The Next Class of New America Fellows

Washington, DC – New America is pleased to announce the appointment of the following 2015 Fellows who will join us on September 1, under the new leadership of Peter Bergen:

Brian K. Barber will write a book narrating the lives of six men from the Gaza Strip who he has interviewed regularly for the past 20 years since they emerged as youth from the first Palestinian intifada in 1993. He and colleagues will also be continuing two research projects, both funded by the Jacobs Foundation, Switzerland: an event-history study of the current well-being of a representative sample of 1,800 of the same generation of Palestinians and a study of youth who participated in the Egyptian revolution. Barber is currently a professor of child and family studies and the founding director of the Center for the Study of Youth and Political Conflict at the University of Tennessee. He is editor of Adolescents and War: How Youth Deal with Political Conflict. He is a graduate of the University of California, Santa Cruz, has a M.A. in marriage, family, and child therapy from the California Family Study Center and has a Ph.D. in family studies from Brigham Young University. Barber will be a Jacobs Foundation Fellow at New America.

Andrea Elliott will write a book about child poverty in the new gilded age, to be published by Random House. She is currently an investigative reporter for The New York Times. Previously, she was a reporter at The Miami Herald. She is the recipient of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in feature writing, the 2008 Overseas Press Club award for best magazine reporting and the 2014 George Polk Award for local reporting, among other honors. She is a graduate of Occidental College and has a M.A. from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. Elliott will be an Emerson Fellow at New America.

Virginia Eubanks will research and write about the impact of public service information technologies on poor and working people in the United States. She is currently an associate professor of women’s, gender and sexuality studies at the University at Albany, SUNY. She also writes for The American Prospect and Equal Future and runs two social justice organizations, the Popular Technology Workshops and Our Knowledge, Our Power. She is the author of Digital Dead End: Fighting for Social Justice in the Information Age and co-editor of Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around: Forty Years of Movement Building With Barbara Smith. Eubanks is a graduate of the University of California, Santa Cruz and has a Ph.D. in science and technology studies from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Eubanks will be a Ford Academic Fellow at New America.

Mei Fong will write a book about the effects China’s one-child policy, to be published by Houghton Mifflin. Previously, she taught at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School and worked for over a decade as a foreign correspondent for The Wall Street Journal. She won a shared Pulitzer Prize in International Reporting for her work on China. Fong is a graduate of the National University of Singapore and has an M.A. in international relations from Columbia University. Fong will be an Eric and Wendy Schmidt Fellow at New America.

Hua Hsu will research the history of diversity and multiculturalism. He is currently an associate professor of English at Vassar College, a contributor to Grantland, and an executive board member of the Asian American Writers Workshop. He is the author of A Floating Chinaman, forthcoming from Harvard University Press. Hsu is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley and has a Ph.D. in American studies from Harvard University. Hsu will be a Ford Academic Fellow at New America.

Yascha Mounk will write about technological solutions to the political and environmental challenges of the 21st century, and how confused attitudes about nature are making us overly hesitant to embrace them. He is the author of Stranger in My Own Country: A Jewish Family in Modern Germany, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Mounk is a graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge and is currently a Ph.D. candidate in government at Harvard University, where he also teaches classes on climate change and contemporary democracy. Mounk will be a Jeff and Cal Leonard Fellow at New America.

Douglas Ollivant will write a book comparing and contrasting the "Surge" periods of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. He is a managing partner of the strategic consulting firm Mantid International. A retired Army officer, he spent a total of three years deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, both in uniform and as a contractor, and was Director for Iraq at the National Security Council during both the George W. Bush and Obama administrations. Ollivant is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a graduate of Wheaton College and has a Ph.D. in political science from Indiana University. Ollivant will be an ASU Future of War Senior Fellow at New America.

Monica Potts will write a book about the post-prison lives of several men after they return to West Baltimore and explore the idea of a second-chance society. Previously, Potts spent four years at The American Prospect magazine, covering poverty and economic opportunity in the United States. She won a Sidney award from the Sidney Hillman Foundation in 2012, a David Pike Award for covering homelessness in 2013, and was a finalist for the Livingston Award for Young Journalists for 2013. She is a graduate of Bryn Mawr College and has a M.A. from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.

Ari Ratner will write a book on reforming bureaucracy for a new generation based on the experiences of young people in government during the Obama presidency. Ratner is currently a strategic communications consultant and has been collaborating with Alec Ross on a book on the next wave of globalized innovation in science and technology, to be published by Simon & Schuster. Previously, Ratner was appointed to serve at the State Department as Special Assistant to the Under Secretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment and as Congressional Liaison for Near Eastern Affairs. He has worked on press advance for the 2008 Obama for America campaign, the Hillary Clinton for President campaign, the Presidential Inaugural Committee, and the White House. He was also a West Coast Correspondent for the Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun. Ratner is a graduate of Stanford University and has a M.P.P. from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.

Daniel Rothenberg will write a book on the role of narrative in explaining why people defend politically significant ideas where clear evidence undermines their position. Rothenberg is currently Professor of Practice in the School of Politics and Global Studies and the Lincoln Fellow for Ethics and International Human Rights Law at Arizona State University. He is the co-editor, with Peter Bergen, of Drone Wars: Transforming Conflict, Law and Policy, to be published by Cambridge University Press. Previously, he was a managing director at the International Human Rights Law Institute at DePaul University College of Law, a senior fellow at the Orville H. Schell, Jr. Center for International Human Rights at Yale Law School, an assistant professor at the University of Michigan and a fellow in the Michigan Society of Fellows. From 2004 through 2010 he worked in Afghanistan and Iraq designing and managing human rights and rule of law projects. Rothenberg is a graduate of Brown University, has a M.A. in anthropology from the University of Chicago and is a Ph.D. candidate in international law at the University of Nottingham. Rothenberg will be an ASU Future of War Fellow and the co-director of the Future of War program at New America.

Levi Tillemann will release a book on the past, present, and future of the global auto industry, to be published by Simon & Schuster in 2015, and will research a new policy-focused book about the energy, economic, and social implications of autonomous vehicles. He is currently the Special Advisor to the Office of Energy Policy and Systems Analysis at the U.S. Department of Energy and chairs the Department’s Autonomous and Connected Vehicles Energy (ACE) Working Group. Previously, Tillemann was the CEO of IRIS Engines, a company he founded with his inventor father to develop a smaller, more efficient and more powerful combustion engine. As an associate director at IHS CERA, Tillemann assisted Daniel Yergin in writing and researching his New York Times bestsellers The Quest and a new edition of The Prize. Tillemann is a graduate of Yale University and has a Ph.D. in Japan and China studies from Johns Hopkins University. Tillemann will be a Jeff and Cal Leonard Fellow at New America.

Julian E. Zelizer will be writing a book about the clash between American liberalism after the 1960s and a new generation of Republicans in the 1980s who sought to advance conservatism through Congressional warfare. He is the Malcolm Stevenson Forbes, Class of 1941 Professor of History and Public Affairs at Princeton University and writes a weekly column for CNN.com. He is the author and editor of 14 books on American political history, including The Fierce Urgency of Now: Congress, Lyndon Johnson and the Battle for the Great Society, which Penguin Press will publish in January 2015. Zelizer is a graduate of Brandeis University and holds a Ph.D. in history from Johns Hopkins University. Zelizer will be a Ford Academic Fellow at New America.

New America is also pleased to announce the renewal of the following fellows: Perry Bacon, Jr. Kathryn Bowers Jason DeParle Shane Harris Daniel Kurtz-Phelan Christopher Leonard J. Peter Scoblic Meredith Wadman Hao Wu

New Fellows Program Director at New America

New America announces today that Peter Bergen, journalist, author and director of New America’s International Security Program and Future of War Program, will also become New America’s Vice President, Director of Studies and Director of the Fellows Program.

New America’s Fellows Program invests in thinkers -- typically academics, journalists, independent scholars, and public policy analysts -- who offer a fresh and often unconventional perspective on the major challenges facing our society.

Mr. Bergen is a print, television and web journalist, documentary producer and the author of four books, three of which were New York Times bestsellers. The Washington Post named three of them among the non-fiction books of the year. The books have been translated into twenty languages and have been turned into three documentaries, two of which were nominated for Emmys and one of which won an Emmy. Mr. Bergen is also CNN's national security analyst and a fellow at Fordham University's Center on National Security. He is the editor of the South Asia Channel and South Asia Daily Brief on foreignpolicy.com, a contributing editor at The New Republic and Foreign Policy and a weekly columnist for CNN.com. He is also a member of the Homeland Security Project, a successor to the 9/11 Commission, and a member of the Aspen Homeland Security Group. He has held teaching positions at Harvard’s Kennedy School and Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and has a degree in Modern History from New College, Oxford.

“Peter is a talented journalist and thinker,” said Anne-Marie Slaughter, President and CEO of New America. “He is also an exceptional leader, mentor, and colleague who can support fellows with cross-cutting, innovative research, reporting, analysis and storytelling.”

Mr. Bergen will succeed Andrés Martinez, who led the Fellows Program for six years and directed New America’s editorial efforts for the last two. “Andrés took the Fellows program to a new level of community and collective support for turning preliminary ideas into best-selling books," said Dr. Slaughter.

Mr. Martinez will move to New America’s close partner Arizona State University, where he will continue to oversee Future Tense, a collaboration between New America, Slate, and ASU on emerging technologies. He will also be the editorial director of Zócalo Public Square, teach at the Cronkite Journalism School and advise ASU President Michael Crow on a number of projects in Mexico.

“My first role at New America was as a fellow,” said Mr. Bergen, “and I am thrilled to work with our current class of outstanding fellows—and partner with Anne-Marie, Andrés, and others to recruit new ones—to ensure that New America continues to invest in thinkers addressing today’s challenges.”