We’re delighted to announce the appointment of three new outstanding fellows who will begin their fellowships later this year.
Steven Tagle | Greece | 2021-2023
Cultural and geopolitical transformations on Greece’s frontiers
As Greece emerges from its debt crisis and the pandemic, and assumes greater leadership in its region, Steven will explore how the geopolitics, history and culture of Greek border zones shape the story of the nation and the future of the Eastern Mediterranean, Balkans and Europe. Steven previously served as speechwriter for the US Embassy in Athens and has worked in Greece including for the Stavros Niarchos Foundation-funded New Agriculture for a New Generation program, Anatolia College and Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He was the recipient of an Asian American Writers’ Workshop Margins Fellowship, a Fulbright Fellowship to Greece and a Soros Fellowship for New Americans. Originally from Yorba Linda, California, he is a graduate of Stanford University and the University of Massachusetts MFA for Poets and Writers.
James Courtright | West Africa | 2021-2023
Fulani societies
James will explore how Fulani societies across West Africa—the largest pastoralist community in the world—are responding to climate change, discriminatory governments, increasing jihadist activity and evolving dynamics within Fulani societies. James grew up between East Africa and the United States. He graduated from Denison University in 2012 and served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Kolda, Senegal for three years during which he lived with a Fulani family and worked in community agriculture. He then moved to Dakar and wrote about human rights, the environment and migration for NPR, The Christian Science Monitor and Roads & Kingdoms, among other publications. He graduated from Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs in May 2020 with a concentration in Human Rights and Humanitarian Policy, after which he returned to West Africa to work with Gambian civil society alongside the country’s truth commission.
Bryce Bray | Russian Arctic | 2021-2023
Climate change
Bryce will study the effects of climate change in the Russian far north as a Robert and Patricia Levinson fellow. He will research the far-reaching consequences for the environment, local populations including the rights of marginalized people and societies, regional security and geopolitics as melting ice opens new areas for international competition over natural resources. He has most recently worked with the Conservation Finance Alliance, United Nations Environment Program and Blue Finance to improve use of nature-based solutions for adaptation and sustainable development goals. Bryce completed a masters in Ocean and Coastal Resource Management at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in 2018 and has since received Fulbright and Boren fellowships to conduct research on climate-fragility issues. He grew up in Wisconsin with an identical twin brother and identical twin sisters.
Also going into the field this fall, Joshua Levkowitz will be based in Istanbul, where he’ll immerse himself in Syrian communities living in Turkey and neighboring countries. Appointed last year, his fellowship has been delayed by the Covid-19 pandemic. Wrapping up his mediation work in Erbil, Iraq for the US Institute of Peace, he’ll first spend the summer studying Arabic at Middlebury College.
