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.

Danny Hosein is a Fall 2007 Fellow with the Friends Committee on National Legislation Education Fund where he is focusing on nuclear nonproliferation programs and the presidential candidates' views on nuclear weapons. He compiled candidate statements and voting records on nuclear weapons, Iran, and Iraq, created a website with that information, and wrote the resulting briefing booklet, Eyes on the Prize. He maintains the FCNL webpage on "Complex Transformation." He has edited several issues of FCNL's weekly Nuclear Calendar, which lists Congressional hearings, government and NGO meetings, and talks related to nuclear weapons issues. He updated and republished FCNL's Nuclear Officials list that has names of top government officials, at the CIA, Defense, Energy, Homeland Security, NSC, State, and other agencies that focus on nuclear weapons. He organized a breakfast and lunch at FCNL with Dr. Rasoul Rasoulipour of Tarbiat Moaalem University in Iran. During FCNL's annual meeting in November 2007, he assisted with the "Lobby Day" preparations and participated in a panel on "Making Peace an Election Year Issue in 2008." He has written several letters to the editor, including "Obama's Bold Comments," in the Washington Times, "The Terror America Wrought," an "Editor's Pick" in the web version of The Nation, "Responsible Nuclear Policies," in the Christian Science Monitor, "Job One: Nuclear Disarmament," in Investor's Business Daily, "A Bomb Not Worth Building," in the Washington Post, and "Try Diplomacy," in USA Today. He also wrote the FCNL fact sheet "State of Nuclear Disarmament," for the FCNL website. He has attended several Congressional hearings, talks, and policy briefings.

Hosein earned a BA in Political Science from Trinity University in 2006. He also participated in the Inman Scholars Program at the University of Texas-Austin, where he took courses on public policy and seminars on ethical and cross-cultural leadership. As a professor's assistant during college, he helped teach a course entitled, "The Individual in World Politics," and organized campus events. He conducted research in the Political Science Department at Trinity on dissent and repression in Kuwait and Turkey. He was also a student volunteer at the National Weather Service Austin/San Antonio office where he became a SKYWARN severe weather spotter. He was the external chair of the Academic Honor Council, which oversaw the school's honor code. He was a member of Amnesty International, the International and Middle East Studies Associations, the Trinity Coalition for Peace and Justice, and the Trinity Model U.N, and volunteered at various shelters for women, the homeless, and Katrina relief. He also helped coordinate a relief drive after the South Asian tsunami and a movement encouraging divestment from Sudan on campus. He grew up in Friendswood, Texas.

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