The Fox International Fellowship at Yale University

🌍 The Fox International Fellowship Impact Challenge — Spring 2026 Winners

During the spring semester, incoming and outgoing fellows were invited to share how their fellowship experience has shaped their research, perspectives, and community engagement through a photo and short reflection. Thank you to all who participated in the contest. The Impact Challenge highlighted powerful moments across borders and disciplines.

We are pleased to announce the winners:

⭐ Community Engagement & Cultural Connection ⭐

Basil Bastaki, 2025–26 outgoing fellow to Jawaharlal Nehru University: From archival searches in Assam to conversations at the Brahmaputra Literature Festival, and experiences spanning Delhi to Northeast India, Basil’s fellowship highlights the power of both community engagement and cross-cultural exchange. Through interactions with scholars, historians, and local communities, his journey reflects how intellectual collaboration and lived experience open unexpected doors, foster meaningful relationships, and deepen understanding of shared histories across borders.

⭐ Research Impact ⭐

Zeba Khan, 2025–26 outgoing fellow to the University of Cambridge: Presenting at Cambridge, Zeba’s research reimagines border cities as living archives. Drawing on fieldwork in eastern Turkey, her work challenges dominant narratives of borders by foregrounding coexistence, lived experience, and alternative histories through both academic and creative expression.

Changran Liu, 2025–26 outgoing fellow to the National University of Singapore: From paddy fields in Southeast China to global academic forums, Changran’s work traces the historical transformation of sugarcane agriculture through fieldwork across Fujian, Guangdong, and Guangxi, and engagement with international scholarly communities. His experience reflects how local lifeworlds and global networks intersect to shape research and understanding.

Orly Shapira, 2025–26 incoming fellow from Tel Aviv University | אוניברסיטת תל-אביב to the Yale MacMillan Center: A pivotal moment at Yale University led Orly to new methodological ground in discourse analysis. Through mentorship, collaboration, and participation in the LANSI research group, she gained both practical tools and a vibrant intellectual community that transformed her confidence and research trajectory.

These submissions reflect the depth of inquiry, collaboration, and cross-cultural exchange at the heart of the Fox International Fellowship community.

✨ Scroll through the photo gallery to read each submission.

📣 Last Call: Fox International Fellowship Alumni Conference – Call for Submissions

DEADLINE: FRIDAY, JUNE 5, 2026

This is a final reminder for Fox International Fellowship alumni to submit your abstracts for the upcoming Fox International Fellowship Alumni Conference (Fall 2026) themed: 🌍 “Global Challenges: Interdisciplinary Voices Across the World."

We warmly invite you to contribute your research and join a global community of scholars, practitioners, and policymakers in dialogue on today’s most pressing challenges.

Conference Details:
🗓 Date: Friday, October 23, 2026
📍 Venue: El Colegio de México, Mexico City
🎉 Occasion: 25th anniversary of the Fox Fellowship partnership between the Yale MacMillan Center and El Colegio de México - Colmex

📝 Submission Details
-Abstract: 300–500 words aligned with the conference theme
-Eligibility: Fox International Fellowship alumni only
-Deadline: Friday, June 5, 2026
-Submit via online form: https://lnkd.in/e7nAtVdm
-Notification of acceptance: July 1, 2026
-Support: Travel and lodging assistance available for selected presenters

We particularly welcome interdisciplinary work engaging with topics such as climate change, inequality, migration, global health, political transformation, security, technological ethics, human rights, and more.

This is a unique opportunity to reconnect with the Fox Fellowship community and contribute to meaningful global conversations.

🔗 https://macmillan.yale.edu/foxfellowship/alumni-conference-fall-2026

On May 11, 2026, the Fox International Fellowship at Yale University hosted its Annual Dinner and Alumni Speaker Series at Kline 14, bringing together current and incoming Fox Fellows, alumni, faculty, staff, and members of the Fox Family for an evening celebrating the Fellowship’s global community and its mission of international scholarly exchange.

A highlight of the evening, alongside a special appearance by Handsome Dan, was the Alumni Speaker Series keynote delivered by Yale alumnus, Dr. Mehran Gul. His lecture, “The New Geography of Innovation: The Global Contest for Breakthrough Technologies,” drew from his recent book and offered a compelling exploration of how innovation is increasingly shaped by global competition, shifting power centers, and cross-border knowledge networks. The event reflected what the Fox International Fellowship at Yale University continues to represent: a space for rigorous dialogue, enduring intellectual exchange, and a deeply connected global network committed to understanding the world across disciplines and borders.

About the Speaker:
Dr. Mehran Gul is the author of The New Geography of Innovation (William Collins/Simon & Schuster), a Financial Times/McKinsey Bracken Bower Prize winner, and an FT Best Book of the Year. He has worked with the World Economic Forum and is a Yale alumnus, having studied as a Fulbright Scholar, Teaching Fellow, and as a 2009–10 outgoing Fox International Fellow from the Yale MacMillan Center to Jawaharlal Nehru University in India.

Grateful to all who joined and continue to support the Fox International Fellowship community and its mission.

📸 View highlights from the evening here: https://yalemacmillancenter.smugmug.com/Fox-Fellows-Annual-Dinner-May-11-2026.

Fox International Fellowship Annual Dinner & Alumni Speaker Series – May 11, 2026 - Yale MacMillan Center Photos by Mara Lavitt. For personal use only. The 2026 Fox International Fellowship Annual Dinner, held at Kline 14, featured Yale alumnus Dr. Mehran Gul as the keynote speaker for the Alumni Speaker Series. His lecture, “The New Geography of Innovation: The Global Contest for Breakthrough Technol...

The Fox Fellowship Weekly Seminar Series provides incoming fellows from our partner institutions with a forum to present their research, receive feedback from their cohort, and engage in interdisciplinary dialogue. Seminars are facilitated by Academic Director Dr. Emily Erikson and Postdoctoral Associate Dr. Bastien Charaudeau Santomauro, a 2021-22 Fox Fellow alumnus from Sciences Po Paris.

During the Spring 2026 semester, nine Fox Fellows presented their research as part of the series at the Yale MacMillan Center. Each seminar is followed by a group lunch, giving fellows the opportunity to continue discussions, connect with one another, and engage with the Fox Fellowship team.

The Spring 2026 series featured nine insightful presentations, highlighting a wide range of interdisciplinary scholarship, including:

⭐ Bernardo Pacola (University of São Paulo), Legislative Constitutionalism in Systems with Strong Judicial Review

⭐ Eriko Kawajiri (University of Tokyo), Perceptions of Local Farmers and Communities on Nature Conservation

⭐ Cloé Artaut (Institut d’Études de Politiques de Paris), Search of Lost Time. National Identity and the Myth of the Third Republic in Contemporary France (1946–2024)

⭐ Diego Rivero (University of Cambridge), Populist Speech and Informal Constitutional Legal Change

⭐ Sylvia Hagan (University of Ghana), Perceived Climate Change, Pro-Environmental Behaviours and Work-Related Outcomes Among Outdoor Workers in Accra, Ghana

⭐ Berkay Mandiraci (Boğaziçi University), Middle Powers and Conflict Mediation

⭐ Andrea Sandbrink (Freie University of Berlin), Attribution of Climate Change Damages in Corporate Criminal Law

⭐ Prashant Rayaprolu (University of British Columbia), Constructing the Offshore Services Value Chain

⭐ Swadha Singh (Jawaharlal Nehru University), Equity in Climate Finance

We are pleased to congratulate David Lozada, a 2023–2024 Fox Fellow from the University of Melbourne, on his recent publication, “Decolonising development practice from the classroom through engaged reflexivity,” in Development in Practice. The article offers a thoughtful and timely contribution, advancing critical perspectives on development through the lens of engaged reflexivity.

Read the publication here: https://doi.org/10.1080/09614524.2026.2656869.

On Friday, April 24, we hosted a virtual seminar, “From Immigration to Climate Action: Global Challenges and Opportunities,” bringing together our 2025–2026 Fox Fellows, alumni, and the broader Yale University community.

The seminar featured presentations from outgoing Fox Fellows reflecting on urgent global challenges across migration, identity, conservation, and climate justice, offering comparative insights into how communities around the world are responding to complex, interconnected issues.

We were especially honored to witness Joshua Amponsah debut a moving original poem on belonging, community, and the meaning of “home” across oceans.

An environmental justice scholar, climate scientist, writer, and filmmaker, Joshua’s work—grounded in fieldwork across Ghana and Kenya—reflects a deep commitment to reconciling ecological sustainability with social justice. His words, echoing “an architecture of belonging” and “my compass, my home,” beautifully captured the spirit of the Fox International Fellowship and the Yale MacMillan Center as a space of global connection and exchange.

As part of our 2025–2026 outgoing cohort, Joshua is currently at the University of Cape Town advancing research on sustainability and justice in Southern Africa.

Learn more about Joshua and his research on our website: https://lnkd.in/evWFEu6N.

Next Week: Join the Yale MacMillan Center's The Fox International Fellowship at Yale University and the European Studies Council for a public talk on

"Can Germany Learn to Love Its Military Again?"
By Cameron Abadi, Deputy Editor, Foreign Policy

🕜 Monday, April 20, 2026, 4:00pm

📍 Humanities Quadrangle, HQ Rm 136
320 York St

Cameron Abadi is the Berlin-based deputy editor of Foreign Policy magazine, co-host of the Ones and Tooze podcast together with Adam Tooze, and author of Climate Radicals: Why Our Environmental Politics Isn’t Working (Columbia Global Reports, 2024). His writing has appeared in Bloomberg Businessweek, the New Yorker, the New Republic, Die Zeit, and Der Spiegel. Abadi is also a founding board member of the McCloy Transatlantic Forum in Frankfurt. He earned his BA in political theory at Yale University and MA at the Free University of Berlin.

For more information: https://buff.ly/hLtRWIn

From Yale University to the University of Tokyo 📖

Dean K. Centa, a Yale graduate and 2025–2026 Fox International Fellow at the University of Tokyo, examines immigration and labor in Japan with how structural gaps in Japan’s legal and policy frameworks can contribute to social backlash in the context of demographic decline

➡️ Learn more about Dean’s research:
https://macmillan.yale.edu/person/dean-centa

📚 Recent Work:

1️⃣ Field Research in Southeast Asia
Conducted fieldwork on labor migration and displacement in Thailand and Cambodia, including meetings with the Chulalongkorn University’s Asian Research Center for Migration, the Mekong Migration Network, and participation in the Asia-Pacific Forum on Sustainable Development hosted by United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN ESCAP, Bangkok). His research examines how Myanmar’s post-coup crisis is driving both displacement into Thailand and new patterns of Burmese migration to Japan, with a focus on legal limbo and regional labor systems.

2️⃣ Conference Presentation
Presented Fox Fellowship research at the 2026 International Conference on Human Rights: Youth in Asia at the University of Tokyo (March 2026).

3️⃣ Research and Policy Experience
Serves as an Affiliate Researcher at the University of Tokyo’s Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, working with Professor Akira Igata on human rights in global supply chains, with a focus on forced labor and legal vulnerability. His work draws on his experience with Human Rights Watch (Tokyo), where he is currently an intern, as well as prior experience with JICA and the United States Department of State.