Campus & Community

Weatherhead Center selects a dozen new international fellows

8 min read

The Weatherhead Center for International Affairs (WCFIA) recently announced its 2007-08 class of fellows.

Each year, the center’s fellows program brings senior-level international-affairs professionals to Harvard, where they conduct focused, independent research, and also interact intensively with the academic community, including faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates.

This year’s WCFIA Fellows are as follows:

Nicholas Beadle, United Kingdom, civil servant, Ministry of Defence. Beadle’s most recent assignment was as private secretary to the secretary of state for defense with specific responsibilities for advice on operations policy. From 2004 to 2005, he served in Baghdad as senior adviser to the Iraqi Ministry of Defense. He has also held policy roles in NATO, the European Union, and the United Nations. His 20 years of commercial experience includes acquisition and merger, and change management roles.

While at Harvard, Beadle will conduct research on multilateralism; approaches to regional reconciliation; and on new options for nation building.

Altay Cengizer, Republic of Turkey, diplomat, Ministry of Foreign Affairs. A career diplomat since 1979, Cengizer was most recently the director general for policy planning. In 2006, he served as special adviser for then-Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul. He has had many overseas assignments, serving as ambassador to Tajikistan (2005-06), as deputy permanent representative of Turkey to the United Nations (2000-05), as consul general of Turkey in Chicago (1996-98), as counselor of the Turkish permanent representation to the European Union, and as second secretary in the embassy in Kuwait. In 1994, he was appointed deputy chief of cabinet and deputy special adviser on foreign affairs to then-president, Suleyman Demirel; subsequently, he also served as head of the department for policy planning, working closely with former Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit’s office.

At Harvard, Cengizer’s research will consider how the solution of frozen conflicts will help better and more secure energy politics to emerge.

Sudhir Devare comes to Harvard following a long and distinguished career as a member of the Indian Foreign Service (IFS). Since his retirement in 2001, he has held senior advisory positions in India on national security and also academic positions in India and abroad. He is currently associate senior fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore; and a member of Eminent Persons’ and Experts’ Group, ASEAN Regional Forum. Positions he has held in the Indian Foreign Service include secretary, Ministry of External Affairs (1998-2001); ambassador to Indonesia (1994-98); ambassador to the Ukraine (1992-94); consul general of India in Frankfurt (1989-92); and ambassador to South Korea (1985-89).

He plans to conduct research this year on India’s and China’s relations with East Asia against the backdrop of U.S. influence in the region.

Juan Carlos Iragorri, Colombia, journalist. Iragorri has written extensively on foreign affairs in Europe, Latin America, and the United States. Until recently, he was a European correspondent in Madrid for Cambio, an influential news magazine in Colombia. From 2002 to 2004, he also served as a correspondent in Spain for Colombia’s leading radio news program broadcast by W Radio. Between 1997 and 2001, he was chief European correspondent for El Tiempo, one of Colombia’s most widely read newspapers. His coverage of the Northern Ireland peace process and of the Basque conflict gave him national recognition. Prior to that, he served as managing editor of Semana, the top Colombian weekly magazine. Iragorri has interviewed several heads of state, Nobel Prize winners, and influential opinion makers.

While at Harvard, he is pursuing research on alternatives to legalizing narcotics as a solution for the illicit drug trade, and on U.S. policy toward Latin America.

Friedrich Ludwig Löhr, Germany, diplomat, Federal Foreign Office. Löhr comes to Harvard from Pyongyang, North Korea, where he was ambassador from 2005 to this year. He has had numerous overseas assignments, including minister and deputy chief of mission at the German embassy in Beijing; chargé d’affaires at the embassy in Lagos, Nigeria; deputy chief of mission at the embassies in Algiers, Morocco, and Budapest, Hungary; and head of consulate at the embassy in Prague, Czech Republic. He has also served in Brussels, Belgium; Khartoum, Sudan; New York (permanent mission to the United Nations), and Belgrade, Serbia. In addition, he was director of biological and chemical weapons disarmament in the department of disarmament and nonproliferation in Berlin from 1998 to 2002.

His research interests include topical developments in North Korea and China, international law, and security policy.

Chad T. Manske, United States, colonel, U.S. Air Force. Manske comes to Harvard following a 19-month assignment at Dover Air Base in Delaware, where he served as vice commander of the 436th Airlift Wing. Responsible for providing worldwide movement of high-priority personnel and cargo, Dover Air Force Base is also the home of Port Mortuary, the Department of Defense’s largest aerial port and the Air Mobility Command Museum. Manske was responsible for the welfare of a base community of nearly 12,000 active duty, Air Force Reserve, Air Force civilians, and their dependents. Other assignments during his 17-year career include deputy director, United States Central Command Deployment and Distribution Operations Center, Camp Arifjan, Kuwait (2006-07); 385th Air Expeditionary Group commander, Incirlik Air Base, Turkey (2005); and 62nd Operations Group deputy commander, McChord Air Force Base, Washington (2005).

While at Harvard, he plans to pursue research on the comparative aspects of the pre-World War II British Committee of Imperial Defence and the United States’ present-day National Security Council.

Edwin Passmore, United States, colonel, U.S. Army. Passmore has most recently served as the commander, U.S. Military Group in Venezuela. Previously, he was chief of staff of the Office of Security Cooperation in Kabul, Afghanistan, which is responsible for the organizing, training, and equipping of the Afghan army and national police forces. Passmore was the intelligence adviser to the Kuwait Ministry of Defense during the planning and conduct of the Iraq war. During this period he also organized and led Task Force Hope, a Kuwaiti unit responsible for finding more than 500 Kuwaitis missing from the first Gulf War. Before this, Passmore was the army section chief in the Military Liaison Office, Brasilia, Brazil, where he was responsible for all military exchange and sales programs.

At Harvard, he is pursuing research on international relations/national security strategy formulation with a focus on Latin America.

Leo Riski, Finland, television journalist, YLE (the Finnish Broadcasting Company). Riski has most recently served as the anchorperson and producer of the weekly foreign affairs TV discussion program “Maailmannäyttämöllä” (“On the World Stage”) on YLE. Previously, he worked as the Berlin correspondent, was the anchor of the weekly economic affairs TV program “A-Plus,” as well as the anchor of the daily Morning TV program “Aamu-TV.” During the Finnish EU membership negotiations, Riski covered the EU and NATO affairs as the chief Brussels correspondent and bureau chief of YLE TV and Radio. He has also covered news and done television documentaries in various crisis areas, including Lebanon, Israel, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Romania, and Nicaragua.

While at Harvard, he will pursue research on how the rise of China and India is seen in the United States, as well as examine American TV news and current affairs programs.

Seung Jin Shin, Republic of Korea, international business professional. Shin served most recently as director, trade and investment promotion division, bilateral bureau, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MOFAT). Prior to her public sector appointment, she held senior management positions at several multinational corporations, including R.J. Reynolds, Levi Strauss, and Pharmacia. While at Harvard, she plans to conduct research on ways in which cultures interact among countries that cooperate economically and otherwise.

Timo Summa, Finland, civil servant, EU Commission. Summa has served most recently as the director for the Enlargement Directorate-General (DG) of the European Commission. Previously, he served as a director both in the DG Enterprise and Industry and in the DG External Relations. Before joining the European Commission, Summa held several senior management positions in the private sector (paper and mechanical engineering industries, and venture capital).

While at Harvard, he is pursuing research on results and experiences of the EU’s recent enlargement, Europe-Russia relations (especially in the energy sector), and entrepreneurship and growth companies.

Meidyatama Suryodiningrat, Indonesia, is managing editor of The Jakarta Post daily newspaper with a background of some 14 years in journalism. He specializes in sociopolitical issues and foreign policy with specific focus on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Suryodiningrat served in a number of editorial positions including managing editor, before leaving the daily in early 2002. He then worked as a political analyst for a Jakarta-based strategic consulting firm that engages in government and community relations.

While at Harvard, he plans to conduct research into promoting political openness/democracy through (Indonesian) foreign policy.

Christof Weil, Germany, diplomat, Federal Foreign Office. Weil has most recently served as the director, European Security and Defense Policy. Previously, he headed the Eastern European Partners’ Section in the International Staff of NATO, dealing mainly with the NATO-Russia relationship. He served in the Policy Planning Staff of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the NATO Division and, before unification, in the department handling foreign policy questions regarding Berlin and Germany as a whole. He has been posted to the embassies in Moscow; Brasilia, Brazil; and Warsaw, Poland.

At Harvard he is pursuing research on European security and defense issues and on the impact of membership in the EU and NATO on Central European states.