Fellows Program alumni have served in various capacities and in many places throughout the world since their days at Harvard. They have pursued distinguished careers in many professional areas including diplomatic service, military, politics, journalism, business, academia, and the nonprofit sector. Many alumni have also stayed connected to the Weatherhead Center and to Harvard over the years, returning to campus or elsewhere to participate in WCFIA conferences and to pursue additional research. This continued engagement offers an opportunity for both the Center and the wider Harvard community to benefit from the ongoing work of former WCFIA Fellows.
Katarina Engberg, 1986–1987 CFIA Fellow, is currently director at the Office for Strategic Development and Future Issues in the Swedish Prime Minister’s Office. She has also served in senior positions at the Ministry of Defence and was posted to the Swedish Permanent Representation to the European Union and the Swedish NATO delegation in Brussels. She sits on the board of the Centre for Russian and Euroasian Studies at Uppsala University and is a frequent commentator on security policy in the Swedish media. Engberg, who earned her PhD in 2011, spent a semester in spring 2010 as a research associate of the WCFIA’s Program on Transatlantic Relations. She is a frequent participant in the WCFIA’s annual conference in Talloires, France. Among her publications is the 2013 book, The EU and Military Operations: A Comparative Analysis.
Yaqing Qin, 2013 WCFIA Fellow, is president of China Foreign Affairs University, and he was recently appointed president of the newly established China Diplomatic Academy. Professor Qin wears many hats, also serving as vice president of the China National Association for International Studies, and as a member of the foreign policy advisory group of the Chinese foreign ministry. Just recently, he became the first country coordinator for the Network of East Asian Think-Tanks. His own academic interests include international relations theory, global governance, China’s foreign policy, and East Asian regionalism. Qin remains actively engaged with Harvard, collaborating with faculty and also participating in WCFIA and other Harvard symposia.
Stephen Mariano, 2011–2012 WCFIA Fellow, is leaving his thirty-year career of active service in the United States Army to embark on an academic career at the National War College in Washington, DC. Mariano joined the NWC faculty in 2014, and is currently associate dean of outreach and research. Previously, he taught at the United States Military Academy at West Point, and also at the Royal Military College of Canada, from which he earned his PhD. His Harvard network is extensive and growing; in addition to working with and assisting a Harvard College graduate who worked for the Fellows Program as a research assistant in 2011–2012, Mariano has hosted distinguished Fellows from other classes.
Nirupama Rao, 1992–1993 CFIA Fellow, is a former foreign secretary of India (2009–2011) and ambassador to the United States (2001–2013). She was India’s first female ambassador to China and also the first Indian woman to serve as high commissioner to Sri Lanka. Since retiring from the diplomatic service, she has taught at Brown University (fall 2015), where she was also appointed Fellow of the Watson Institute, and she has lectured at many leading universities. She is currently working on a diplomatic history of relations between India and China. A published poet, she holds an honorary doctor of letters degree from Pondicherry University. Secretary Rao has returned to Harvard frequently since her years as Fellow, most recently in February 2016 as keynote speaker at the Harvard India Conference.
Muhamed Almaliky, 2013 WCFIA Fellow, has remained active at the Center. Now an Associate, he continues to conduct research on post-2003 Iraq. He recently taught a course at Tufts University called Iraq: A State in Flux. A practicing physician in cardiology at the University of Pennsylvania Health System, Almaliky also leads the Politics of Disease Study Group at the Weatherhead Center; through case studies presented by faculty and by experts in the field, participants examine how politics influence health outcomes in particular settings. Topics addressed in the study group during the spring term 2016 included the politics of water and health in Iraq; the politics of health care delivery by nonstate actors in Lebanon; and the politics of epidemics from the perspective of the CDC. Almaliky also continues his work with the Iraqi American Institute.
Photo Caption
Current 2015–2016 Fellows and program staff. Photo credit: Michelle Eureka