Kimberly Misher '07 has been selected as a Junior Fellow for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in the nonproliferation department. She will serve as a research assistant to associates working on the nonproliferation project, while conducting independent research on Russian nonproliferation issues.
The highly competitive Carnegie fellowship begins with nomination from students' colleges. Each college can nominate two students every year, and about 300 colleges participate. After the initial college nomination, a small number of applicants are invited to interview, Misher said.
Usually eight to 10 students, or less than 5 percent of the applicants, are selected from the pool. Applicants are selected based on "written essay, related academic study and/or work experience, grades, recommendations, and personal interviews," according to the Carnegie Endowment's Web site. Misher said that she was "really excited to get Brown's nomination, even more excited to get the interview and even more excited when (she was) selected."
While at Brown, Misher switched her concentration from neuroscience to political science with an emphasis in international relations. She did this after realizing her passion for political science when taking a class on post-Cold War global security, she said.
She subsequently completed her undergraduate honors thesis, "A Border Longer than the Equator: An Investigation into Russian Border Security," with guidance from Professors of Political Science Linda Cook and Philip Terrence Hopmann. Her thesis focused on four major threats to Russia's border security: weapons of mass destruction, terrorism and illegal immigration, drug and human trafficking and illegal trade in wildlife. Cook wrote in an e-mail that Misher's thesis "presented original research and analysis. She did a prodigious amount of research, and made a convincing argument."
After graduating from Brown, Misher worked as a research associate at the Center for International Policy from August to December 2007. She worked under Selig Harrison, the director of the Asia Program at the Washington, D.C.-based center who has specialized in South Asia and East Asia for 50 years.
She is currently working as program associate in the Asia division of the American Bar Association, Rule of Law Initiative. She works on judicial reform in transitioning states in the Asia division; specifically, she handles the portfolios of Cambodia, Vietnam and Nepal. She has also been awarded the Kathryn Davis Fellowship for Peace at Middlebury College, which will allow her to participate in an intensive Russian language program at the college this summer, she said.
Misher's future plans include graduate school for either political science or international relations. She is hoping to attend graduate school in the fall of 2009, after completing her Carnegie fellowship. But Misher said she's not sure what she'll do after graduate school. She hopes her work with the Carnegie fellowship will allow her to decide whether she wants to be "a professor who publishes work, or an expert at a think tank who publishes works," she added.
Misher said she looks forward to the Carnegie fellowship. Cook wrote in her e-mail that Misher is "enthusiastic, energetic, engaging, a student with whom it was always enjoyable to work. I know that she will be a terrific Carnegie Fellow."
