP from the University of Southern California, where she held the Hayward R. Alker Postdoctoral Fellowship on the theme of Gender in Global Issues at the Center for International Studies. Her research focused on gender and security issues, in particular on women's an men's roles in military institutions and processes of militarization. Maya has published in the International Feminist Journal of Politics and several edited volumes, and co-edited a special issue of the Austrian Journal of Political Science on “Counter/Terror/Wars: Feminist Perspectives” (no. 2, 2008). While a fellow at WAPPP, Maya completed her book manuscript on "Gender, Conscription, and War in Post-Soviet Russia" as well as conducted research on a new project titled "Gender and Global Governance: The Privatization of Military Security." Previously, she was the recipient of the Human Security Doctoral Fellowship awarded by the Canadian Consortium on Human Security. In 2010, she was selected for the Jill Vickers Prize awarded by the Canadian Political Science Association for the best paper on gender and politics presented at its annual conference. Maya holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from York University (Toronto).
Julian Jamison
Senior Economics, Center for Behavioral Economics and Decisionmaking, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston
Julian Jamison is a Senior Economist with the Center for Behavioral Economics and Decision-making at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. During his fellowship at WAPPP, Julian worked on three experimental gender and development projects in Uganda and Tanzania. Two of the projects are focused on reproductive health and the third centered on a business skills training program for women who have been affected by the civil war or HIV. Previously, Julian taught at Harvard Kennedy School, the Brain and Creativity Institute at the University of Southern California, the University of California at Berkeley and San Francisco, and the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a M.A. and B.A. in Mathematics from the California Institute of Technology.
Pinar Keskin
Assistant Professor of Economics, Wesleyan University
Pinar Keskin is Assistant Professor of Economics at Wesleyan University. During the 2009-10 academic year, she was the Giorgio Ruffolo Postdoctoral Fellow in Sustainability Science at the Center for International Development at HKS. During her fellowship at WAPPP, Pinar worked together with Rohini Pande, Mohammed Kamal Professor of Public Policy at HKS, on the impact of training and capacity building on the empowerment and performance of elected women representatives in rural India. Previously, Pinar served as a Research Intern with the Central Bank of Turkey and as a Research Assistant at Yale University. Pinar’s gender-focused research has centered on female labor force participation, inheritance rights and marriage in India. Pinar holds a Ph.D., a M.A. and a M.Phil in Economics from Yale University and a B.A. in Economics from Bilkent University in Ankara,Turkey.
Maliheh Paryavi
Doctoral Candidate in Public Policy, HKS
Maliheh Paryavi is a doctoral candidate in Political Economy and Government at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and Harvard Kennedy School. She specializes in behavioral and experimental economics and comparative politics with a regional focus on the economic and political development of the Middle East. During her fellowship at WAPPP, Maliheh's research will focused on gender and cultural differences in individual judgment and decision making, in particular to stereotyping and discrimination under crisis conditions. Prior to the PhD, Maliheh worked as a Junior Professional in the Banking and Debt Management Group in the World Bank’s Treasury and a researcher in the World Bank’s Chief Economist’s Office for the Middle East and North Africa region. Maliheh is also a Jack Kent Cooke Graduate Scholar and holds a Master in Public Administration in International Development (MPA/ID) from Harvard Kennedy School, B.S. in Finance and B.A. in Economics from University of Maryland, College Park.
Hamideh Sedghi
Former Visiting Scholar, Harvard University’s Center for Middle Easter Studies and former Professor of Political Science, Villanova University
Hamideh Sedghi is a political scientist and a women/gender studies expert. Formerly a Visiting Scholar at Columbia University’s Department of Political Science, she also taught at Harvard University, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, and Vassar College, and has been a consultant to the United Nations. The first Iranian woman who published works on women in Iran from a social science perspective in the United States, she has written extensively on women/gender in Iran, gender and development, the US-Middle East foreign relations, perception of Muslims in the West and international political economy. She is the author of Women and Politics In Iran: Veling, Unveiling and Reveiling, Cambridge University Press, 2007, re-printed four times. Among her many awards include the Pennsylvania State System for Higher Education (SHEE), the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the 2005 Christian Bay Award for the Best Paper presented at the American Political Science Association. She served as the editor of Women/Politics, of the Women and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association. Her current projects include Secularism and the State Under the Pahlavis and an anthology, Gender and Globalization: Critical Perspectives. At WAAAP she worked on Cyberfeminism and Women’s Protests in Iran.
Alexandra Van Geen
Doctoral Candidate in Public Policy, HKS
Alexandra van Geen is a doctoral candidate in Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School. During her fellowship at WAPPP, Alexandra’s research focused on gender differences in individual judgment and decision making, experimental economics, and diversity and productivity. Prior to beginning her program at Harvard Kennedy School, Alexandra was a political assistant to members of parliament in the Netherlands, where she was responsible for parliamentarians’ speeches on economic and financial matters and on gender equality. She holds a Master of Philosophy in Economics from Tilburg University, the Netherlands, and a B.A. in Social Science from Utrecht University, the Netherlands.
Laura Sjoberg
Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Florida
Laura Sjoberg is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Florida. Her research interests are in the area of gender-based and feminist approaches to the study of international relations generally, and international security specifically. Her research has addressed gender and just war theory, women’s violence in global politics, and feminist interpretations of the theory and practice of security policy. As a WAPPP Associate, Laura has b worked on a special, gender-focused edition of the journal Security Studies. Previously, Laura has taught at Brandeis University, Merrimack College, Duke University, and Virginia Tech. In the 2005-06 academic year, she was a joint fellow with the Women and Public Policy Program and the International Security Program at Harvard Kennedy School. Laura holds a Ph.D. from the University of California School of International Relations, a J.D. from Boston College Law School, and a B.A. from the University of Chicago.
Martina Viarengo
Research Officer, Education and Skills Program of the Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics
Martina Viarengo, an Italian citizen, is a Research Economist with the Education and Skills Program of the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics. For the past several years, Martina has been examining education policy and labor market outcomes in the OECD countries. Specifically, she has devoted her academic research to understand how to improve access to quality education to reduce poverty and inequality. As a WAPPP Associate, Martina iworked on several projects: an examination of policy interventions and the gender education gap in Latin America, institutional changes and investment in education in Latin America, as well as a comparative analysis of school choice. In 2008 Martina was named Newton International Fellow by the British Academy, Royal Society and Royal Academy of Engineering. In 2006 she was Rotary Scholar in Germany. In addition to her Ph.D. received from the London School of Economics, Martina holds a Master’s from Northwestern University and a B.A. in Economics from the University of Turin.
print
email