Roberts Fellowship

About the Fellowship

The Clifford Roberts Graduate Fellowship is a $10,000 award that supports research dealing with the role of government in a free society, public service, public policy, and improved understanding of America's role in world affairs. The Institute offers this fellowship to encourage and assist promising individuals to pursue studies and research in fields such as history, government, economics, business administration, and international affairs. This fellowship continues President Eisenhower's goal to strengthen public awareness and understanding of the greatest problems of our time, to develop informed leaders and allow people to participate more effectively in a free society. 

The fellowship is named for Clifford Roberts, an American investment dealer, professional golf administrator and friend of President Eisenhower. Mr. Roberts co-founded the Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Georgia and served as its chairman for 45 years. He was founding Chairman of the Masters Tournament. 

Eligibility

Candidates should be established graduate students who have completed their coursework for a doctoral degree and are at the point of preparing for their doctoral dissertations. The review committee seeks candidates with proven capacity to make an effective contribution in their chosen career. Candidates must attend one of the following institutions: Columbia University, Cornell University, Harvard University, Princeton University, Stanford University, Tufts University (The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy), University of Chicago, University of Kansas, University of Texas at Austin, University of Virginia, Vanderbilt University, or Washington University at St. Louis.

All students in good academic standing from the aforementioned universities are eligible to apply, regardless of U.S. citizenship or residency.

Applications

Participating universities noted above will share this opportunity with eligible students. Each university will screen applicants through its own internal review procedures and nominate no more than two highly qualified candidates to The Eisenhower Institute for consideration. Universities may choose to rank applications. 

For nomination questions or the form, please email ei@gettysburg.edu. 

Each application must include:

• The applicant’s curriculum vitae
• The applicant's unofficial transcript
• A statement describing the nature and scope of the dissertation, including expected completion date (750 words or less)
• A statement of the applicant’s career aspirations, with a focus on connecting research to professional/volunteer experience and/or career aspirations and applications outside academia (750 words or less)
• A statement describing how the applicant will use funding (at least 50% should be used for research-related activities) 
• A 1-2 page writing sample on a topic related to the dissertation
• Two letters of recommendation - one must be from the applicant's doctoral advisor. 

Deadlines

Applications must be received no later than the close of business on Friday, March 14, 2025. Notifications of fellowships granted for the 2025-2026 program will be sent in mid-June.

Funding and Reporting Requirements

Each fellowship award is for a stipend of $10,000 which will be paid to the universities, half in September and the remainder in January the year it is awarded. Each university may make its own arrangements for disbursing the funds to the Fellows. The Institute requires a brief progress report from the Fellows' doctoral advisor no later than November 15 in order for the second half of the stipend to be paid.

Publication

The Institute requires receipt of the Fellow's dissertation once completed along with an acknowledgement of the Institute's support of the work.

2024-2025 Recipients

Lima Halima-Khalil - The Fletcher School at Tufts University

Afghan Youth, Violence, and Resilience

Lima Halima-Khalil's dissertation explores the often-overlooked experiences of Afghan youth impacted by violent conflict. It focuses on their resilience amidst war, terror, natural disasters, displacement, and financial crises. Halima-Khalil's research seeks to understand how these youths sustain resilience, cultivate hope, and navigate their traumas and adversities. Utilizing feminist security studies, war and peace studies, and psychological research, she employs qualitative methods, including in-depth interviews and participant observation, to capture the nuanced experiences of Afghan youth of diverse genders.
The study challenges deficit-focused perspectives, emphasizing youth agency and resilience rather than vulnerability or threat. It highlights the broader applicability of its findings to other conflict zones and provides predictive insights for future conflict management and peacebuilding efforts. Halima-Khalil's research contributes to scholarship by recognizing the agency of young people and their capacity to drive positive change, offering guidance for more inclusive approaches to global conflict resolution and peacebuilding.

Lima Halima-Khalil is a human security expert. She is a Ph.D. candidate in international security and human security at The Fletcher School of Tufts University. Her research focuses on youth and their vulnerability to extreme violence. Halima-Khalil holds a master’s degree in international security from The Fletcher School and an undergraduate degree in women and gender studies from Bucknell University. Halima-Khalil is the founder of the Paywand Afghanan Association, which focuses on women access to legal resources. She has worked on several projects with national and international organizations, mainly focusing on gender mainstreaming. Previously, as the Monitoring and Evaluation Director at the Administrative Office of the President of Afghanistan, she spearheaded system reforms to enhance governmental accountability. Currently, Lima is a research fellow at the Center for Strategic Studies. She is well-regarded for independent research, having produced reports on the Women's Penal System in Afghanistan, Child brides, women's participation in the Afghan peace process, and numerous analytical articles on the Afghan peace process, and NATO's security sector reform.

Nicholas Helldorfer Chiccinelli - The Fletcher School at Tufts University

Illegible Identities, Erased Experiences, and Uncounted Harms: Investigating the Jurisprudential Treatment of Sexual and Gender Minorities in United States Refugee Status Determination Processes

This research aims to construct a picture of court-level jurisprudence and policy about sex, gender, sexuality, and human rights to determine the effects of jurisprudential decision-making processes on protection outcomes for sexual and gender minority refuge and asylum applicants in the United States. Using the Boston Immigration Court as a case study, the research examines the national and sub-national interpretation and implementation of international human rights law in order to understand how laws, regulations, policies, and the practices of individual jurists affect protection outcomes in cases brought forward on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

Nicholas Helldorfer Cicchinelli is a doctoral candidate at The Fletcher School at Tufts University, where he studies the treatment of sexual and gender minorities in international human rights law. Prior to studying at Fletcher, Nicholas worked to support democracy assistance and human rights programs across the post-Soviet space. Nicholas holds a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy from The Fletcher School and a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations and Russian Studies from Wheaton College of Norton, MA.

Samuel Frederick - Columbia University

The Enemy Is Within”: Elite Affective Polarization in American Politics

A growing body of research indicates that affective polarization is rising in America: members of the public increasingly dislike the opposing party. Moreover, political scientists show that affective polarization and partisanship can lead to inter-partisan discrimination and contribute to the spread of misinformation. Despite these consequences for the mass public, little work examines affective polarization and partisan identity among politicians. In this dissertation, Frederick explores the causes and consequences of partisanship for American governance and representation. He draws from original surveys of politicians to test the causal effects of partisanship on politicians’ attitudes and behavior.

Samuel Frederick is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at Columbia University. His dissertation focuses on partisan affective polarization among politicians in the United States. He uses surveys of politicians and experimental methods to understand the causes and implications of this polarization for political representation and governance. His work is forthcoming in American Politics Research and is published in the Journal of Social Computing.

Molly Hickey - Harvard University

Welfare Retrenchment Under Authoritarianism

Why do some authoritarian regimes implement unpopular welfare cuts in the face of economic shocks while others do not? In many regimes in the Middle East and North Africa, spending on subsidies on basic commodities has historically served as a key foundation of the welfare regime. Over the past few decades, amidst a background of volatile oil prices and increased global economic competition, subsidies have become incredibly burdensome on state budgets. Governments in the region have responded by shifting their economies to a more neoliberal model, removing price controls and pursuing austerity measures. However, this shift has been carried out to varying degrees of completion, in no small part due to the dissatisfaction that such reforms generate amongst citizens. This problem is especially salient in authoritarian regimes, where public spending can bolster governments in the absence of electoral legitimacy. My project examines the conditions under which governments implement these challenging reforms by focusing on Jordan and Egypt, two distinct lower middle-income authoritarian regimes in the Middle East. 

Molly Hickey is a PhD candidate in the Department of Government at Harvard University, currently working on her dissertation on the politics of subsidy reform in Jordan and Egypt. She is interested in the political economy of authoritarianism, the politics of foreign aid, and social policy reform in the Middle East. Prior to her graduate studies, she worked on USAID projects in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. She was a Fulbright Fellow in Jordan, where she researched the politics of Syrian refugee labor permits and the closed professions.

Hsuan Yu (Gary) Liu - Washington University in St. Louis

Exploring Ethical Frontiers in AI-Driven Precision Medicine: The Power Dynamics of Big Data Privacy and Governance—Bipolar Landscape with Taiwan Insights

Leveraging Taiwan's National health insurance database—the most extensive and complete health data repository in the Chinese-speaking world—the paper offers unique insights into privacy and ethics amidst the divergent ethical perspectives and ideological conflicts in the AI-driven medical big data privacy sphere between Eastern and Western camps, represented by China and the United States. By critically analyzing the theoretical and institutional paradigms of the East (China) and the West (USA, Taiwan, EU), this paper integrates Taiwan's unique position as a highly democratized Chinese society at the crossroads of the Chinese Empire and Western civilization, along with its well-preserved ancient Chinese philosophy and ethics, medical innovations, and governance experiences, with the medical privacy policies of the United States. This synthesis is essential for elucidating the balance between innovation and morality and addressing the ideological and ethical conflicts inherent in China's strategic ambitions in relation to the free world. The paper aims to offer critical strategies to Reinforcing the United States' leadership in global health privacy policy, underscoring its pivotal role in establishing medical privacy standards that embody the core values of free societies."

Hsuan Yu (Gary) Liu, a Juris Scientiae Doctor candidate (J.S.D.) at Washington University, specializes in medical privacy and ethics. Profoundly impacted by his family's health struggles in Taiwan during COVID-19, Gary is dedicated to compassionate, patient-centric healthcare policies. His research bridges technological advancements and ethical integrity, aiming to ensure patient autonomy and privacy-focused medical innovations in the age of AI-driven precision medicine.

Dyuti Saunik- University of Virginia

Local democratic backsliding? Why Senior Politicians and Bureaucrats Impede Decentralization in India.

What deep-rooted political challenges disincentivize the empowerment of local governments? In the global south, there are deliberate attempts to undercut the power and capacity of local elected bodies. While India has made significant strides towards rural self-governance, its municipalities remain infamously disempowered. I explore why municipalities have been actively and intentionally weakened in India. Successive state governments of India’s richest and most urbanized state – Maharashtra – have exploited or created political emergencies to temporarily suspend local elected bodies, disenfranchising over fifty million citizens in 29 municipalities since 2019. This local manifestation of the politics of “emergency” is both a curious case for and a serious challenge to democracy. My multi-level analysis that involves case studies of six municipalities in Maharashtra highlights how externalities of state level politicians shape the structure and capacity of local governments. I argue that state governments invoke or create political emergencies when the Chief Minister’s (chief executive; CM) party is perceived as weak and when the relative strength of all parties is unknown or ambiguous. By shedding light on local accountability and representation, we can understand how citizenship practices and democratic participation manifest by moving beyond explanations that center on themes of patronage, politicization, or capacity constraints. 

Dyuti Saunik is a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Politics, University of Virginia (UVA). My research focuses on the relationship between elected politicians and appointed bureaucrats, political parties, elections, and the formation and termination of election alliances. I explore these interests in the developing democracies, with a focus on India.

Carolisa Watson - University of Kansas

On the Precipice: Precariousness and Resilience among Tibetan Exiles in Dharamshala, India

This project explores the experiences of Tibetan refugees in Dharamshala, India, who have lived in the city for at least one year. My goal is to examine, reflect on, and challenge the role of place in the lived experience and expression of identities, perceptions, interpretations, and representations of Tibetans in India. In the context of Tibetan refugees, I argue that the confluence of governmental, economic, spiritual, social, and environmental expectations by Tibetans, Indians, and tourists actively shape, perpetuate, and reproduce narratives of identity and belonging which are reflected in the processes of utilizing space to fulfill the community needs of Tibetan refugees. This creates tensions between tradition and modernity, needs and wants, and expectations and reality, creating ethical and moral dilemmas for the Tibetan inhabitants of Dharamshala and their interlocutors. I apply geographic and folkloric theories to understand the viewpoints and personal experiences of my informants, permitting them to represent themselves in their own voices. This study will show how Tibetans navigate their lived reality in Dharamshala to maintain their cultural and religious heritage while contending with the limitations imposed on them by the Government of India through their special guest status and the Tibetan Rehabilitation Policies of 2014 and 2015. It will show Tibetans utilize their agency as critical analysts of these Indian policies and their ethical and moral implications for not only Tibetans, but larger refugee communities globally. This study demonstrates historical shifts in power and economic opportunities between Indians and Tibetans, as well as the globalization of Tibetan Buddhism, contribute to the shaping and reshaping of Tibetan livelihoods in Dharamshala.

Carolisa Watson is currently pursuing a PhD in Geography at the University of Kansas. Her research revolves around questions of placemaking, home, and identity. She holds bachelor degrees in East Asian Languages and Literatures and Global and International studies from the University of Kansas and an MA in folklore and ethnomusicology from Indiana University.

Contact

Please contact ei@gettysburg.edu or 717-337-6685.