Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs

09/23/2026

🎙️ "We are not here to solve problems, we are not here to write papers, we are here to move."

In the first installment of the fall 2026 series, Presidential Senior Fellow David Brooks delivered "The Battle for America's Soul," drawing on explorers of the physical and intellectual world — from Hawaiian navigator Nainoa Thompson to philosopher John Stuart Mill — to ask what a modern humanistic uprising might look like.

Brooks traced America's historical role as an accelerant of exploration and social mobility, and the growing anxiety, dating back to Alexis de Tocqueville, that the country might lose that spirit. He pointed to Mill's own reawakening through poetry and his writing on "adventures in living" as a model for rediscovering meaning beyond pure reason — a tension, Brooks argued, that runs from the Enlightenment's "cathedrals of reason" all the way to today's crisis of confidence, with nearly 70 percent of Americans now doubting the American dream.

Watch for the full video, coming soon to the YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwfMY1ayo2xum00yDm0ppNg

09/21/2026

🌏 "There's this constant exchange between humans, plants, animals, and also between the ocean and the atmosphere, which isn't often top of mind."

Jessica Seddon, senior lecturer at Yale Jackson and director of the Deitz Family Initiative on Environment and Global Affairs, chairs the editorial board of the WMO's 2026 Air Quality and Climate Bulletin, translating highly specialized atmospheric science into urgent policy priorities.

Read our interview: https://jackson.yale.edu/news/yale-jacksons-jessica-seddon-helps-translate-atmospheric-science-policy

And catch her this week at Yale University Climate Week NYC: on Tuesday, September 22, she joins a Yale Climate Week session on "Superpollutants: Levers for Corporate Action," and on Wednesday, September 23, she takes part in "Climate Data 2.0," hosted by SilverLining.

As chair of the editorial board for the World Meteorological Organization’s Air Quality and Climate Bulletin, Seddon works to connect highly specialized atmospheric research to urgent policy questions.

09/17/2026

🌐 Announcing the Center for Peace and the Global Good:

The Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs has announced the establishment of the Center for Peace and the Global Good, made possible by a major gift from John '67 and Susan Jackson. The center will support faculty, visiting fellows, scholars, and students working on a wide range of issues, such as peacebuilding, human rights, global health, conflict resolution, social entrepreneurship, and inclusive economic prosperity.

At a time of deep global uncertainty and conflict, the center is expected to position the school at the forefront of scholarship and practice dedicated to building a more just and stable world, equipping rising leaders with the vision, knowledge, and practical skills to build that world and to lessen, or even avert, future conflict.

Senior Lecturer Bonnie Weir will serve as the center's inaugural executive director. Its initiatives will focus on a wide range of subjects and issues, positioning the center to play a coordinating, interdisciplinary role at Yale. It will fund course development, programming, internship opportunities, and other academic offerings around humanitarian themes.

“This gift gives Yale Jackson the resources to turn scholarship on peace and the global good into work that shapes policy and practice, not just the academic conversation,” said Jim Levinsohn, Charles W. Goodyear Professor of Global Affairs and dean of the Jackson School. “We expect this center to become a place where research and study translate directly into impact — for policymakers, for practitioners, and for the students who will carry this work forward.”

Weir and the center's other leaders will spend the fall semester planning its structure and programming, with the aim of having the center fully up and running in spring 2027.

Read the full story in Yale University News: https://news.yale.edu/2026/09/16/yale-jackson-school-launches-new-center-focused-peacebuilding

09/11/2026

The Permanent Questions, a new podcast from The Atlantic hosted by staff writer and hashtag Presidential Senior Fellow David Brooks, premieres Sunday, September 13, with new episodes appearing every Sunday after that.

Each week, Brooks speaks with the world's deepest thinkers about matters of enduring human concern — questions like how to find purpose, confront mortality, and repair a broken community.

The podcast is produced by The Atlantic, recorded on Yale's campus, and made possible by support from Yale. It will explore the moral, social, and philosophical underpinnings of human decency, with a particular focus on the role institutions play in shaping communities and ideologies.

Brooks joined Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs in February 2026 as a Presidential Senior Fellow, part of a new university initiative to foster respectful debate and bridge the academy with society at large. In that role, he has convened campus conversations and developed public-facing programming, including this podcast, aimed at connecting Yale's scholarship to broader public conversation.

Conversations from the deep end

09/09/2026

🌍 From around the globe to Horchow Hall — welcome to !

Matriculation 2026 capped off a week packed with orientation events, including a beach trip to Hammonasset, hikes up East Rock, dipping into New Haven's art scene, and many Yale University tours and informational sessions.

The new cohort includes 45 students in the two-year Master in Public Policy (MPP) in Global Affairs program, 15 students in the Master of Advanced Studies (MAS) in Global Affairs program, and four students enrolled in the five-year BA/MPP degree program for Yale College students. They bring an average of more than seven years of professional experience — from speechwriters and Peace Corps volunteers to conflict-zone journalists and AI engineers.

"It's fair to say the uncertainty around the globe is going to make for an eventful year," said Dean Jim Levinsohn in the matriculation ceremony which included remarks by Assistant Dean for Graduate Education David Simon and a benediction from university chaplain Maytal Saltiel. "You've got world-class scholars and practitioners to help you and help all of us understand how to make sense of what's going on and give you the tools that you'll need to navigate whatever's on the other side of the hill."

Read about the event: https://jackson.yale.edu/news/incoming-jackson-students-urged-lean-expert-faculty-navigate-global-uncertainty

09/03/2026

🕊️ "Sustainable peace depends not only on legal accountability, but also on education, memory, dialogue, and the willingness to confront difficult histories."

–Yoselin Colin, one the students who spent their summers as Peacebuilding Initiative Fellows, on her internship with the Post-Conflict Research Center in Sarajevo.

Elsewhere around the world, Madeline Corson supported the UN Resident Coordinator's Office in Ecuador, Max Ondik conducted interview-based fieldwork on war memory in Georgia, and Abbey Shumsky researched national security and the peace process in Northern Ireland.

Read their reflections:

Four Yale students spent their summers as Peacebuilding Initiative student fellows, documenting how communities in Bosnia, Ecuador, Georgia, and Northern Ireland recover from conflict and pursue lasting peace.

09/02/2026

Yale Jackson is pleased to welcome Peter Buisseret as associate professor of political science and global affairs.

An expert in formal theory and political economy, Buisseret studies how electoral rules and political institutions shape real-world outcomes — including recent research questioning assumptions about ranked-choice voting's effect on candidate behavior.

He sat down with us to discuss his path to Yale, his research, and what he'll be teaching this spring. "Intellectually, Yale is far beyond any other institution — and that's across many fields," Buisseret said of his decision to join Jackson.

Read the full interview: https://jackson.yale.edu/news/drawn-intellectual-synergy-peter-buisseret-joins-yale-jackson-faculty
Yale University

A political economist who studies how electoral rules shape real-world outcomes joins Yale Jackson as an associate professor of political science and global affairs.

09/01/2026

Congratulations to Aiken Wang, a rising senior in the Global Affairs major, on receiving the 2026 Douglas A. Beck Prize from the Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs.

Wang's work focuses on U.S.-China relations, national security policy, and grand strategy. This summer, through the Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy, he conducted fieldwork in Taiwan on asymmetric defense reform — building on prior experience at the U.S. State Department, the Council on Foreign Relations, and U.S. Pacific Command. At Yale University, he is president and co-founder of the Yale Dialogue on U.S.-China Relations.

The Beck Prize recognizes undergraduates who demonstrate deep commitment to global affairs, with a preference for those pursuing careers in national security.

Read more about Wang's path to the award:

The award is presented to undergraduates who have demonstrated a deep interest in and commitment to global affairs, with a preference for students interested in a career supporting national security.

09/01/2026

🌎 New academic year, new website!

💻 We've given jackson.yale.edu a fresh look just in time for Academic Year 2026-27. Take a look around and let us know what you think!

Yale University

08/12/2026

economist Aleh Tsyvinski was featured in NPR's Planet Money on new research using AI "tokens" — the units AI companies use to measure and bill for usage — to track how artificial intelligence is reshaping financial markets.

In a new working paper with Nicola Borri and Yukun Liu, Tsyvinski and his coauthors analyzed 380 trillion AI tokens to study which companies' stock prices rise and fall with overall AI usage. They find an "AI premium": companies markets see as AI beneficiaries have earned significantly higher returns — and not just in the tech sector.

"The story of AI is no longer just a Silicon Valley story," Tsyvinski told NPR. "Financial markets already see Main Street being impacted."

Read more on the NPR website:

AI companies use tokens to track usage and bill customers. Now economists are using them to track the spread of AI through the economy.