Alumni Notes: Early Fall 2021

Gregory P. Williams ‘15 (Ph.D). has been promoted to Associate Professor of Political Science and International Affairs with tenure at the University of Northern Colorado. The paperback edition of his 2020 book, Contesting the Global Order: the Radical Political Economy of Perry Anderson and Immanuel Wallerstein (SUNY Press), was released this summer.  (The publisher is offering 30% off with the code XNPF21.)  Williams also began his term on UNC’s Faculty Senate, where he represents the College of Humanities and Social Sciences

Jordan Bennett ‘11 (CLAS) was appointed New York State’s deputy director of communications for downstate New York this past May.  Before joining the administration, he served as a public affairs officer and spokesperson for New York University.

Daniel Stockemer ‘10 (Ph.D), professor of political studies at the University of Ottawa, has been awarded the university’s prestigious Konrad Adenauer Research Chair in Empirical Democracy Studies.

Hoween Flexer ’05 (CLAS) recently completed her M.A. in Public Affairs at Clark University, where she was named the recipient of the 2021 MPA Program Award for Outstanding Performance. This award is given in recognition of a graduate student who has excelled in academics and obtained the highest GPA of all graduating members of their program.

Meghan Scanlon ‘09 (CLAS) has been appointed President of the Connecticut Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

Erin Perrine ‘10 (CLAS) was named Communications Director for Senator Ted Cruz (R.-Tex). She previously worked for House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R.-Cal).

Joseph Suich ‘01 (CLAS) has been named The National Grid’s U.S. Chief Compliance Officer. In that role, he will develop and implement compliance management tools engineered to support the achievement of strategic goals.  In addition to his political science degree, he holds a law degree from the Vermont Law School and served as a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division.

Jesse Rifkin ‘14 (CLAS) is using both his Journalism major and his POLS minor to great effect as he continues to write opinion columns for Roll Call, The Washington Post and other media outlets.  In 2016, he was named one of the country’s top three best general interest columnists by the National Society of Newspaper Columnists.  One of his most recent Roll Call columns from June proposed “A simple fix for polarization in Congress: Less polarizing bill titles.”

Takiyah Harper-Shipman ‘17 (Ph.D), an assistant professor of Africana Studies at Davidson College, recently co-authored the “FORUM: Stripping Away the Body: Prospects for Reimagining Race in IR,” which has been conditionally accepted in International Studies Review.  An early view copy is available at this link.

Kristy Belton ‘14 (Ph.D.) continues to serve as Director of Professional Development for the International Studies Association. Dr. Belton has been the recipient of numerous awards for her work on statelessness and migration, including the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees 2015 Award for Best Doctoral Research on Statelessness.

Kevin Generous ‘16 (Ph.D.) began his new position this fall as Associate Professor in the Joint Forces Staff College, a component of the National Defense University.

At the annual conference of the American Association of Public Opinion Research, Yazmin A. Garcia-Trejo (’05 MA, ’07 MA,‘15 Ph.D) was elected to the AAPOR’s executive council: she will also be serving as the organization’s Associate Communications Chair.  

Emily Luna ‘17 (CLAS) will be attending the Western New England Law School starting this year.

Molly Rockett ‘15 (CLAS), a 2019 graduate of Harvard Law School, joined the Lenox Hill Neighborhood House as a Harvard Law Review Fellow working in its Legal Advocacy Department.  She recently penned an essay on the problems with federally subsidized housing for the Harvard Law Review.

Emily Longmore ‘21 (CLAS) was accepted for admission to the MSc program in International Migration & Public Policy at The London School of Economics.

Daniel L. Gottfried ‘01 (CLAS); ‘04 (J.D.) has been appointed general counsel of Enfinity Global, a Spain-based renewable energy and climate change mitigation solutions platform.

Danielle Macuil ‘21 (CLAS) has chosen to attend Duke University Law School.  

Former grad student Timothy Bussey ‘14 (M.A.), ‘18 (Ph.D) has secured a contract with Columbia University Press to write a book on “The History of Discrimination Against Gays and Lesbians by the U.S. Military”. He is currently the Associate Director of the Office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at Kenyon College in Ohio.  Dr. Bussey recently discussed his career and his LBTQ+ advocacy work in a conversation with his former dissertation advisor, Christine Sylvester, on a zoom recording that can be found at this link.

Juhem Navarro-Rivera ’15 (Ph.D.) of Socioanalitica Research has been selected to serve on the Careers Diversity Committee of the American Political Science Association.

Luke Philip Walter ‘13 (CLAS) has joined the law firm of Blank Rome, LLP in New York.  He will be an associate in the firm’s Tax, Benefits and Private Client Group.