Current Scoville Fellows
Alex Bollfrass is a Spring 2007 Fellow with the Arms Control Association,
where he is focusing on chemical and biological weapons. He wrote
Tests,
Arrests Draw Attention to Indian Missiles,
Iran-Iraq
Chemical Warfare Aftershocks Persist, and
Libya Backs Out of
CW Destruction Agreement for Arms Control Today. He has updated and
added content to factsheets on a variety of nonproliferation issues. He wrote
“Grounds for Optimism and Action on Chemical Weapons Convention’s 10th
Anniversary,” an ACA press release. He compiled a 27-page bibliography for an ACA Educator’s Guide that will be distributed to professors and covers all arms
control aspects. He wrote two-page summaries of five nuclear weapon states’strategic positions, the status of their weapons programs, and their
stances on various treaties and arms control regimes. He completed a
comparison of the U.S.-Indian nuclear cooperation agreement with previous
agreements and applicable legislation. He drafted an NGO statement for the
Article XIV CTBT Entry-into-Force Conference. He moderated a panel
(whose participants included Daniel Ellsberg) on International Nonproliferation
at the Think Outside the Bomb conference.
Rebecca Bornstein is a
Spring 2008 Scoville Fellow with the Henry L. Stimson Center. She earned a BA
Cum Laude in Political Science from Kalamazoo College in 2007. During college
she received the Eugene B. Stermer Award and William G. Howard Prize for
excellence of academic work in international affairs and political science, a
Senior Leadership Recognition Award, and the Ham Grant for Political Science.
She used the Ham Grant to conduct research for her senior thesis in Jerusalem on
the rise of Hamas and its implications for Palestinian and regional politics.
She won another Ham Grant and the Provost's Student Travel Fund Award on behalf
of the Model United Nations organization, to fund international conference
participation. As a Research Associate for the Kalamazoo College Political
Science Department, she analyzed the comparative political frameworks of nations
in Europe, North America and Asia. She also served as President and Co-Founder
of the Kalamazoo College Model United Nations organization, President/Campus
Coordinator of Americans for Informed Democracy, and the Department Student
Advisor for the field of Political Science. She spent the first semester of her
Junior year studying Middle Eastern Politics at the Hebrew University of
Jerusalem. While in Jerusalem she worked as a Research Officer and Editor with
the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies where she assisted in the final
editing of a book on conflict resolution. As a Research Associate at the Shalem
Center she worked on Dr. Michael Oren's book "Power, Faith and Fantasy: America
in the Middle East: 1776 to the Present." Since graduation Ms. Bornstein has
served as a Research Intern at the Center for Future Security Strategies at the
Hudson Institute, and worked as a Field Organizer/Issue Advocate Fellow focusing
on environmental issues with the United States Public Interest Research Group in
Missouri. She is proficient in Hebrew and is studying Arabic and French.
Katarzyna (Kasia) Bzdak is a Fall 2007 Fellow with the Federation of
American Scientists. She works with the Arms Sales Monitoring Project in FAS’
Strategic Security program. Kasia works primarily on conventional arms
transfers—including small arms proliferation, export controls, and U.S. arms
export policy—and to a lesser extent on nuclear weapons issues. She is
currently writing about the effort to equip the Iraq Security Forces, focusing
on the difficulties the U.S. and the government of Iraq have had in balancing
the operational necessity of rapid equipment infusions with accountability and
oversight of the transferred weapons. Her report looks at equipment
transfers over different phases of the war, and details the changes that have
occurred as a result of the switch to the more established and transparent
Foreign Military Sales program (equipment transfers were previously made using
ad-hoc, poorly regulated funds and programs). An executive summary of her
paper will appear in the next issue of FAS’s Public Interest Report and the full
version of the paper will be posted on the FAS website. Kasia briefed
several Congressional staffers from the Oversight Committee on this topic.
She additionally assisted Matt Schroeder (Manager of the Arms Sales Monitoring
Project) with a chapter he wrote for FAS’ Small Arms Survey of illicit weapons
diversions, which included a section on the transfer of small arms to Iraq.
She has also worked extensively on U.S. arms exports: she analyzed the
“Historical Facts Book” the Department of Defense published on U.S. arms
transfers over the fiscal years 1997-2006, ran basic statistical analyses of the
data, and analyzed the findings. She is also finishing up a web-based compendium
of U.S. arms transfers, which includes an overview and analysis of major data
sources. The Historical Facts Book analysis will be highlighted on this site.
She additionally updated the Arms Sale’s Monitoring Project’s entire website in
preparation for the launch of FAS’ new website. This included updating,
drafting, and designing the content for many of FAS’ individual web pages.
In the realm of nuclear weapons, Kasia helped Ivan Oerlich update data for an
op-ed he wrote on the Iranian nuclear weapons program and conducted an array of
research for Hans Kristensen (specifically on historic U.S. nuclear employment
policy and the nuclear postures of India, Russia, Israel, Pakistan and China).
She wrote an article, “The
Future of U.S. Missile Defense in Poland” that was posted on FAS’ Strategic
Security blog, based on readings of the Polish press.
Kasia received a BA in Political Science and a BA in International Relations
from the University of Southern California in 2004. She earned an MA in
International Affairs from Columbia University’s School of International and
Public Affairs in 2007 where she concentrated in International Security Policy.
While at Columbia, she was a research assistant at the Comparative Defense
Studies Program at the Saltzman Institute on War and Peace Studies, a program
assistant with the International Economics Program at SIPA and a research
assistant with the Center for Terrorism and Intelligence. She is a recipient of
the Judy Boggs Memorial Scholarship, the DACOR Bacon House Foundation Fellowship
and the Columbia University Fellowship in International Economics. Kasia was
born in Szczecin, Poland, and moved with her family to Los Angeles at age four.
Richard May is a Spring 2007
Fellow with the center for Defense Information. He is focusing on
counterinsurgency, post-conflict reconstruction, and Near East and South Asian
issues. He is writing a monograph on the U.S. military’s focus on
U.S.-based or multi-national corporations for logistical contracting at the
expense of host nation contractors during stability and support operations
abroad. He has written several articles and op-eds for both CDI and other
publications. He wrote “Analysis: The 2007 State of the Union Address” for CDI’s
Weekly Security Review, “Petraeus: Right Guy, Wrong Time” and “Misdirected
Tactics: Counterinsurgency Focus Misses Big Picture in Iraq,” both op-eds in
Defense News (the later article was selected by the Council on Foreign Relations
as a “Must-Read” for its “seminal analysis and inquiries into foreign policy and
national security issues”), “New Justice, No Peace,” an op-ed in the New York
Times (reprinted in the International Herald Tribune), “Wasting Money in Iraq”
and “Buildup, Not Surge,” both op-eds published by UPI, “Mind the Gap: U.S.
Military Structure,” in the International Security Network, and “Opportunity
Missed: Logistics Support Contracts with Locals Would Help Stabilize Iraq” in
Armed Forces Journal, and was interviewed on Al Jazeera (English) about the
surge in Iraq and on Voice of America. He was an invited participant at a
conference hosted by the Carr Center for Human Rights of the Kennedy School of
Government and the Center for Army Lessons Learned entitled “Escalation of
Force,” which sought to resolve the escalation of force tactics of the military
with peacekeeping/making operations. He participated in the Carnegie Junior
Fellows conference and in the World Security Institute’s board meeting.
Kingston Reif is a Spring 2008 Scoville Fellow with the Center for Arms
Control and Non-Proliferation. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa and Magna Cum Laude
from Brown University in 2005 where he earned a BA in International Relations.
As a British Marshall Scholar, he earned an Msc. in International Relations from
the London School of Economics and Political Science in 2006, where he
specialized in the Middle East and international political theory, and an
M.Litt. in International Security Studies from the University of St. Andrews in
2007 where he focused on the study of terrorism and post-conflict rebuilding.
While in the UK he interned at Medact in London where he wrote a report entitled
“Conflict Fuels Iraqi Health Crisis” which analyzed the health situation in Iraq
in the wake of the U.S. invasion in 2003. The report was cited by Physicians for
Social Responsibility’s Los Angles chapter as one of ten “select articles” for
their October 2006 conference, “The Medical Consequences of the War in Iraq.” At
Brown he was a Research Assistant at the Watson Institute for International
Studies where he assisted professors James Blight and Janet Lang (principal
substantive consultants for the Academy Award-winning documentary The Fog of
War) in researching and writing about Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, the
Vietnam War, terrorism, WMD, and civilian casualties in war. He wrote op-ed
columns for the Brown Daily Herald on such topics as the foreign policy of the
George W. Bush administration, the humanitarian crisis in Darfur, and civilian
suffering in Iraq. He had summer internships with Senator Russ Feingold in both
the DC and Wisconsin offices, and with the Gettysburg National Military Park
where he researched and presented interpretive programs on the battle of
Gettysburg and the Gettysburg Address. An avid golfer he did volunteer work at
the 2004 PGA Championship in Wisconsin and the 2007 British Open Championship in
Scotland. He is proficient in German.
Alex Stolar is a Spring 2007 Fellow with the Henry L.
Stimson Center. He is working with Michael Krepon on Stimson’s South Asia
Program and Space Security Project. He factchecks articles and talks by
Krepon and coordinates his meetings with Congressional staffers. He co-wrote “What
Legacy Will Musharraf Leave?” for the Stimson Center website, which was
later reprinted in The News (Pakistan). Stolar wrote “The
Implications of Unrest in Pakistan for Nuclear Security,” also for the
Stimson Center website and reprinted in Rediff and the Daily Times (Pakistan).
That report was quoted in two Pakistani publications and another in France.
He provided research support for Stimson efforts related to the US-India Nuclear
Deal, Krepon’s forthcoming book on nuclear weapons and his July trip to China to
discuss South Asian security and China’s ASAT test. He
schedules meetings for the Stimson Center’s visiting fellows, first for a
Lieutenant Colonel in the Pakistani Army and currently for a physicist who is
the Chief Scientific Officer at the Pakistan Nuclear Regulatory Authority.
Stolar attends the meetings with and takes notes for the visiting fellow.
They have attended briefings and meetings at think tanks, the Defense and State
Department, and other government agencies, and with Congressional staffers.
He is helping the Stimson Visiting Fellow prepare his research paper and
presentation on research reactor security and organized a briefing by for the
Visiting Fellow on the security of research reactors that was attended by over
fifty governmental and nongovernmental experts.
He also helped organize a meeting hosted by the Stimson Center Space Security
Project on a Code of Conduct for Responsible Space-Faring Nations