The Mershon Center for International Security Studies is pleased to announce the recipients of awards from the Spring 2026 grant cycle. 

Faculty Awards

Six faculty members from six departments are pursuing research projects that impact people and policy across the world. For the first time in the Mershon Center's history, an Engineering faculty member, Abdollah Shafieezadeh, received a grant award and joins the Mershon Center community. 

• Maxamed Abumaye, Assistant Professor, African American and African Studies: Policing Somali Refugees in Nairobi
• Erin Moore, Anthropology: Securing Access to Life-Saving Medications: Policy and Patient Advocacy in the Fight for Public Pharmaceutical Manufacturing
• Eric Schoon, Sociology: Legitimacy in a Post-Truth Era: An Experimental Exploration of How Ground-Truth Evidence Shapes Perceptions of Legitimacy
• Abdollah Shafieezadeh; Civil, Environmental & Geodetic Engineering: Wartime Electricity Deprivation and Civilian Security in Ukraine: Mapping Risks, Fragility, and the Geopolitics of Energy Solidarity
• Alexander Thompson, Political Science: The Politics of Global Climate Leadership
• Lydia Walker, History: The Non-State Archive

Graduate Student Awards

In addition, twelve graduate students received grants to support their research projects.  

• Joseph Bell, Political Science: Subjects of Liberation: The 1967 Congress Against Violence
• Garbiel Gorre, Political Science: Resistance in the Time of Monsters: Constructing a Transnational Future Amidst Hegemonic Rupture
• Mansi Goyal, History: Between a Rock and a Seed: Rajasthani Producers in the Making of Modern Energy, 1973-1986
• Harry Hughen, History: A World Transformed: How the US-China Relationship Reshaped Global Order (1979-2001)
• Abdullah Jaber, Political Science: The Logic of Disruption
• Cedric Kim, Political Science: When Do Citizens Support Industrial Policy? Public Opinion, Framing, and Domestic Support for the CHIPS Act
• Lindsay Naumann-Montoya, Agricultural Communication, Education, and Leadership: Echoes of Conflict, Seeds of Peace: An Exploration of Rural Development in Colombia from Both Perspectives of Conflict and Peace   
• Sachi Pilapitiya, Political Science: From Deterrence to Procurement: Migrant Labor Reliance as a Determinant of Foreign Aid       
• Derrik Rivet, History: Non-Aligned Lives: Relations between Tanzania and Yugoslavia
• Emily Tingler, Geography: Bodies as Evidence: Embodied Toxicity, Strategic Chemicals, and Industrial Power in West Virginia
• Farah Tolu-Honary, Political Science: Negotiating Dissent on Discord: Moroccan Mobilization in the Gen Z 212 Movement

Congratulations to all who received funding during the Mershon Center’s Spring 2026 grant cycle!