Sercan Canbolat

Assistant Professor at University of Connecticut

Email: sercan.canbolat@uconn.edu

Sercan Canbolat holds MA degrees in International Relations from Bilkent University (2014) and in Political Science from the University of Connecticut (2018), where he also earned his PhD in Political Science in 2023. A Fulbright alumnus, he is the inaugural Director of Abrahamic Programs and an incoming Assistant Professor of Political Science in Residence at the University of Connecticut. Dr. Canbolat is also a Research Fellow at the Leadership Analysis and Influence Operations Laboratory (LA/IO) within the College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security, and Cybersecurity at the University at Albany. Additionally, he serves as Director of Middle East and Turkey Affairs at Perim Media, a U.S.-based specialist content firm. His research areas include political psychology, leadership profiling with a focus on the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region and visual approaches to international relations research and pedagogy. His work appears in leading academic journals such as International Studies Review, Political Research Quarterly, Polity, and Cambridge University Press. He is the recipient of several honors, including the 2018 Polity Prize for best article, the Margaret G. Hermann Award from ISA-Midwest in both 2020 and 2021, and the 2020 University Outstanding Faculty Teaching Award from the University of Connecticut. His recent co-authored book (with Dr. Özgür Özdamar), Leaders in the Middle East and North Africa: How Ideology Shapes Foreign Policy, received the 2023 Best Book in Foreign Policy Award from the International Studies Association. Dr. Canbolat’s recent research agenda includes a co-authored study (with Dr. Yuzhu Zeng and Dr. Patrick James) visualizing the development of Power Transition Theory (PTT) via a graphic method of Systemism.

Curriculum Vitae: Click here

Gabriel Duvidovich

PhD Candidate at Portland State University

Email Address: gduvido2@pdx.edu

Gabriel Duvidovich is a PhD candidate in Public Affairs and Policy at Portland State University. His research focuses on political economy and economic development, with particular interest in why some middle-income countries escape stagnation while others remain trapped. His dissertation uses advanced quantitative modeling to examine how political capacity shapes structural transformation and long-term economic performance. Gabriel holds an MSc in Economics from the University of Amsterdam and a BSc in Business Administration from Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV) in Brazil. His broader academic interests include institutional development, the transformation of productive structures, and the political foundations of sustained growth.

Chasen Jeffries

PhD Student, Research Assistant, and Teaching Assistant at Claremont Graduate University.

Email Address: Chasen.Jeffries@cgu.edu

Chasen Jeffries is a Ph.D. student in International Political Economy and Computational Analytics at Claremont Graduate University. He employs both traditional quantitative and qualitative methodologies, as well as cutting-edge techniques like Agent-Based Modeling (ABM) and Machine Learning (ML), in his research. His research interests focus on Intellectual Property Protections, China's Political Economy, and The Geopolitics of Soft Power.

Zeyad Kelani

A postdoctoral research associate at the Donald Bern School of Information and Computer Sciences at the University of California, Irvine (UCI). 

Email: kelanizeyad@gmail.com

Website: zeyadkelani.xyz

With a wealth of experience in the areas of Public Policy, Artificial Intelligence (AI) Applications, and Political Strategy, Dr. Zeyad Elkelani builds and deploys AI, and predictive models, using online/offline data.  Dr. Elkelani is currently leading AI-driven research projects on Spatial Intelligence and Blockchain technologies at the Donald Bern School of Information and Computer Sciences at UCI. Prior to this position, he was a senior Data Science fellow at the Murty Sunak Quantitative and Computing Lab at Claremont McKenna College.  Elsewhere, he is a faculty member in his home country at the Faculty of Economics and Political Science at Cairo University, Egypt.

His research interests include political strategy, political economy, decision theory, AI, and computational and mathematical modeling. 

Dr. ElKelani is a recipient of the National Science Foundation (NSF)-Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE) grant, a former United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) fellow and was previously an honorary Ambassador for the distinguished Shafik Gabr foundation East-West initiative. 

He holds a Ph.D. in Computational Analytics and World Politics from Claremont Graduate University. He owns a master's degree in applied data science from Claremont Graduate University in addition to another master's in political science from the American University in Cairo.  He has co-authored publications on political economy, middle east strategy, and AI. 

Glenn-Iain Steinback

TRC_Profile_Glenn.jpg

PhD Candidate and Research Assistant at Claremont Graduate University

Email: Glenn-iain.steinback@cgu.edu

Glenn-Iain Steinback is a PhD. Candidate in Political Science at Claremont Graduate University, Department of International Studies, and research fellow at the TransResearch Consortium focusing on comparative political institutions and international relations. His dissertation research is centered on developing a cross-national quantitative proxy measure for unobserved levels of political corruption, using observable population level socio-economic and political factors. Beyond this his other research interests include the application of novel quantitative methods to political science research, and efforts to quantify the international power of nuclear arsenals using simulation techniques. Glenn-Iain has prior experience in software and simulation design and holds an M.A in interdisciplinary Social Science from CSU San Bernardino, and an M.A in international Studies from Claremont Graduate University.