Meet Our Past Fellows
GIS’s Past Fellows and Cohorts
2023-24 Fellows
The 2023-2024 Global Irish Studies Initiative Fellowship cohort consists of 4 Undergraduates, 3 Master’s candidates, and 1 PhD candidate.
Learn more about our 2022-23 GIS Fellows and their research projects below.
Ainsley Atwood
Graduate
Ainsley Atwood is a sophomore in the School of Foreign Service studying Culture and Politics, with minors in English and French. Her research through the Global Irish Studies fellowship will focus on Irish literature written in response to the 2016 Brexit referendum. She is interested in whether or not there has been an Irish equivalent to the British literary response to Brexit in the years since the referendum. Part of her focus is considering the impact of Brexit on Ireland’s relationship with the United Kingdom and the potential this brings for Irish reunification.
Alice Blease
Law Student
Alice Blease is an LL.M. student at Georgetown University Law Center from Belfast, Northern Ireland. She graduated from Trinity College Dublin in May 2023 with first class honors in her LL.B. degree and was awarded the George Moore Scholarship to pursue her graduate study at Georgetown. Alice has a particular interest in transitional justice, human rights and international law. As the GIS Sean MacBride Fellow in International Human Rights, Alice will be researching MacBride’s accomplishments and innovations in international human rights law. A Nobel Peace Prize recipient, MacBride was a pioneering advocate who held leadership positions at many international organizations, including the United Nations, the International Commission of Jurists, and Amnesty International (which he co-founded). Alice’s research aims to cast a light on MacBride’s trailblazing work and his impact on the field.
Brendan Hegarty
Undergraduate
Brendan is a senior in the School of Foreign Service majoring in Culture and Politics with a focus on the construction of transatlantic identity. He hails from Massachusetts. The Global Irish Studies Fellowship supports his senior thesis research on President Joe Biden’s visit to Ireland in the spring of 2023. The project uses the broader contexts of American and Irish culture in order to analyze the president’s expressions of his own Irish heritage. Overall, he hopes to draw new conclusions on the contemporary politics of Irish American identity on both sides of the Atlantic.
Vicka Heidt
Undergraduate
Vicka Heidt is a senior in the College, majoring in Government and Justice and Peace Studies. Her work and research focuses on peacebuilding, ethical global governance, and social justice. With a particular interest in post-conflict reconciliation and women’s rights, she intends to center her Global Irish Studies project on women in post-Agreement Northern Ireland. Fusing her background in international law with prior preliminary scholarship at the University of Oxford, Vicka is eager to examine modes for alternative justice which respond to increasing levels of domestic violence and elevate broader gender equity in Northern Ireland.
Patrick McSweeney
PhD Candidate
Patrick is a fifth-year PhD Candidate in the Government Department. His dissertation looks at young people in political parties, considering how their different priorities and approaches can lead to intra-party conflict. Most of his work is focused on American parties, especially the Democratic Party. For his project he is examining the role young people have played in the recent electoral successes of Sinn Féin. The party has been able to use progressive politics to attract young voters, a cohort that is frustrated with the traditional alternatives. He will analyze the factors bringing the group to the party as well as the potential intra-party conflict this may create.
Kavita Premkumar
Graduate
Kavita Premkumar is a second-year MA student with the Department of English at Georgetown University. The 2023-24 Global Irish Studies Research Fellowship supports her thesis research on representations of gender, sexuality and reproduction in modern Indian and Irish literature.
Kartik Ramkumar
Graduate
Kartik Ramkumar (he/him) is a Master of Public Policy (MPP) student. He is interested in studying how states implement policies to support economic and industrial development in deindustrialized areas. As a GIS fellow, Kartik plans to research how Ireland’s unique state institutions, such as Enterprise Ireland, support economic growth in Ireland, especially outside the greater Dublin area, and achieve social outcomes, such as women’s participation in business.
Daniel Wolfe
Undergraduate
Daniel is a senior in the School of Foreign Service, majoring in Science, Technology and International Affairs (STIA) and minoring in Chinese. Originally from New York City, Daniel maintains strong connections to Ireland through his maternal relatives in Ballycastle, Northern Ireland. His research with the Global Irish Fellowship will examine investment in renewable energy on the island of Ireland through the lens of environmental peacebuilding. The aim of his research is to understand how the shared goals of a clean energy transition and increased energy independence support peaceful relations between Ireland and the United Kingdom. He is incredibly fortunate to be supervised in his research by Dr. Marcus D. King, Professor of the Practice in Environment and International Affairs.
2022-23 Fellows
The 2022-2023 Global Irish Studies Initiative Fellowship cohort was comprised of 2 Undergraduates, 5 Master’s candidates, and 2 PhD candidates.
Learn more about our 2022-23 GIS Fellows and their research projects below.
The 2023 GIS Fellowship Symposium
In the second annual GIS Fellowship Symposium, student fellows presented their year-long research projects that explored Irish Studies in a comparative or global context, focusing on Irish history, politics, literature, public health, business, and more. This event served as an end of the year celebration and presentation of the illuminating research conducted by our cohort. Each of the nine fellows shared highlights of their projects and ongoing questions they had explored throughout their time working with Global Irish Studies.
Ryan Conner
Graduate
Ryan Conner is a research and editorial assistant at Georgetown University’s Institute for the Study of Diplomacy and a final-year M.A. student in European Studies in the School of Foreign Service. The 2022-23 Global Irish Studies Research Fellowship supports his graduate thesis research on how the parties to the Northern Ireland conflict negotiated and implemented the Good Friday Agreement. It focuses on provisions related to human rights, an issue essential to peace and stability in the region. Ryan also completed a 2021-22 GIS Fellowship project, which you can read more about here.
Madison Dwyer
Undergraduate
Madison Dwyer is a sophomore in the School of Foreign Service studying International Politics with minors in Psychology and Jewish Civilization. She grew up in Las Vegas, Nevada, and has spent her summers and school breaks with her family in Co. Wicklow, Ireland. Inspired by her family’s own experience, her research focuses on the influence of the Catholic Church on primary and secondary education. She is interested in understanding how Church-State relations—particularly through the implementation of secularist principles—have evolved in Ireland and how to mobilize this to increase access to multi-denominational education in Ireland.
Patrick McSweeney
PhD Candidate
Patrick is a fifth-year PhD Candidate in the Government Department. His dissertation looks at young people in political parties, considering how their different priorities and approaches can lead to intra-party conflict. Most of his work is focused on American parties, especially the Democratic Party. For his project he is examining the role young people have played in the recent electoral successes of Sinn Féin. The party has been able to use progressive politics to attract young voters, a cohort that is frustrated with the traditional alternatives. He will analyze the factors bringing the group to the party as well as the potential intra-party conflict this may create.
Louis Mignot Bonnefous
Graduate
Louis is originally from Paris, France. He studies Democracy and Governance as a first-year graduate student in the Department of Government. He previously graduated in 2022 from Northeastern University with a BA in Political Science and International Affairs. His research with the Global Irish Fellowship focuses on the votes from the youth in the last assembly elections in Northern Ireland. This research intends to understand the political behavior of a generation who did not experience the Troubles in their lifetime. The large gain from the Alliance Party, who came third in the last elections, is another focus of his research project.
Maja Ochojska
Undergraduate
Maja is a senior in the College, majoring in Government and minoring in Justice and Peace Studies, set to graduate from the College in the Spring of 2023. She has a particular interest in conflict resolution and transformation, as well as international migration. She lived in Northern Ireland for twelve years and considers it her home–she loves traveling around the island and discovering all that it has to offer! As a GIS Fellow, she will explore the educational and professional outcomes for young people in Northern Ireland; specifically, she will investigate the phenomenon dubbed as a ‘brain drain’ in the region. Maja also completed a 2021-22 GIS Fellowship project, which you can read more about here.
Robert Pike
Graduate
Robert Pike (he/him/his) is enrolled in the M.A. in English Literature program. Originally from Orlando, Florida, Robert graduated with a double major in Drama and Psychology from the Catholic University of America in 2014 and remained in the DMV area working as an actor, director, and sound designer. His theatrical credits include productions at Imagination Stage, NextStop Theatre Company, and Ally Theatre Company (among others). Robert’s GIS Fellowship project explores the modernist theatrical representation strategies of W.B. Yeats and how they champion our notions of visuality, both the physical sense and the imaginative faculty.
Sofia Pinheiro
Graduate
Sofia Pinheiro is pursuing a Master’s in Physiology. She aims to matriculate into medical school following the completion of her degree. Her research through the Global Irish Studies Fellowship will explore the role of physicians within Ireland’s emergency medical system, with a focus on their contributions to pre-hospital patient care in the field. She hopes to illuminate the particularities of Ireland’s culture and healthcare system that determine the role of Emergency Medicine Physicians. Her research will consider this within the context of a physicians’ scope of practice and governing protocols. Sofia’s interest in emergency medicine began during her time working as a career EMT for an ambulance service in upstate New York.
Alisha Saxena
Graduate
Alisha Saxena (she/her) is a second-year Master of Public Policy (MPP) student. She currently works as a policy intern for the AARP and the Economic Innovation Group, and previously worked as a Research Associate at RepresentWomen. As a GIS fellow last year, Alisha conducted mixed-methods research to produce a working paper which articulated current gender disparities in Irish local councils. This year, as a continuing GIS fellow, Alisha plans to continue this research by determining how gender disparities affect policy output, and also plans to include discussions of the linkage between female representation and the unique PR-STV system in Ireland.
Rachel Singer
PhD
Rachel Singer is a first-year PhD student in the Department of History. She received her MPhil in Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic from the University of Cambridge in 2022. Rachel’s project focuses on outbreaks of infectious disease in early medieval Britain and Ireland. Ireland’s rich annalistic record features numerous epidemics before the year 1000. The presence of these pathogens reveals Ireland’s connections with the outside world in the Middle Ages, yet there is distressingly little communication between scholars of Ireland and those of the Continent. By studying these epidemics and presenting her findings on them to other historical epidemiologists, Rachel hopes to spur scholars to consider Britain and Ireland in their analyses of global medieval infectious disease.
2021-22 Fellows
The Global Irish Studies Initiative 2021-2022 cohort was comprised of eight Fellows, four Undergraduate and four Graduate students.
Learn more about our 2021-22 GIS Fellows and their research projects below.
The 2022 GIS Fellowship Research Symposium
On May 4th, 2022, we were proud to host our first annual Global Irish Studies Fellowship Research Symposium on Georgetown Main Campus. This event served as an end of the year celebration and presentation of the illuminating research conducted by our cohort. Each of the eight Fellows presented highlights of their projects and ongoing questions they had explored throughout their time working with Global Irish Studies. Below are some photos from the event:
Marion Cassidy
Undergraduate
Marion was a junior in the College at the time of her fellowship, set to graduate in the spring of 2023. She is originally from Brooklyn, New York. She studies History and Art History with a minor in Theater and Performance Studies. Her GIS Fellowship research examined how performance has and can be used to remember the political divides and generational trauma of The Troubles between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. She believes that the arts can reveal and teach us so much about ourselves, others, and society. As a Fellow, she explored how The Troubles have been portrayed and remembered through plays. Read more about Marion’s project here.
Ryan Conner
Graduate
Ryan Conner is a graduate student in European Studies at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. Through the 2021-22 Global Irish Studies Fellowship, Ryan researched the work of long-time Georgetown law professor Samuel Dash in Northern Ireland during the early years of the Troubles. In 1972, on behalf of a U.S.-based human rights organization, Dash observed the U.K. government’s tribunal of inquiry into Bloody Sunday and wrote a book challenging the official report. This research connected the Northern Ireland conflict to the international human rights politics of the 1970s. Ryan previously published research on the northern civil rights movement of the 1960s. He interned at the U.S. State Department during the fall of 2021, and will intern at the Washington Ireland Program in the spring of 2022. Ryan writes in a personal capacity, and any views expressed during the fellowship are his own. Read more about Ryan’s project here.
Casey Donahue
Graduate
Casey Donahue graduated with a dual Master’s degree in History and Foreign Service in the spring of 2022. He studies peacebuilding processes and sociopolitical movements in the transatlantic space. With the help of the Global Irish Studies Fellowship, Casey worked to advance two projects related to group identity and memory: a history capstone that tracked the evolution of “Irishness” in a Nebraska town since the 1870s; and a comparative examination of youth history education and civil conflict remembrance in Liberia, Northern Ireland, and the United States. Casey also speaks Arabic and has published on diverse topics, including funk music, Iranian opposition movements, and Afghan women’s issues. Read more about Casey’s project here.
Nicole Marion
Undergraduate
Nicole Marion graduated from the College with a double major in History and Government in the spring of 2022. Given her longstanding interest in Ireland and the United Kingdom, Nicole’s project focused on paramilitary women in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. This project aligned with Nicole’s Honors History thesis, comparing the motivations and experiences of Republican and Loyalist women with each other as well as with their male counterparts. With this project, Nicole contributed to the under-researched study of paramilitary women during the Troubles and situated their experiences within the global context of Gender and Security Studies. Read more about Nicole’s project here.
Siobhán Mitchell
Graduate
Siobhán graduated with her M.S. in Global Health in August of 2022. Before arriving at Georgetown, she received her B.A. in Spanish from Denison University, where her coursework focused on sociolinguistics, transatlantic literature, and Hispanic cinema. Her research with the Global Irish Studies Initiative investigated the implementation and impact of taxes on tobacco and sugary sweetened beverages in Ireland, linking Irish Studies with her passion for public health. She values conversation and collaboration with fellow students and highly valued learning from her peers in the GIS Fellowship program. Read more about Siobhán’s project here.
Maja Ochojska
Undergraduate
Maja was a junior at the time of her fellowship, majoring in Government and minoring in Justice and Peace Studies, set to graduate from the College in the spring of 2023. She has a particular interest in conflict resolution and transformation. She lived in Northern Ireland for 12 years and considers it her home–she loves traveling around the island and discovering all that it has to offer! As a GIS Fellow, she explored how progressive social politics have altered the perception of what it means to be Irish and Catholic, particularly how abortion legalization has been reconciled and accepted within those identities. Read more about Maja’s project here.
Alisha Saxena
Graduate
Alisha Saxena (she/her) is a Master of Public Policy candidate for the Class of 2023 at the McCourt School of Public Policy. Her interest in Ireland developed while a research intern for RepresentWomen, where she researched Ireland’s electoral system. As a Fellow, Saxena explored why Irish women are less likely to run for office and win elections, and she specifically focused on determining if their unique electoral system contributes to these trends. The impacts of this political gender imbalance was also explored, with solutions proposed on how to progress towards political gender parity in Ireland. Read more about Alisha’s project here.
Isabella Turilli
Undergraduate
Isabella Turilli (SFS’22) graduated from the School of Foreign Service with a major in Science, Technology, and International Affairs, and a Certificate in Diplomatic Studies. Her work and research focuses on global health governance and the impact of normative precedents on policymaking. As a Global Irish Studies Fellow, Isabella extended those interests by exploring the legal concept of a “state of emergency” and its use – or lack thereof – in Ireland during the COVID-19 pandemic. Outside of her academic work while at Georgetown, Isabella enjoyed serving campus as an EMT with GERMS and performing with the Georgetown Chamber Singers. Read more about Isabella’s project here.
If you are a friend of Global Irish Studies and you wish to support our Fellows program, contact Prof. Cóilín Parsons for more information.