International Fellowship Program Archives

John Amundson

John Amundson joined CRRC as an International Fellow in May 2024. He is a master’s student at the Centre for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies at the Munk School at the University of Toronto. His research interests include news media, foreign policy, Eastern Europe, and America. Johnny lived and worked for two years in Odesa, Ukraine and Saint-Petersburg, Russia.

Zachary Fabos

Zachary completed his BA in International Studies at Roosevelt University and MS in Anthropology at Illinois State University. He previously served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Georgia. He was a recent Collaborative Heritage Management Fellow with the American Research Institute of the South Caucasus (ARISC), working in the Georgian region of Kakheti on cultural preservation practices. His research interests include; heritage, memory, transformations of place and space, and their impact on identity and cultural expression in the Caucasus.

Zack Weiss

Zack holds a B.A. from Colorado College with a double major in Political Science and Russian and Eurasian Studies, and a focus on American relations with Russia. Prior to joining CRRC, Zack completed a semester of his bachelor’s degree in Tbilisi studying post-Soviet politics and the Russian language. He has also conducted research in Kyrgyzstan, Albania, and Montenegro on their domestic politics and foreign relations. His interests include public policy, foreign aid, and diplomacy.

Olivia Route

A graduate of UPenn (BA) and Oxford (MSc), Olivia has recently worked for organizations such as People in Need and the Imagine Center for Conflict Transformation. She served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Armenia and a Luce Scholar in Thailand and is excited to dive into Caucasus-related data with CRRC. Her research interests include migration and identity, minority groups, nationalism, and conflict transformation processes.

Sasha Slobodov

Sasha is completing her MA in European, Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the University of Toronto. Prior to joining CRRC, Sasha worked as a Research Associate at the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy in Canada, a Research Assistant in the Department of Political Science at the University of British Columbia, and as an English instructor in Spain. She received her BA in International Relations from the University of British Columbia and spent one year abroad studying European Studies at Sciences Po Lyon. Her current research interests include energy geopolitics, civil society and the transition to renewable energy, with a broad regional focus on the South Caucasus, Central Asia and Russia. She speaks English, French, Russian and Spanish.

Julia Xavier

Julia is completing her master’s degree in European and Russian Affairs at the Centre for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies at the University of Toronto, where she holds a Social Sciences and Humanities Council Scholarship. Previously, she obtained an Honors Bachelor of Arts with High Distinction at the University of Toronto, having mastered in History and Women and Gender Studies. Her interests include the impact of gender on policy making and the forms of resistance utilized by women in protesting against gendered discrimination. A native English speaker, Julia also has intermediate Russian language skills.

Shaimaa Elhowily

Shaimaa Elhowily holds a BA in Sociology from the Faculty of Arts, Alexandria University, Egypt. During her studies, her research focused on community sustainability and women’s rights. After graduation, she interned in journalism, where her research focused on human rights in the Middle East and the causes of violence in the region. She also wrote about art and community development. In 2018, she researched and published on female genital mutilation. In addition, she has worked as a freelance researcher on anti-Semitism in Egypt for a film production company and as a freelance graphic illustrator.

Lucas Fagliano

Lucas is a MA in European Politics and Society from Leiden University, Charles University and the Jagiellonian University. Through his studies, his research focused on strategic studies and international security, mainly grand strategy and hybrid threats at the EU level. Prior to joining the CRRC, he worked at The Hague Center for Strategic Studies (HCSS) in national security planning, strategic foresight and hybrid threats. More recently, Lucas joined a working group at the Argentinian Institute for Strategic Studies focusing in the development of grand strategic processes in Argentina. Currently his research interests revolve around hybrid threats preparedness, comparative grand strategy and the political determinants for the formation of grand strategic processes through a mixed methodological approach, where he will explore...