ICDS is happy to host a bunch of smart and energetic interns over summer. William, Giulia, Miguel, Lorenzo, Anniki, Kornelija and Ladislav – welcome!
William Watson is a student at the Bush School of Public Policy of Texas A&M University in the USA. His keen interest in Baltic security and NATO was a great asset to the ICDS. Will’s upcoming paper on the use of the 5th Generation Fighters, F-35s, in Baltic Air Policing operation and his contribution to the analysis of the security environment in the Baltic area and editorial assistance of the Diplomaatia magazine are just a few of the examples of his excellent work while on our team.
Giulia Prior and Miguel Sainz de Vicuña are currently pursuing an Erasmus Mundus Master’s in Security, Intelligence and Strategic Studies (IMSISS) – a joint degree programme of the University of Glasgow, Dublin City University, University of Trento (Italy) and Charles University in Prague. ICDS is one of the partners of this programme, providing a base for research internships of its students since 2017.
Giulia is from Italy, and her academic passion is the Arctic, but she also contributed to our research on 5G as well as Artificial Intelligence for defence. Miguel is from Spain, and his interests focus on energy security, so he was delighted to help with our projects on the geopolitics of hydrogen and nuclear energy. Both also worked to put together a brilliant analysis of Spanish and Italian lessons from migration crisis in the Mediterranean for the Baltic states that will be published soon.
Lorenzo Crippa, an Italian student of international security also from Sciences Po Paris, is the newest addition to our team and will stay with us till the end of the year. As a fluent speaker of Russian with deep interest in foreign and security policies of Russia and its neighbours, Lorenzo will be helping us with Russia-related research projects and events.
Anniki Mikelsaar is an Estonian graduate in Europe-Asia studies from Sciences Po Paris who is about to start her studies at London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) later this autumn. Anniki has been helping our team at the Estonian Foreign Policy Institute with research on Asia and Indo-Pacific – one of the priority themes on our research agenda.
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Last, but not least, we also have two non-resident research interns this summer whose work and contribution to our projects is just as visible and important to us.
Kornelija Žilionytė, a Lithuanian student of law at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, was excited to have a chance to support our ongoing project on the development and proliferation of robotic weapon systems. She found many interesting legal angles to look into, while working on this topic, which will leave a mark on the project’s outcome.
Ladislav Charouz, a Czech graduate of Yale University in the US and part-time analyst at the Centre for European Values in Prague who will start his studies at the University of Oxford this autumn, has been helping us with research of Russia’s interests and activities in the MENA and sub-Saharan Africa. As a fluent speaker of Chinese, he has also contributed to the research work on China conducted within the Estonian Foreign Policy Institute.