2025-26 Fellowship Recipients
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. Clough Fellows are at the heart of the center’s community: they attend regular seminars and Clough events, and publish their original research in the center’s annual journal and other venues. Read about our 2023-24 Fellows below, and if you're interested in learning more or applying for a grant, please visit our 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’s 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), South Asia’s Christians: Between Hindu and Muslim, 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’s new project, “The Virtues of Mixture: Religion, Labor Migrants, and Cosmopolitanism in the Indian Ocean,” 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.
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’s 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.
Youssef Chahed
Visiting Scholar
Youssef Chahed was the Republic of Tunisia's youngest-ever appointed head of government, holding the position from August 2016 to February 2020. He had previously served as the secretary of state for fisheries and the minister of local affairs. Since the Tunisian revolution in January 2011, Chahed has been a supporter of freedom of the press, expression, and diversity. Throughout his term in office, he successfully fought against terrorist organizations like ISIS and Al Qaida. He was the first Arab leader to start a war against organized crime, smugglers, and corruption. He was successful in addressing Tunisia's public finance problems and lowering the public deficit as a result of a program negotiated between Tunisia and the IMF/WB despite a challenging economic environment.
After obtaining his Ph.D. in agribusiness sciences from the National Institute of Agriculture in Paris (France) in 2003, Chahed worked as a professor and an international expert in agriculture. Currently, Dr. Chahed is a Senior Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs of the Harvard Kennedy School and works with the Middle East Initiative (MEI). Chahed's fellowship project focuses on the Middle East and North Africa's policy, economic, and security issues. He will guide a study group on the transitions to democracy and development.
Andres Mosquera
Visiting Scholar
Andrés B. Muños Mosquera is an attorney-in-law, international relations scholar, and former judge specializing in international institutional and treaty law, as well as the relationship between international law and religion. He holds a PhD from Leiden University, an MA from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and JD/LLM degrees from Universidad Complutense de Madrid and Universidad Europea. His doctoral dissertation, North Atlantic Treaty Organization: An International Institutional Law Perspective, examines the legal frameworks that govern the structure, authority, and operations of international organizations, with NATO as a case study. He served as Director of the NATO ACO Office of Legal Affairs for eleven years, following thirteen years as Deputy Director. In the 1990s, he supported the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and represented Spain at the International Telecommunications Union. He held fellowships at Marine Corps University and The Fletcher School and taught at Reichman University. He has lectured at Sorbonne, Roma-Tre, Sevilla, West Point, and the National Defense University. He teaches pro bono at Universidad Católica de Murcia and is a member of the Royal Academy of Diplomacy in Spain. He has published extensively, was knighted twice, received multiple awards, and was honored with the Livery Collar of the Household of Feigenblatt for his contributions to higher education.
Clough Doctoral Fellows
María Alejandra Gutiérrez Torres
María Alejandra Gutiérrez Torres is a Colombian medical doctor with a major in public affairs, minors in political science and in management, and a master’s in peacebuilding. She is an incoming PhD student at the BCSSW and currently a research fellow at Yale School of Medicine and the parenting in crisis specialist at Fundación Apapacho. Her work has focused on early childhood development, mental health, and public health interventions for conflict-affected communities. Her efforts include designing programs for internally displaced families and supporting migrants crossing the Darién Gap. She has worked in institutions such as Harvard Medical School, The University of Texas at Austin, and the World Health Organization. Driven by an interdisciplinary perspective, her research aims to prevent future generations from being defined by war through evidence-based interventions. Her ultimate goal is to help build a better future for children in Colombia.
Jeronimo Ayesta
Jeronimo Ayesta is a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate in the Philosophy Department at Boston College. He holds an M.A. in Film Studies with First-Class Honors from King's College London and double-majored in Philosophy and Journalism with honors from the University of Navarra. His research interests include 20th-century European philosophy, hermeneutics, film-philosophy, moral psychology, and character education. As a Clough Doctoral Fellow, Jerónimo's work explores how narrative functions as a critical mediator between ethical understanding and political community. His dissertation develops concepts such as "aesthetic agoras" and "the kingdom of the as-if" to examine how aesthetic experiences create spaces where citizens rehearse political judgment and develop democratic virtues. This research is informed by his comparative perspective on democratic fragility, drawing from his experiences in Spain, witnessing both historical memory of the Civil War through family history and contemporary political tensions in the Basque Country and Catalonia. Jeronimo serves on the board of the Guestbook Project, a peace-building initiative directed by Richard Kearney, and has previously published on Terrence Malick, and Kierkegaard, with particular attention to questions of conscience, recognition, and political imagination.
Brandon Biagioli
Brandon Biagioli is a third-year doctoral student in the Ethics area of the Theology department at Boston College. He received his B.A. from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, a J.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and M.T.S. from Boston College. As a former lawyer, Brandon appreciates the good that can be accomplished through governance, legislation, and litigation, but also the limitations imposed by culture, systems, and related conditions, and the simple reality of sin. Brandon is interested in understanding politics theologically, and in working on theological foundations for political engagement, governance, and the moral dynamics of collective.
Emily Chen
Emily Chen is a first-year Ph.D. student in English at Boston College. She received her B.A. in English from University College London and her M.A. in English and Comparative Literature from Columbia University. Her research interests include Cold War studies, memory studies, Asian American literature, and aesthetic theory. As a Clough Doctoral Fellow, Emily aims to explore how Asian American authors employ formal techniques like intertextuality, metatextuality, and fragmentation to reevaluate historical memories, especially memories pertaining to the Cold War. She is interested in how, in addition to narrative content, narrative form shapes ethnic authors’ interrogation of their complicated place of belonging between different nations, political frameworks, and cultural traditions. Through her research, Emily seeks to advance discussion on understudied Cold War proxy wars and encourage public reflection on our implication in distant historical atrocities and their postwar legacies. More broadly, by considering how aesthetic form influences cultural memory, Emily aims to promote ethical narration and democratic remembering – vital acts for civic discourse in our increasingly polarized, censored political climate.
Charles Christ
Charlie’s research focuses on the veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade who chose self-exile in Mexico during the Cold War. He is particularly interested in Mexico’s role as a transnational site of cultural production, commemoration, comradeship, and resistance to the U.S. Cold War state. Beyond Mexico, Charlie explores the intersection between surveillance, state repression, intergenerational trauma, and activism in the United States. Centering on the children of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade veterans, he seeks to understand how the political commitments of their parents affected them throughout their lives. Charlie is launching an oral history project in 2025 to explore this question.
Charlie is a veteran of the U.S. Coast Guard, a member of Veterans for Peace, and active in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives.
Carina D'Urso
Carina D’Urso is a second-year doctoral student in Formative Education at Boston College. She is an educator, writer, and researcher dedicated to cultivating meaningful learning and engagement in art museums. From 2023 to 2024, she was the Post-Baccalaureate Fellow in PreK-12 Museum Education at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University. Carina received her B.A. from the Macaulay Honors College at CUNY Brooklyn College. A member of the CUNY Baccalaureate Program for Unique and Interdisciplinary studies, she majored in “The Arts, Education, and Social Change.” She received her M.Ed. in Human Development and Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Her research interests include aesthetic education and imagination, collaborative forms of knowledge production and pedagogy, and the construction of public spaces. As a Clough Doctoral Fellow, she is eager to study the ways in which aesthetic experiences and object-based pedagogies enliven history education and democratic participation.
Mackenzie Daly
Mackenzie Daly is a first-year Ph.D. student in the English Department at Boston College. She received her B.A. in Sociology from Syracuse University and her M.A. in English from the University of Virginia. Her research interests include Early American literature, politics, and culture, affect theory, material culture, and bibliography. As a Clough Doctoral Fellow, Mackenzie is broadly interested in the ways in which affect and politics intersect. She hopes to continue the work she did as a master’s 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’s term) juxtapolitical act.
Maria Gallego-Ortiz
Maria Gallego-Ortiz is a third-year Ph.D. student in the Philosophy Department at Boston College. She holds an M.A. in Philosophy from Boston College, an MLitt in Philosophy from St Andrews University, Scotland, and a B.A. in Philosophy from Universidad de La Sabana, Colombia. Her research focuses on the role of imagination in moral reasoning, particularly through the works of Immanuel Kant, Iris Murdoch, and Paul Ricoeur. As a Clough Doctoral Fellow, she examines how Murdoch’s conception of imagination, as a disciplined faculty that sharpens moral perception and deepens empathy, can contribute to strengthening democratic resilience. In an era of misinformation, polarization, and declining civic trust, Maria argues that moral imagination is essential to nurturing the character traits needed for democratic life. Her work challenges the divide between private morality and public responsibility, proposing that imaginative ethical practices can cultivate civic virtues, foster inclusive dialogue, and reinforce the moral foundations of democratic institutions.
Austin Lamb
Austin Lamb is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Political Science at Boston College. Originally from Fargo, North Dakota, he received a B.S. in Political Science and a B.A. in Spanish from Boise State University. Austin’s research focuses on political philosophy and American politics, with a special emphasis on late-modern political philosophers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Adam Smith, and Immanuel Kant. He is preparing a dissertation project on the rationality of public opinion. As a Clough Doctoral Fellow, Austin will explore the philosophic, moral, and institutional requirements for the formation and maintenance of a rational public sphere.
Innocent Mpoki
Innocent Mpoki is a Ph.D. student in the Political Science Department at Boston College, concentrating in Comparative Politics with a regional focus on Africa. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Middlebury College and a Master’s in International Affairs from the City University of New York - Baruch College. During his Master’s, he specialized in International Non-Governmental Organizations, and his thesis examined the resiliency of civil society in Zimbabwe, a country with a shrinking civic space. Innocent’s research interests include military coups, civil-military relations, elections, youth political participation, and state-civil society relations. His dissertation explores the factors contributing to contemporary military coups in Africa. As a Clough Doctoral Fellow, Innocent will study the role of civil-military relations in the likelihood of military coups and investigate why some African states have maintained peaceful and legal transfers of power without military intervention.
Andrew Palella
Andrew Palella is a first-year Ph.D. student at in the History Department at Boston College 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. Military Academy at West Point and an M.A. in History from the University of Colorado, 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’s 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.
Siro Pina Cardona
Siro B. Pina Cardona is a second-year doctoral student in the Higher Education program at Boston College. His research examines how universities navigate democratic backsliding and geopolitical pressures, focusing on academic freedom, institutional autonomy, and international collaboration. As a Clough Fellow, he will explore how higher education can safeguard democracy by promoting intellectual diversity, supporting inclusive governance, and sustaining global academic partnerships. He is particularly interested in investigating how state-level (vs. federal-level) politics influence public universities in the U.S. and the potential impacts on international student and faculty mobility. Siro has held research roles with the United Nations, the OECD, and the International Association of Universities, and is currently a Graduate Research Assistant at the Center for International Higher Education. He holds degrees in Psychology, Health Sciences, and Education Studies, and completed the Erasmus Mundus Master's in Research and Innovation in Higher Education.
Sina Rezaei
Sina Rezaei is a first-year Ph.D. student in the Philosophy Department at Boston College. Before joining BC, he earned his B.A. in Law from the University of Tehran and graduated magna cum laude with an M.A. in Philosophy from Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. His master’s thesis, titled "The Role of Religion in Hegel's Philosophy of Right," explored the relationship between religion and the modern state in Hegel’s thought.
As a Clough Doctoral Fellow, Sina’s research focuses on Modern German Philosophy—particularly the works of Kant and Hegel—as well as Social and Political Philosophy. He is especially interested in tracing the evolution of modern political thought, from Rousseau through Kant, Fichte, and Hegel, to Marx. His work seeks to uncover the philosophical foundations of modern political theory. Closely related to this project, he also examines the extent to which modern political principles—such as democracy, the rule of law, and the market economy—embody universal values, and how these ideas might be meaningfully reconciled with the cultural traditions of non-Western societies like Iran.
Fazli Salim
Fazli Salim is a second-year doctoral student in the Social Influence and Social Change Lab, directed by Dr. Gregg Sparkman at Boston College. Her research examines the psychological mechanisms that help individuals engage with complex societal issues, comparing these processes across socio-cultural contexts in the US and India. Fazli holds an MPhil in Planning and Development from IIT Bombay, an MA in Public Administration from Jamia Millia Islamia, and a BA from the University of Delhi. Before starting her Phd, she worked as an interdisciplinary researcher with non-profits in India. As a Clough Doctoral Fellow, she will investigate how psychological processes—such as the creation of scapegoats—influence public responses to societal challenges in democratic societies, and will explore interventions that foster democratic resilience.
Cate Schultz
Cate Schultz is a first-year PhD student in Applied Developmental and Educational Psychology at BC. At UNC Chapel Hill, she majored in Psychology and Education, and minored in Conflict Management. Cate is passionate about play as a coping tool for children, and has served in community contexts including UNC Children’s Hospital, the National Center for Children and Families, Franciscan Children’s, and the Harvard Center for the Developing Child.
At BC, Cate researches community science, motivational beliefs, and student self-efficacy. Last summer, Cate received a Projects for Peace grant, engaging refugee children with STEM in Denmark. As a Clough Fellow, Cate wants to build on this experience and learn more from positive democratic practices in Sweden and Denmark. Cate also plans to conduct research on how to nurture early prosocial engagement. She believes compassion is a catalyst for change, and is excited to grow in her time with the Clough Center.
Aidan Vick
Aidan Vick (he/him) is a PhD student at Boston College studying modern and contemporary literature, as well as a Doctoral Fellow at BC’s Clough Center for Constitutional Democracy. His primary research interest concerns how individuals’ political subjectivity and identity are shaped by the media environment and content of a given historical period. More broadly, his scholarly interests include critical theory, cultural studies, aesthetics, globalization, and the history of the novel. Aidan received his bachelor’s degree from Emory University and his master’s degree in English from the University of Virginia.
Clough Junior Fellows
Peter Coquillette
Peter Coquillette is an undergraduate in the Carroll School of Management studying Business Analytics with a second major in Philosophy. He is particularly interested in the First Amendment and larger freedom of expression norms, or lack thereof, in the United States. He has written two pieces for The Heights, "Navigating Political Discourse and Encouraging Constructive Conversations" and his recent op-ed, "Don't Fear the Heat," to encourage the Boston College community to improve its discourse environment. He is interested in researching the bipartisan failures of upholding freedom of speech. He also has a keen interest in the constitutional implications of Artificial Intelligence, and will combine his Business Analytics coursework with constitutional studies to explore their relationship.
Nicholas Cremona
Nick Cremona is a sophomore at Boston College majoring in Political Science with a minor in American Studies. His academic interests focus on the intersection of American political culture and policy outcomes. Nick hopes to attend law school and pursue a career in politics. On campus, he is a staff writer for The Heights, Boston College’s independent student newspaper, where he covers arts and culture. He is also a member of the Boston College Mock Trial team. Nick joined the Clough Center as an Undergraduate Fellow in 2025 and aims to explore themes of democratic resilience during the 2025–26 academic year.
Allison Demmons
Allison Demmons is a rising senior in the Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences at Boston College, where she majors in Political Science and Psychology. Her academic work explores the intersection of these disciplines as a foundation for future legal studies, with plans to attend law school after graduation. She has explored this focus through internships in civil, criminal, and immigration law, as well as through her role as a John Marshall Fellow. As a newly selected Clough Junior Fellow, Allison looks forward to deepening her engagement with questions at the intersection of law, politics, and psychology, particularly as they relate to the American legal system and constitutional democracy.
Elyse Everest
Elyse Everest is a rising Sophomore studying Transformative Education and International Studies with a concentration in Ethics and Social Justice from Honolulu, Hawaii. She is passionate about human rights and NGO work, specifically focused on refugees and educational equity. At BC, she is a mentor for Girls Inc., where she empowers inner-city elementary school girls and supplements their education with after-school activities; she also tutors high school students through the Pine Manor Institute for Student Success and WorldTutors. She is passionate about the outdoors and protecting our Earth, which led her to become a trip leader with Outdoor Adventures. Her specific area of interest is helping rebuild school systems and providing learning opportunities in war-torn countries. With aspirations to work all over the world and with some of the most vulnerable communities, she hopes that the Clough Center will be an amazing stepping stone into the world of policy and democracy.
Alisa Fixler
Alisa is a rising junior studying History and Public Health at Boston College on the pre-law track. She is passionate about the intersection of health policy and historical inequity, with particular interest in how structural injustices have shaped access to healthcare, housing, and nutrition over time. As a History student, she is interested in how political power and policy shape the fight for equitable reform. This summer, she will be working on a food resiliency program in the Maryland government, contributing to a Food as Medicine initiative aimed at improving food access by integrating nutrition into healthcare policy. She joins the Clough Center as a Junior Fellow for the 2025-26 academic year.
Emily Foote
Emily Foote is an undergraduate student in the class of 2028 at Boston College studying Political Science on the Pre-Law track. On campus, Emily is part of Undergraduate Student Government, Entrepreneurs for Social Impact, and is a member of the Club Alpine Ski Team. She is from Burlington, Vermont, and will be interning for her State’s Attorney office, and is excited to learn more about the legal and criminal justice system on a closer level. Emily is interested in foreign policy, civil rights, and constitutional law. She is very excited to be a part of the work of the Clough Center this year.
Nina Hemsey
Nina Hemsey is an undergraduate student in the Class of 2027 at Boston College, where she is majoring in Political Science and minoring in History. Her academic interests center on the study of political rhetoric, particularly how new forms of technology have transformed public discourse and civic engagement. She is also interested in the development and evolution of American political institutions. Nina has aspirations of going to law school, where she is most interested in studying constitutional and criminal law. On campus, Nina is actively involved with the undergraduate student government, serving as the Montserrat Student Representative on the UGBC Senate.
Simon Hoefling
Simon Hoefling is an undergraduate student at Boston College’s Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences pursuing a double major in Political Science and Philosophy and graduating in 2026. Originally from Washington DC, his academic interests lie in political theory, American politics, international studies, and law. On campus, Simon serves as Editor-in-Chief of the Bellarmine Society Law Review and has worked as an Undergraduate Research Fellow in the Political Science department. He studied Middle Eastern politics and Arabic during a semester abroad in Amman, Jordan, exploring the intersection of international law and humanitarian action. Outside of the classroom, he enjoys reading philosophy and classic literature, as well as cooking and traveling. After graduation, Simon plans to attend law school, with aspirations in corporate or political law.
Lukas Kucera
Lukas Kucera is a member of the Class of 2028 at Boston College, double majoring in International Studies, with a concentration in Conflict and Cooperation, and in Slavic Studies. Originally from Elyria, Ohio, Lukas is joining the Clough Center as a Junior Fellow for the 2025–2026 academic year. He is excited to explore this year’s theme, “Democratic Resilience,” with a particular interest in how societies may unintentionally weaken the democratic institutions that serve them.
A Gabelli Presidential Scholar, Lukas is on the pre-law track and a Navy ROTC Midshipman. In the summer of 2025, he will travel to the Czech Republic to investigate democratic resilience firsthand, combining his academic interests in law, international affairs, and public service. On campus Lukas is also involved with BC's WZBC radio station and Model UN team.
Ryan Milligan
Ryan Milligan is an undergraduate student in the class of 2026. He is pursuing a major in Political Science, with minors in Religion and American Public Life, as well as Business. On campus, Ryan is a Resident Assistant and spent the first three years as an elected member of the Undergraduate Government of Boston College. He had the honor of serving U.S. Senator Ed Markey's Boston office, working in constituent services related to housing policy. During his PULSE placement working to help formerly incarcerated individuals with employment, he was inspired to look toward a legal career, where he hopes to be an advocate for those who have been systemically marginalized. Ryan is passionate about social justice, and is guided by the desire to transfigure our conception of justice using holistic strategies of redemption.
Griffin Noumair
I am an undergraduate in the class of 2028, concentrating in finance in the Carroll School of Management, and originally from Long Island, New York. While I have an interest in the pre-law track, I am still unsure as to what direction I will go in my professional career. I am passionate about politics and social justice, and hope that whatever occupation I end up in, I am able to make a positive impact in underserved communities – I especially hope to help those communities through improving education and housing. On campus, I am a member of the BC Rugby Club, the Sales & Trading Association, and BC Investing Club. I am excited to exchange ideas with a diverse group of scholars and peers, learning from their perspectives while contributing my own insights. I believe my interests in public service and communications will relate well to this year's theme of “Democratic Resilience.
James Parlon
James “Jimmy” Parlon is an undergraduate student in the Class of 2026 studying Political Science on a pre-law track at Boston College’s Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences. He has interests in delving into corporate or constitutional law at law school in the future. His main political interests lie in studying American domestic and foreign policy and Western political systems, as well as the foreign policy interactions between Western and Eastern nations. Jimmy 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 BC Arts Fest. Jimmy joins the Clough Center as an Undergraduate Correspondent in the Fall of 2024.
Stephen Samartzis
Stephen Samartzis is a rising sophomore at Boston College, majoring in Economics with minors in Finance and International Studies. Originally from Chicago, IL, he is passionate about the intersection of finance, climate justice, and equitable opportunity. As a Clough Center Junior Fellow, Stephen is excited to explore how democratic institutions can promote sustainable development and inclusive economic systems. He is particularly interested in how policy and market forces can be harnessed to address the climate crisis and support underserved communities. On campus, Stephen is actively involved in the Investment Banking Association, Economics Association, Venture Capital & Private Equity Association, and the Hellenic Society. He is also very engaged with Messina College, helping lead BC’s Messina College Student Advisory Board. Outside of school, Stephen enjoys playing intramural basketball, participating in service events, and spending time with friends and family.
Curran Schestag
Curran Schestag is an undergraduate student in the class of 2026 at Boston College, pursuing a major in History and a minor in Religion and American Public Life. He plans to attend graduate school after finishing his studies at BC with the aim of pursuing a career in postsecondary education, specializing in American diplomatic history in the 20th century. He is currently writing a senior thesis investigating Christian Realism’s influence on American reconstruction policy in Japan following World War II, and is excited to further examine how democratic norms and institutions are socially constructed within the Clough Center’s 2025-2026 “Democratic Resilience” theme.
Callie Walsh
Callie Walsh is an undergraduate student in the class of 2027 at Boston College. She is pursuing a double major in Political Science and Philosophy with a concentration in Perspectives. On campus, Callie is involved with Boston College Mock Trial as well as the Gabelli Presidential Scholars program. With aspirations for a career in law, Callie has previously interned for the Innocence Program at Boston College Law School and is currently working as an Undergraduate Research Fellow for Fr. James Keenan. Callie is looking forward to pursuing a career in public service after her undergraduate education.
Clough Correspondents
Maddy Carr
Madeline “Maddy” Carr is a rising senior majoring in Political Science and History and minoring in African and African Diaspora Studies at Boston College. She is on the pre-law track, with a potential concentration in Civil Rights or Immigration Law. Maddy’s interest in politics is grounded in her passion for history: she loves examining current political systems and phenomena by deciphering their origins and implications. In her academic life, she enjoys reading, writing, and research. Maddy is the former managing editor of The Gavel, the progressive student newspaper at BC, 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, BC’s only anti-racist organization. In the summer of 2025, she interned with Senator Tim Kaine at the United States Capitol. She is incredibly grateful for the years she has spent at the Clough Center and is excited to finish out her journey through the 2025-2026 school year.
Isabela DosAnjos
I am an undergraduate student at Boston College majoring in International Studies and minoring in art history. I am originally from Clearwater, Florida. With a concentration in ethics and social justice, on the pre-law track, I am passionate about advocating for underrepresented groups through the democratic system and policy reform. My interests range broadly, with particular focus on art and cultural heritage law, immigration, food justice, nuclear disarmament, and homelessness. In my free time, I enjoy reading and writing. I am a staff writer for The Gavel, Boston College’s progressive student newspaper, where I contribute to the Opinions section by exploring pop culture through a political lens and unpacking the systemic issues embedded in everyday life. I also serve as the social media coordinator for Students 4 Nuclear
Disarmament, a new lobbying group on campus, and am a member of WZBC-Newton,
Boston College’s student radio, hosting a weekly speciality hour called “Spilt Milk.” I look forward to further developing my interests as a Clough Correspondent this summer.
Mehdi Hoseini
More to come
Eli Marsalek
Eli Marsalek is a Junior in the Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences, majoring in Political Science and Philosophy on the pre-law track. His academic interests include international politics and law, specifically around supranational organizations such as the EU and NATO and their expansion, which he hopes to study in law school. Eli also has a personal interest in Environmental and Agricultural policy and law as they relate to his hometown in California. A McGillycuddy-Logue Fellow with the Boston College Office of Global Education, Eli will study abroad in Prague with Charles University’s Eastern and Central European Studies program in the Spring of 2026.
James Parlon
James “Jimmy” Parlon is an undergraduate student in the Class of 2026 studying Political Science on a pre-law track at Boston College’s Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences. He has interests in delving into corporate or constitutional law at law school in the future. His main political interests lie in studying American domestic and foreign policy and Western political systems, as well as the foreign policy interactions between Western and Eastern nations. Jimmy 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 BC Arts Fest. Jimmy joins the Clough Center as an Undergraduate Correspondent in the Fall of 2024.
Clara Taft
Clara is a senior studying Political Science and Classics. As a 2024–2025 Clough Public Service Fellow, she interned last summer for the Hartford Superior Court Clerk's Office, where she was inspired to write about the history of jury trials and plea bargaining for the Clough Journal. This year, she joins the Clough Center as a Clough Correspondent. She will also be writing her senior thesis about the relationship between Greek tragedy and Athenian politics, and she hopes to compare the resilience of Athenian democracy to the challenges facing modern liberal democracies in keeping with the Clough Center's ''Democratic Resilience'' theme. Clara enjoys playing oboe in the University Wind Ensemble and blogging about books.
Emily Turner
More to Come
Griffin Weiss
Griffin Weiss is a rising sophomore studying History at Boston College. He was born and raised in New York City, where his passion for history and local politics began. New York fostered Griffin’s rich interest in housing policy, public education, and political engagement. In his academic life at BC, he’s enjoyed researching Middle Eastern history, Korean literature, as well as suburban growth. On campus, Griffin is a member of the Jenks Leadership program at the Winston Center as well as an active writer for The Gavel, the progressive student newspaper at Boston College. There, he writes opinion pieces focused on activism on campus as well as current events around the world. Outside of academics, Griffin is also an active member of DJ Club. He looks forward to joining The Clough Center as an Undergraduate Correspondent in the Fall of 2025.
Clough Faculty Affiliates
Marsin Alshamary
Marsin Alshamary is a scholar of Middle Eastern politics, with a primary focus on religious institutions, civil society, and protest movements. She is currently working on a book manuscript titled: A Century of the Iraqi Hawza: How Clerics Shaped Protests and Politics in Modern Day Iraq, which explores the historical and contemporary interactions between the Shi’a religious establishment and protest movements. Her research has been published in academic journals, including The Journal of Democracy, and she has provided commentary to various media outlets such as Al Jazeera and BBC. She has also consulted for organizations like the United Nations and the World Bank. As an educator, she teaches courses on religion and the state in the Middle East, state building and revolution in the Middle East, and civil society and democracy. She holds a doctorate in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and she is currently a faculty associate in the Islamic Civilization and Societies Program at Boston College.
Fernando Bizzarro
Fernando Bizzarro is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Boston College, whose work explores the intricate nature, underlying causes, and far-reaching consequences of democracy and political parties. His current research explores the impact of economic inequality on political representation, the political foundations of inclusive economic growth, and the factors contributing to democratic stagnation in Latin America. Employing a combination of observational and experimental empirical strategies, Bizzarro examines both global and local questions concerning the functioning of democratic institutions. His overarching goal is to empower citizens and scholars worldwide with insights that not only enhance their understanding of democratic processes but also pave the way for expanding their welfare and upholding their dignity.
Frank Garcia
Frank J. Garcia is Professor of Law and Dean’s Distinguished Scholar at the Boston College Law School. A Fulbright Scholar, he has taught and lectured widely on globalization, international economic law and litigation finance reform in Europe, South America and the Asia/Pacific region. He is the author of, among other volumes, Consent and Trade: Trading Freely in a Global Market (2019) and Global Justice and International Economic Law: Three Takes, both published by Cambridge University Press.
Lauren Honig
Lauren Honig is anAssociate Professor of Political Science at Boston College, whose research and teaching focus on comparative politics and the political economy of development in African countries. She is particularly interested in the politics of property rights; the roles of informal and customary institutions; natural resource politics; and state-citizen linkages. Several of her current research projects examine land rights and plural systems of authority. This includes her book, Land Politics: How Customary Institutions Shape State Building in Zambia and Senegal (2022, Cambridge University Press). Her research has been published in Perspectives on Politics, African Affairs, American Political Science Review, Comparative Politics, Democratization, the Journal of Politics, and World Development. She has received funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF), Fulbright Council, and the Social Science Research Council (SSRC), among others.
Hannes Kerber
Hannes Kerber is an Assistant Professor of Political Philosophy at Boston College, where he studies and teaches primarily 18th century political thought. Prior to joining BC, he was the academic program director at the Carl Friedrich von Siemens Stiftung and a lecturer in philosophy and religious studies at the University of Munich, Germany. In 2022/2023 he held a position as a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University and in 2024 as a visiting professor at the Università degli Studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Italy. His first book, Die Aufklärung der Aufklärung: Lessing und die Herausforderung des Christentums, was published in 2021 by Wallstein Verlag and was awarded the first Chodowiecki Prize by Interdisziplinary Centre for European Enlightenment Studies in Halle-Wittenberg, Germany. He has co-edited Leo Strauss on Plato’s “Euthyphro”: The 1948 Notebook, with Lectures and Critical Writings (2023) and Die Praktiken der Provokation. Lessings Schreib- und Streitstrategien (2024).
Florence Madenga
Florence Zivaishe Madenga is an Assistant Professor in the Communication Department and the African and African Diaspora Studies program at Boston College. Her core area of study is in journalistic practices, specifically how journalists and peripheral media-makers challenge or are affected by state censorship. Her most recent research focuses on iterations of humor and journalism in tricky political contexts, satire journalism’s affordances and limitations as a liberatory practice in Zimbabwe, journalism in the United States, and popular culture in the African diaspora. She is currently working on her first book tentatively titled Black Satire Journalism: Dark Humor and Play in a Military Dictatorship. Her commentary and scholarship has been published in Information, Communication & Society, Media, Culture & Society, Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience, the International Journal of Communication and other journals. She holds a doctoral degree in Communication from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania.
Zine Magubane
In 1908 Emile Durkheim wrote: “So far as I know there is no sociology worthy of the name which does not possess a historical character.” A few years later, W.E.B. DuBois opened his essay, “The African Roots of War,” with the Latin phrase: “Semper novi quid ex Africa,” roughly translated as “out of Africa, always something new.” As an Africanist and an historical sociologist, my goal has been to craft an historical sociology that challenges the preposterous, yet curiously persistent myth that Africa and people of African descent lie (as Hegel famously put it) “beyond the day of self-conscious history.” I aim to change how we understand sociology’s past, in particular its relationship to Africa and the diaspora, in order to reorient what we do as global and transnational sociologists do in the future. My work uses the tools of historical sociology to examine the role of colonialism in the production of social scientific knowledge and inquiry. I focus specifically on the history of sociology, demonstrating how a number of sociology’s key conceptual presuppositions have been informed by the legacies of slavery and colonialism. I show how slavery and colonialism, events that have until recently been relegated to the margins of history, were central to the making of the modern world and, therefore, became central to the development of sociology, a discipline that is “intimately entwined with modernity, both as lived and theorized.” The work I have done on this topic has appeared in Political Power and Social Theory, Current Sociology, and Critical Sociology, and African and Black Diaspora: An International Journal.
As an historical sociologist and an Africanist, my aim has been to show that because the development of sociology has always been so closely connected with the colonization of Africa, sociology has always been ‘global’. It has also, however, produced knowledge in the service of colonial power. The connections between the history of sociology and the practice of colonial rule are, however, not well known. My work aims to change this. Much of my work is oriented around demonstrating that the frustrations that sociologists are currently experiencing about the limited abilities of our theories and methods to meet the challenge of studying global and transnational social processes are the results of this particular aspect of sociology’s disciplinary history having been occluded. The inadequacy of many of the normative presuppositions that underlie sociology’s core interpretive premises are, I have argued, are the logical outcome of the elision of this key aspect of our disciplinary history.
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Mary Murphy
Mary C. Murphy joined Boston College in Fall 2024. Her main research and teaching interests include: Ireland/Northern Ireland and the EU, peace and conflict in Northern Ireland, and the politics of Brexit on the island of Ireland. Her current research focuses on post-Brexit Northern Ireland and relations with the EU and US. In addition to being a member of the Political Science Faculty, she is the Director of the Irish Institute at Boston College.
Her latest book, co-authored with Jonathan Evershed, A Troubled Constitutional Future: Northern Ireland after Brexit, Agenda/Columbia University Press 2022, won the UACES Best Book Prize in 2023. The book examines the factors, actors and dynamics that are most likely tobe influential, and potentially transformative, in determining Northern Ireland's constitutional future after Brexit. It offers an assessment of how Brexit and its fallout may lead to constitutional upheaval, and includes a cautionary warning about the need to prepare for it.
She is also the author of Europe and Northern Ireland’s Future: Negotiating Brexit’s Unique Case, Agenda/Columbia University Press 2018 which was one of the first book-length studies of Northern Ireland and Brexit. Her previous book, Northern Ireland and the European Union: The Dynamics of a Changing Relationship, was published by Manchester University Press in 2014. She has guest edited special issues of Irish Political Studies, Administration and Irish Studies in International Affairs (forthcoming) and her work has also been published in leading academic journals including The British Journal of Politics and International Relations, International Political Science Review and Territory, Politics, Governance.
Before joining the faculty at Boston College, she was Head of the Department of Government and Politics at University College Cork, Ireland. She is the former President of the Irish Association for Contemporary European Studies, has twice been awarded an Erasmus+ Jean Monnet Chair award and holds a fellowship with the Centre on Constitutional Change at Edinburgh University. She was also previously a Fulbright-Schuman scholar and has won the Political Studies Association of Ireland (PSAI) Teaching and Learning Prize.
Robert Savage
Professor Robert Savage teaches courses in Irish, British and Atlantic World history and collaborates with colleagues in the departments of Fine Arts, Philosophy and English to teach interdisciplinary courses that explore the intersection of art, memory, narrative and history. He served as one of the directors of the University’s renowned Irish Studies program for 17 years. Savage has been a Visiting Professor at Venice International University, a Visiting Fellow at the Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute, Trinity College Dublin, a Visiting Research Professor in the School of History at Queens University, Belfast, a Leverhulme Visiting Professor at the University of Edinburgh, and a Visiting Professor at the University of Galway. He has published five books that explore contemporary Irish and British history. His 2010 book A Loss of Innocence? Television and Irish Society 1960-1972 was awarded the James S. Donnelly, Sr. Prize for Best Book in History and Social Sciences from the American Conference for Irish Studies. His book The BBC’s Irish Troubles, Television, Conflict and Northern Ireland was short listed for the 2015 Ewart-Biggs Literary Prize. His most recent volume, Northern Ireland, the BBC and Censorship in Thatcher’s Britain, was published by Oxford University Press in 2022. His current project considers how the Northern Ireland ‘Troubles’ arrived in England in the early 1970s.
Michael Serazio
Michael Serazio is a professor and chair of the Department of Communication at Boston College who studies media production, advertising, popular culture, political communication, and new media. His most recent book, The Authenticity Industries: Keeping it ‘Real’ in Media, Culture, and Politics (Stanford University Press, 2024), tells the story of America's obsession with authenticity and reveals the backstage strategies and practices to fake that on behalf of products, platforms, and politicians. Previous books include The Power of Sports: Media and Spectacle in American Culture (NYU Press, 2019), and Your Ad Here: The Cool Sell of Guerrilla Marketing(NYU Press, 2013). A former journalist, he has written essays for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Vox, and other news venues, as well as scholarly journals in the media and communication field. He serves on Boston College’s Journalism program steering committee and the Church in the 21st Century’s advisory committee and hosts the podcast, Formative, which interviews inspiring alums of Jesuit universities.