Meet Our Past Fellows

GIS’s Past Fellows and Cohorts

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 2021-22 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.