Fellowship Recipients 2024-25
The Clough Center has continued to fund Boston College students to facilitate their research and participation. We are especially proud to support the work of our outstanding student fellows, providing an interdisciplinary milieu for their intellectual explorations.听Clough Fellows are at the heart of the center鈥檚 community: they attend regular seminars and Clough events, and publish their original research in the center鈥檚 annual journal and other venues.听Read about our 2023-24 Fellows below, and if you're interested in learning more or applying for a grant, please visit our听Grants page.
Clough Postdoctoral & Visiting Fellows
Chandra Mallampalli
Senior Research Fellow
Chandra Mallampalli is a historian of modern South Asia with interests in religious pluralism, nationalism, and the secular state. At the Clough Center, his research examines challenges facing India鈥檚 multi-religious democracy, especially in light of the surging Hindu nationalism and violence against religious minorities. His scholarship and teaching span the fields of modern India, British Empire, World History, and Global Christianity. His recent book with Oxford University Press (New York), , describes how the lives of Roman Catholics, Syrian Christians, and Protestants have been shaped by centuries of interactions with Hindus and Muslims of the Indian subcontinent. Mallampalli鈥檚 new project, 鈥淭he Virtues of Mixture: Religion, Labor Migrants, and Cosmopolitanism in the Indian Ocean,鈥� explores the role of religious institutions in the lives of South Indian migrants to the Persian Gulf and Southeast Asia since the late 19th century, and whether religion either facilitated cultural mixture and engagement or contributed to sharper boundaries and accommodations to ethnic nationalism. Mallampalli returns to the Clough Center this year as its first Senior Research Fellow.听听
Isaiah Sterrett
Postdoctoral Fellow
Isaiah Sterrett is an historian of nineteenth-century America with particular interests in culture, politics, and the intersections of private and public life. He earned his Ph.D (2023), M.A, and B.A from Boston College. His most recent work concerns the American North between the 1830s and the 1860s. His dissertation, The Perfection of Government: Childrearing, Freedom, and Temptation in the Nineteenth-Century North, draws upon a diverse range of sources, from periodicals and personal correspondence to popular literature and Christian sermons. The study explores the connections that contemporaries drew between childrearing, the home, and the exercise and preservation of individual liberty in a rapidly changing United States. Isaiah has presented his work at the annual meeting of the Society for U.S. Intellectual History (2020) and was an invited respondent in 2021 for the Boston College History Department鈥檚 lecture series. He was a recipient of the Donald J. White Teaching Excellence Award for Graduate Teaching in 2021 and also held four year-long graduate fellow appointments at the Clough Center from 2018-2022. He is excited to rejoin the Clough Center as its new Postdoctoral Fellow for the 2024-25 academic year.
Ahmet Y眉kleyen
Visiting Scholar
Ahmet Y眉kleyen received his Ph.D in Cultural Anthropology from Boston University in 2006 and afterwards worked as the Croft Associate Professor of Anthropology and International Studies at the University of Mississippi from 2006-2015. Additionally, Ahmet was a senior fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center from 2011-2012 and a visiting scholar at Sabanci University in Turkey from 2013-2014. He has received grants from Wenner Gren Foundation, the United States Institute of Peace, and Dutch Council of Higher Education. His research interests include anthropology of religion, ethnicity, Muslims in Europe, Islamic movements, and multiculturalism. Ahmet鈥檚 book, titled Localizing Islam in Europe: Turkish Islamic Communities in Germany and the Netherlands was published by Syracuse University Press in 2012. He has also published articles in journals such as the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Contemporary Islam, Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, and Turkish Studies. Ahmet teaches courses on cultural anthropology, ethnic and religious identity politics in Europe, and Muslims in Western Europe and the United States. He joins the Clough Center as a Visiting Scholar for the 2024-25 academic year.
Danson Sylvester Kahyana
Visiting Scholar
Danson Sylvester Kahyana is a literary scholar听 with over twenty-three years of experience in teaching and writing. He received a Ph.D in English Studies from Stellenbosch University, South Africa, a Master鈥檚 in Literature from Makerere University in Uganda, a Bachelor of Arts in the Social Sciences, as well as a post-graduate diploma in Education. At Makerere University, he taught a number of courses as an Associate Professor of Literature. Additionally, he formerly served as the President of the Ugandan branch of PEN (Poets, Essayists, Novelists) International and was also a member of the wider PEN International board. Kahyana鈥檚 critical work can be found in scholarly journals like English in Africa and The Journal of African Cultural Studies, and he currently writes for the Index on Censorship magazine based in the UK. He has received a number of scholarly awards and fellowships, and was most recently awarded a Scholar-in-Residence position at the Carr Center for Human Rights within the Harvard Kennedy School. Kahyana joins the Boston College community and the Clough Center as a visiting scholar in Academic Year 2024-25.
Clough Doctoral Fellows
Seoyeon Bae
Seoyeon Bae is a first-year Ph.D. student in the Psychology Department at Boston College. She received her B.A. and M.A. in Psychology at Seoul National University in South Korea. Her master's thesis explored empathy intervention through mindsets and virtual reality experiences. She has been broadly interested in empathy, prosociality, and human-AI interaction. Specifically, she has incorporated social cognition concepts into AI models, including developing empathetic chatbots. As a Clough Doctoral Fellow, Seoyeon wants to clarify mechanisms between empathy and prosocial behaviors and enhance people's empathy. She believes empathy is essential in building a democratic society where people can understand and respect various perspectives. She plans to examine if third variables (e.g., intellectual humility or responsibility) mediate empathy and prosocial behaviors, and how to increase people's empathy via interactive AI experiences. Seoyeon aims to create a society where people can embrace diverse thoughts by empathizing with each other.
Luke Brown
Luke Brown is a third-year doctoral student in Higher Education at Boston College. His research focuses on the problems, practices, and possibilities of intergroup dialogue in higher education institutions. He is especially interested in how dialogue is taken up within a variety of institutional contexts and its role in transformational learning experiences. As a Clough Doctoral Fellow, Luke will explore the essential role of dialogue in pluralistic democracies and investigate a variety of frameworks for generating greater civic engagement, perspective taking, and alliance building. Luke continues to invest in learning environments where individuals can engage through, not despite, differences and grapple with the complexity of sharing power amidst ongoing inequities. Before joining the 自慰视频 academic community, he earned his BA and MA in English Literature from Georgetown University and taught as an instructor at the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein, South Africa, and Howard University in Washington, DC.
Akash Chopra
Akash Chopra is a third-year doctoral student in the Department of Political Science concentrating on the field of Comparative Politics, with a specific focus on South Asia. He earned a Bachelor's degree from Boston University in 2020, where he majored in Economics and International Relations, and subsequently obtained his Master's degree in Political Economy from Duke University in 2022. As a Clough Doctoral Fellow, Akash will focus on how minoritarian religions function in majoritarian settings. By focusing on how places of worship can be politicized, he will investigate how public goods provision is leveraged in minority communities in exchange for votes.
Mackenzie Daly
Mackenzie Daly is a first-year Ph.D. student in the English Department at Boston College. She听received her B.A. in Sociology from Syracuse University and her M.A. in English from the听University of Virginia. Her research interests include Early American literature, politics, and听culture, affect theory, material culture, and bibliography. As a Clough Doctoral Fellow,听Mackenzie is broadly interested in the ways in which affect and politics intersect. She hopes to continue the work she did as a master鈥檚 student, which included examining how texts and other forms of media localize and individualize national culture, thus shaping our understanding about what it means to be a citizen. She will also consider the phenomenon of mass mourning as a political or (to use Lauren Berlant鈥檚 term) juxtapolitical act.
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Stephen de Riel
Stephen de Riel is a second-year Ph.D. student in the History Department at Boston College. He received his B.A. in History from Hampshire College in 2022. Stephen鈥檚 interest is in 19th and 20th century American history, with a focus on industry, transportation, and the environment. As a Clough Doctoral Fellow, he is exploring how industries wield social and cultural power, and how this power is asserted through both physical and conceptual environments. Stephen is particularly interested in how industrial power is asserted and held through the wide-scale environmental change brought on by cycles of development and abandonment. By examining these ideas, Stephen aims to understand how to approach historic and modern environmental injustices, as well as how current industrial policy makers and planners can better plan for equitable and sustainable futures.
Kelvin Li
Kelvin (Ka Ho) Li is a second-year Ph.D. student in the Philosophy Department. He received his B.A and M.Phil in Philosophy at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, where he concentrated in the field of phenomenology. As a Clough Doctoral Fellow, Kelvin鈥檚 research explores the multiple layers of attachment-formation through human and inter-human vulnerability in the lived experience of diaspora, particularly by those facing political atrocities and displacement. While vulnerability is an integral part in the constitution of communal identities, it also embodies an essential ambiguity: though it can be employed to support generosity and hospitality to others, it can also promote violence and xenophobia in the name of self-defense. Kelvin鈥檚 aim is to better articulate the ethical significance of vulnerability and its implications in the debate between nationalism and globalism.
Julia Mahoney
Julia Mahoney is a second-year Ph.D. student in the Political Science Department at Boston College. She received her B.A. in History and Political Science from Davidson College in 2023. Julia鈥檚 undergraduate thesis compared Alexis de Tocqueville鈥檚 description of the tutelary state with Hannah Arendt鈥檚 description of the totalitarian regime, with particular focus on the role of isolation and equality in the rise of despotic regimes, social versus political life, the balance between equality and freedom, the re-establishment of authority in politics, and the solutions associated with the revival of the political sphere. As a Clough Doctoral Fellow, Julia鈥檚 research explores democracy鈥檚 inherent tensions surrounding equality, freedom, plurality, and atomization, with particular focus on the thinkers Hannah Arendt, Alexis de Tocqueville, and Friedrich Nietzsche.
Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba Ndiaye
Cheikh Ahmadou Bamba Ndiaye is a Boston College LL.M. Candidate specializing in听Investment Disputes. Originally from Senegal, he lived in Burkina Faso for seven years.听He holds a Bachelor鈥檚 degree in Political Science and Government Studies from the Institut d鈥櫭﹖udes politiques de Paris (Sciences Po) and four Master鈥檚 degrees: in Business Law (Panth茅on Assas鈥� Panth茅on Sorbonne); Economic Litigation and International Arbitration (Sciences Po); Public Law and Public Financial Management (脡cole nationale d鈥檃dministration and Universit茅 Paris Dauphine-PSL, magna cum laude); and Communication Policies and Organization Development (Paris-Saclay, magna cum laude). Author of a dozen collections of poetry and a soon-to-be-published novel, he writes in Wolof and French. As a Clough Doctoral Fellow, he will study how the redistribution of Senegal鈥檚 wealth, and the governance of its natural resources, has become a major issue in Senegalese democracy.
Betul Ozturan
Betul Ozturan is a doctoral student in the Department of Political Science at Boston College. She earned a Bachelor's degree in International Relations and Political Science from Bogazici University with Dean鈥檚 Honor. She obtained her Master鈥檚 Degree in Conflict Management from Konstanz University and International Security from Charles University. Betul鈥檚 master鈥檚 thesis focused on developing novel methods to understand the dynamic relation between terrorism and civil wars. Betul鈥檚 research interests lie at the intersection of peace and conflict studies, with a particular emphasis on intrastate conflicts, civil wars, and terrorism. She has had the privilege of presenting her work at several esteemed workshops and conferences such as ISA, APSA, MPSA, and the Harvard Political Violence Workshop. As a Clough Doctoral Fellow, Betul aims to understand the impact of alliance choices in shaping the trajectory of post-conflict democratization in the aftermath of civil wars.
Andrew Palella
Andrew Palella is a first-year Ph.D. student at in the History Department at Boston College听whose research examines political extremism and the security state in the 20th Century United States. A former Army officer, Andrew holds a B.S. in American History from the U.S.听Military Academy at West Point and an M.A. in History from the University of Colorado,听Colorado Springs. In the Journal for the Study of Radicalism (Fall 2018), he has published original research on the Black Legion, an inter-war fascistic movement that sought to overthrow the Roosevelt Administration in 1936, and documented J. Edgar Hoover鈥檚 personal role in preventing federal action against the group. Andrew has a second article forthcoming in JSR (Fall 2024) on accelerationism and the political extremism of a modern international esoteric tradition called the Order of Nine Angles. As a Clough Doctoral Fellow, he aims to further advance this line of research, and explore its implications for the future of our democracy today.
Emily Turner
Emily Turner is a fourth-year doctoral candidate studying Historical Theology at Boston College.听 Emily earned a B.A. in History at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon in 2017, and an M.A. in Religion, with a concentration in Theology, from Yale Divinity School in 2021. Emily's primary research focus is the co-emergence of Christian legal and theological traditions in Late Antiquity; she is also increasingly interested in the development and application of contemporary canon law, especially since its codification in 1917.听 As a Clough Doctoral Fellow for the 2024-25 year, Emily is particularly interested in two questions. First, in what ways does the history of Christian reflection on the human person and the nature of law contribute to visions of the reaches, limits, aims, and possibilities for democratic futures? Second, what is the influence of non-democratic entities (especially those engaged in the work of human formation) on democratic citizenship?
Aidan Vick
Aidan Vick (he/him) is a first-year PhD student in the English Department at Boston College. Prior to attending 自慰视频, he received his Bachelor鈥檚 degree from Emory University and his Master鈥檚 degree from the University of Virginia. He is interested in the 20th- and 21st-century novel, critical theory, and the politics of narrative. As a Clough Doctoral Fellow, Aidan aims to explore how contemporary information technologies, and particularly online spaces, influence political ideology. More specifically, he will research how narrative functions in a hyper-technological era, both in the sense of narrativizing histories and through novel forms of fictional storytelling like cybertext. Outside of school, Aidan enjoys watching basketball, attending local arts events, and spending time with his cat, Beaker.听
Helen Huiting Zheng
Helen Huiting Zheng is a first-year Psychology PhD student at Boston College. She received her Master鈥檚 degree in Psychology from Harvard Extension School and a Bachelor鈥檚 degree in Management from Fudan University. Her research focuses on improving our understanding of how people evaluate what is true, with a keen interest in exploring different ways to help people recalibrate what they think is true if their truth assessment has been based on 鈥渁lternative facts鈥� that are believed to be true only because they support their respective group's priors. As a Clough Doctoral Fellow, Helen hopes to advance the Center鈥檚 mission by demonstrating how technology can facilitate more inclusive and informed democratic dialogues based on objective truth and shared reality. She envisions contributing to democratic futures where people are free to make decisions that benefit the collective good rather than conforming to partisan biases.
Clough Public Service Fellows
Delphine Gareau
Delphine Gareau is an undergraduate student in the class of 2026 at Boston College. She is pursuing a major in International Studies with a concentration in Ethics and Social Justice and a double minor in Environmental Studies and Religion and American Public Life. With aspirations for a career in law, she has previously interned with the Boston College Innocence Program and the Earth Law Center. This summer, as a Clough Public Service Fellow, Delphine will participate in The Fund for American Studies program and intern at the Washington Council of Lawyers in Washington D.C., conducting research and drafting memos on legal and policy issues while supporting pro bono and public interest cases. She looks forward to exploring ways to expand access to justice in the legal system.
Mary Kozeny
Mary Kozeny is a senior at Boston College majoring in Political Science and minoring in Business. On campus, Mary writes for the arts editorial section of The Heights, an independent student newspaper, and is active with 自慰视频鈥檚 admissions program where she leads student tours. Mary grew up on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., and has volunteered on a winning congressional campaign, interned in a congressional office, served as a Senate Page, supported advocacy tactics for a nonprofit adoption coalition, and contributed to strategic communication strategy at a market-based clean energy organization. This summer as a Clough Public Service Fellow, Mary will intern at the Heritage Foundation in the Center for Technology Policy. She is especially interested in how civic participation and freedoms will evolve amid increasing technological advances in the world, and is excited to contribute to the work of the Clough Center for the Study of Constitutional Democracy.
Caroline Sullivan
Caroline Sullivan is a sophomore at Boston College pursuing a Political Science major, as well听as a double minor in Chinese and Religion and American Public Life. This summer as a Clough听Public Service Fellow, Caroline will intern on Dylan Fernandes鈥� campaign for Massachusetts听State Senate. As an intern on the Campaign, Caroline will learn about grassroots campaigning,听various political communication strategies, and research current issues to prepare effective听recommendations. Caroline is most excited to take part in the democratic process at a local level and interact with constituents one-on-one to better learn what drives voter behavior. On campus, Caroline volunteers weekly through 4Boston in addition to participating in the Model United Nations Club and the Bellarmine Law Society.
Clara Taft
Clara Taft is a sophomore at Boston College, where she is double majoring in Political Science and Classics. This summer, as a Clough Public Service Fellow, she will be interning for the Connecticut Judicial Branch Experiential Learning Program. Separately, she is interested in researching how Jewish and Christian commentators鈥� interpretations of the story of Cain and Abel compare to John Steinbeck鈥檚 interpretation in East of Eden. Her research interests center around the intersection of religion and the public sphere, particularly how religious beliefs influence the government and everyday life. She also plays oboe in the University Wind Ensemble and is a prolific book reviewer (on her blog).
Joe Thibodeau
Joe Thibodeau is a 2L Public Service Scholar at Boston College Law School and a graduate of Tufts University. Joe has served as a member of the Boston College Law Review, a student attorney in the Civil Rights Clinic, and a 2023 Rappaport Fellow in the Legal Counsel鈥檚 Office of Governor Maura Healey. Prior to law school, he spent eight years working in various roles as a government and campaign staffer for leaders including United States Senator Ed Markey (MA), Congresswoman Lori Trahan (MA-03), and Massachusetts State Senator Barbara L鈥橧talien (Second Essex & Middlesex). As a Clough Public Service Fellow, Joe will be interning at GLBTQ Advocates & Defenders (GLAD), an organization committed to advancing stakeholder-centered legal challenges to advocate for LGBTQ+ people in Massachusetts and across the country.听His prior work has focused on political strategy, coalition building, and community engagement. He is interested in civil rights, public policy, and community organizing.听
Clough Research Fellows
Jacob Glassman
Jacob Glassman is a second-year Ph.D. student and an NSF GRFP fellow working with Dr. Katherine McAuliffe in the Cooperation Lab at Boston College. He graduated from the University of Maryland where he earned degrees in psychology and philosophy and a minor in statistics. Jacob鈥檚 research broadly explores how children and adults think about and engage in intergroup conflict resolution. As a Clough Research Fellow, Jacob will investigate different constructive intergroup conflict resolution strategies like compromise and forgiveness. He will also explore how intergroup conflict is transmitted intergenerationally and how perceptions of threat are associated with the development of intergroup attitudes and behavior. Jacob is passionate about harnessing research in the pursuit of resolving intergroup conflict and conducts research which has the potential to contribute to this goal.
William Lombardo
William Lombardo is a third-year Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at Boston College. He received an A.B. in Philosophy and a B.S. in Economics from Duke University in 2019. William鈥檚 research focuses on the history of political philosophy, with a special emphasis on the democratic theory of the Enlightenment and its origins in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. As a Clough Research Fellow, he will explore how key eighteenth century thinkers, Jean-Jacques Rousseau foremost among them, developed defenses of democracy as both a form of political organization and a choice worthy way of life that is viable in the modern world. He hopes that his research will contribute not only to understanding where democracies are headed but also to providing renewed justifications for their protection in the twenty-first century.听
Abbey Murphy
Abbey Murphy is a fourth-year Ph.D Student in the Philosophy Department at Boston College. She researches the philosophy of Edith Stein, in particular her philosophy of empathy and the heart. Beyond Stein, Abbey has a broader interest in the phenomenological tradition in general, and finds that this tradition helps her answer questions about personhood, knowledge, and values. She volunteered on the US/Mexico border with Kino Border Initiative from August 2023 to March 2024 and this work shapes her research and teaching. As a Clough Research Fellow, Abbey aims to explore the question: 鈥淲hat does it mean to be in solidarity not only with those in the present time, but also with those in the past and future?鈥� The thought of both Edith Stein and Simone Weil, she believes, offers promising resources for addressing it.
Michaila Peters
Michaila Peters is a third-year doctoral student in Philosophy at Boston College. Previously, she received her B.A. in Political Science and Philosophy with a focus in Political Theory from the American University School of Public Affairs Honors Program. As a Clough Research Fellow, Peters aims to better understand the complexity of the relationship between rural decline and U.S. political polarization by highlighting insights from rural women, children, queer folks, and people of color whose experiences are often censored by rural extremism. Her work is grounded in applying Jane Addams鈥� theory of peaceweaving to rural contexts, in conversation with contemporary literature in critical phenomenological-hermeneutics and non-ideal social epistemology. She hopes that her research may serve policy and community-based solutions. In 2021, Peters founded and has since led the Public Philosophy Initiative at Boston College, which works to prepare graduate students for careers wherein their philosophical insights may serve real-world problem solving.
Casey Puerzer
Casey Puerzer is a fourth-year Ph.D candidate in the Political Science Department, where he studies American politics. He received his B.A from Sarah Lawrence College in 2020. Casey's research stands at the intersection of federalism, public law, and American political development. As a Clough Research Fellow, he will pursue a dissertation project that concerns current trends in interstate policy diffusion, specifically the development of formal policy diffusion networks and the growth of model legislation. This contemporary research is supported by historical research into eras of policy experimentation and creative federalism in the United States, such as the Progressive 1900s and 1910s, New Deal 1930s and 1940s, and devolutionary 1970s and 1980s.
Joshua Rosen
Joshua Rosen is a second-year Ph.D. student in the History Department at Boston College, specializing in postwar urban America. He received his B.S. in Secondary Education and Psychology from Vanderbilt University. Before pursuing doctoral study, Josh taught high school US History for five years at Bronx Compass High School, where he also coached girls' tennis, ran the school music program, and was a chapter leader in the United Federation of Teachers. Josh received his M.A. in American History from Pace University while teaching full-time. Josh's research focuses on the relationship between urban segregation and finance capitalism. As a Clough Research Fellow, Josh intends to continue research on school desegregation activism in Boston before, during, and after the "busing crisis." With a focus on Ruth Batson, a critical movement leader, Josh aims to highlight how desegregation activists articulated their hopes for American democracy through their designs for their children's education.
Jacob Saliba
Jacob Saliba is a PhD candidate in the Department of History at Boston College. Prior to thedoctoral program, he earned a M.A. in political science at Boston College as well as a B.A. withhonors in Political Science and Economics from Ohio Dominican University. Hisdissertation project, 鈥淭he Discovery of the Sacred in Interwar France: From Contestation toCooperation, 1919-1941,鈥� examines how and why community bonds and mutual projectsemerged between Catholic and non-Catholic intellectuals in interwar France, focusing on the relationship between the religious and the secular during this time period. As a Clough Research Fellow, Jacob will travel to several archives in France during the summer to investigate sets of correspondence and unpublished manuscripts. By exploring how dialogue and social bonds were created across deep religious and political divides in the country鈥檚 past, he hopes to contribute to contemporary discussions about democracy鈥檚 future.
Yufeng Shi
Yufeng Shi is a Ph.D. candidate in the Economics Department at Boston College. He听received a B.A. in Economics and Social Science (Psychology) from New York University in听2019. Yufeng鈥檚 current fields of interest include social choice, decision theory, labor听economics, and experimental economics. His current research projects include听鈥淓ndogenous Social Minimum,鈥� in which he proposes a set of axioms that characterizes a听class of individual preferences in which heterogeneous social members care about not听only their own consumption but also the minimum consumption in the society. In the听upcoming semester, Yufeng would like to explore whether such class of individual听preferences is suitable for depicting cooperation and confrontation between legislators听affiliated with different parties.
Shaun Slusarski
Shaun Slusarski is a fifth-year Doctoral Candidate in Theological Ethics. He graduated from Boston College in 2012 with a B.A. in Theology and from the University of Notre Dame in 2020 with an M.T.S. in Systematic Theology with a minor in Peace Studies. In his dissertation, Shaun is writing about the ethics of prison healthcare in the United States. The COVID-19 pandemic has helped to illuminate the unique health vulnerabilities of incarcerated people as well as the inequitable distribution of medical resources to the only population with a constitutionally guaranteed right to healthcare. As a Clough Research Fellow, Shaun is interested in analyzing mass incarceration as a public health issue that threatens the collective flourishing of democratic societies. He wishes to bring the insights of Catholic social teaching to contribute to a vision of criminal justice that promotes the holistic wellbeing of victims, offenders, and the larger community鈥揳nd accords with the highest ideals of our democracy.
Will Stratford
Will Stratford is a sixth-year Ph.D. candidate in the History Department at Boston College, where he has served as a teaching assistant for courses on early modern and modern European, American, and global history. As a Clough Research Fellow, Will鈥檚 interests concern the history of ideas in the modern era, especially Marxism and its concomitant labor history, and its implications for democracies today. He has published two academic articles: 鈥淩ediscovering Revolutionary Socialism in America: The Marxism of Victor Berger at the Height of the Second International,鈥� Moving the Social 68 (December 2022) and 鈥淛oachim Bruhn鈥檚 Leftwing Critique of Anti-Zionism and the Capitalist State in the 1990s: An Intellectual History of the Antideutsche,鈥� New German Critique 153 (November 2024). Will is currently writing his dissertation, tentatively entitled, 鈥淧ursuing Contradiction: Dialectics of German Social Democratic Marxism, 1890鈥�1914.鈥� His writings on politics, history, and the left have appeared in Weekly Worker, Sublation Magazine, and Platypus Review.
Julia Woodward
Julia Woodward is a Ph.D. candidate in English Literature at Boston College. Her work focuses on contemporary African-American and Afro-Caribbean literature and is concerned with questions of racial, postcolonial, and environmental justice. She holds a B.S. in Sociology and Education from Cornell University, and an M.A. in English from Middlebury College, and spent nine years as an secondary educator in Boston-area schools before joining the Ph.D. program at 自慰视频. Julia is currently at work on a dissertation investigating the intersections of race, environment, and futurity in Black historical and speculative fiction, seeking to understand what slave and neo-slave narratives can reveal about living with and through unimaginable futures. As a Clough Research Fellow, she will build on these studies to explore how we might imagine different, more equal, and more livable futures for our democracy.
Clough Correspondents
Deniz Berfin Ayaydin
Deniz Berfin Ayaydin is a Ph.D. student in the Sociology Department at Boston College. 听She holds an M.A. in Sociology from Syracuse University, an MSc in Media and Communications from London School of Economics and Political Science, and a B.A. in Business Administration from Bosphorus University. Deniz鈥檚 work lies at the intersections of political sociology, gender, feminist theory, sociology of emotions, and culture. Her current research focuses on affect as a political force in the democratic backslide in Turkey and the gendered drivers and implications of this backlash. She has previously worked on the politicization of art in public spaces and the politics of visibility, as well as the racialized and gendered commodification of labor in the global care economy. Having first joined the Clough Center as a Graduate Correspondent in summer 2023, and led the Center鈥檚 design team, she is returning for the 2024-25 academic year.听
Madeline Carr
Madeline 鈥淢addy鈥� Carr is a sophomore studying Political Science and History at Boston College. She is on the pre-law track, with a potential concentration in Civil Rights or Immigration Law. Maddy鈥檚 interest in politics is grounded in her passion for history: she loves to examine current political systems and phenomena by deciphering the history behind them. In her academic life, she enjoys reading, writing, and research. Maddy is the co-managing editor of The Gavel, the progressive student newspaper at 自慰视频, and frequently writes articles for the Opinions section, primarily focused on social or political issues on campus or in the Boston area. She is also a co-lead for the Outreach department of FACES, 自慰视频鈥檚 only anti-racist organization. After first joining the Clough Center as an Undergraduate Correspondent in the fall of 2023, she is continuing for the 2024-25 academic year.
Mehdi Hoseini
Mehdi Hoseini is a Ph.D. student in the Sociology Department at Boston College. He holds an MA in Sociology and a BA in Social Communications. His research interests intersect historical sociology, postcolonial studies, and Global & Transnational Sociology with a focus on the Middle East and North Africa. Currently, as a part of his Ph.D. project, Mehdi is studying the impacts of British colonialism in Egypt from 1880 to 1920. In this project, he intends to trace the formation of a discourse of criminology through colonial policies which shaped Egypt鈥檚 integration into global markets in that period. Previously, in his MA thesis, Mehdi did a comparative study of Iranian and Tunisian revolutions regarding their democratization outcomes. He joins the Clough Center as a Graduate Correspondent for the summer of 2024 and the 2024-25 academic year.
Boyu Jin
Boyu Jin is an undergraduate student of the class of 2025 from Princeton, New Jersey. He is majoring in International Studies with a minor in History and Accounting. As a student with a strong interest in the political economy, he is motivated to understand the intersectionality between economic and political development in developing countries. Boyu is also involved in studying gender justice and is currently working on his senior thesis with a focus on how public policy responds to and tries to address gender inequalities. Boyu will serve as a Clough Undergraduate Correspondent for the summer of 2024 as well as the 2024-25 school year, assisting the Center with its internal operations, creating publicity for events, and participating in the production of its two newsletters and annual journal.
Kate Karafin
Kate Karafin is a rising senior in the Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences at Boston College, majoring in Political Science and English. She is passionate about international human rights and socioeconomic equity. Kate hopes to attend law school and pursue public interest law, focusing on justice and public policy. As a Clough Undergraduate Correspondent, Kate will assist in various of the Center鈥檚 endeavors, including assisting current research projects and organizing events in the 24-25 school year. In her academics, Kate enjoys analyzing policy choices and various nations鈥� systems of government, and has also researched the disparities in prenatal health among indigenous women. She is a member of the Gavel, 自慰视频鈥檚 progressive student newspaper, where she writes weekly articles about important issues and events happening on campus and beyond. Outside of academics, Kate is on the 自慰视频 Women鈥檚 Club ultimate frisbee team.听
James Parlon
James 鈥淛immy鈥� Parlon is an undergraduate student in the Class of 2026 studying Political听Science on a pre-law track at Boston College鈥檚 Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences. He has听interests in delving into corporate or constitutional law at law school in the future. His main听political interests lie in studying American domestic and foreign policy and Western political听systems, as well as the foreign policy interactions between Western and Eastern nations. Jimmy听enjoys extensively reading and researching about topics in those fields and hopes to be able to write in these areas during his time as an undergraduate. Outside of academics, Jimmy enjoys performing arts and is a baritone vocalist with the University Chorale of Boston College and part of the annual Hellenic Society dance group at 自慰视频 Arts Fest. Jimmy joins the Clough Center as an Undergraduate Correspondent in the Fall of 2024.
Samuel Peterson
Samuel Peterson is in the Class of 2025, double majoring in English and Hispanic Studies, with a minor in Jewish Studies. Samuel first engaged with theClough听 Center during the 2022-2023 academic year, interviewing CNN anchor Jim Acosta as part of the Center鈥檚 programming on journalism and democracy. During the 2023-2024 academic year, he joined the Center as a Correspondent and served on the editorial board for the Clough Journal, analyzing the theme 鈥淎ttachment to Place in a World of Nation States.鈥� A member of the Gabelli Presidential Scholars Program at Boston College, Samuel has interned on Capitol Hill, studied abroad in Barcelona, worked for 自慰视频 Law鈥檚 Innocence Program, and done undergraduate research in the English and Theology departments. Samuel is excited to see how his lifelong interests in communications, judicial issues, and politics will overlap with the Center鈥檚 2024-2025 theme, 鈥淓nvisioning Democratic Futures.鈥�