The National Endowment for Democracy’s Penn Kemble Forum on Democracy recently announce its 2020-2021 cohort of fellows, including GSPIA alumna Whitney Grespin (MPA '09).
She joins a cohort of fellows from a wide variety of backgrounds and professional affiliations, including Capitol Hill, the U.S. State Department, think tanks, civil society, and the private sector.
The Forum engages emerging foreign policy and national security leaders in bipartisan conversations, providing an opportunity to share ideas across sectors and explore the role of democracy and human rights within the context of a broad range of policy challenges. Click below to learn more about the new class of Penn Kemble Fellows.
"My breadth of experiences at GSPIA and coeducation as an MPIA major alongside SIS students helped me develop an appreciation for cross-sectoral initiatives such as those supported by the Penn Kemble Forum. Through this fellowship, I look forward to broadening my understanding of the role of democracy and human rights frameworks to apply to my work on security force assistance and defense institution building while engaging in a broader community of practice."
Grespin is a Visiting Scholar at George Washington University’s Elliott School for International Affairs’ Institute for African Studies, and a PhD candidate at King’s College London’s Defence Studies Department, where her work focuses on the USG use of contractors to train partner militaries. She has worked in contingency contracting, educational programming, and institutional development on five continents.
She most recently worked as an advisor to the Somali Ministry of Defense in Mogadishu, before which she supported the U.S. Army War College’s Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute (PKSOI) as a Peace Operations Analyst.
Whitney holds a BA from Duquesne University, a Master’s in Public and International Affairs from the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, a professional certificate in Project Management from Georgetown University, a secondary education social studies teaching licensure from Pennsylvania State University, and is pursuing a graduate certificate in Criminal Justice in addition to her doctoral work.
She is an active member of the International Studies Association and the Army and Navy Club, a sustaining member of the Junior League of Washington DC, a prior Board Member of and flag carrier for the Society of Woman Geographers, a Researcher at the UK Centre for Military Ethics, and holds a Term Membership at the Council on Foreign Relations.