Graduate Student
Salvador Ernesto Pineda

Reppy Fellow 2024-25
Salvador Ernesto Pineda is a second-year MBA student at Cornell University and holds an MA In Latin American Studies from Georgetown University.
Additional Information
Program
Role
- Student
- PACS Current Graduate Fellow
- Graduate Student
Contact
Email: sep249@cornell.edu
Mursal Rahim

Reppy Fellow 2024-25
Mursal Rahim is a MPA student in the Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy, concentrating on human rights and social justice. Holding a Bachelor of Law from Afghanistan, she has extensive experience in legal, educational, and refugee community support roles.
Additional Information
Program
Role
- Student
- PACS Current Graduate Fellow
- Graduate Student
Contact
Email: mr2359@cornell.edu
Elisha Smith

Reppy Fellow 2024-25
Elisha Smith has a BS in supply chain management from the University of Texas in Dallas. For the past five years, he has worked in global development and agriculture in post-conflict regions in Iraq and Syria. He is currently pursuing an MPS in Global Development at Cornell University.
Additional Information
Program
Role
- Student
- PACS Current Graduate Fellow
- Graduate Student
Contact
Email: ejs393@cornell.edu
Synia Taitt

Reppy Fellow, Fall 2024
Synia Taitt is a first-year Ph.D. student in Cornell University's government department. Her research in American politics focuses on the intersection of social movements, linked fate, policies, and public institutions, such as policing.
Additional Information
Georgy Tarasenko

IES Graduate Fellow 2025-26
Georgy Tarasenko is a PhD student in the Department of Government at Cornell University. His major field of study is Comparative Politics, with minor fields in Political Thought and Methods. Previously, he was a researcher and lecturer at the Center for Institutional Studies at HSE University in Moscow and the Digital Humanities Center at ITMO University in Saint Petersburg.
Additional Information
Program
Role
- Student
- IES Current Graduate Fellow
- PACS Past Graduate Fellow
- Graduate Student
Contact
Email: gt298@cornell.edu
Dayra Lascano
Reppy Fellow 2024-25
Dayra Lascano is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Government at Cornell University, specializing in International Relations with a minor focus on Comparative Politics. Her academic pursuits revolve around the in-depth study of International Organizations and their pivotal role in managing and facilitating international cooperation.
Additional Information
Program
Role
- Student
- PACS Current Graduate Fellow
- Graduate Student
Contact
Email: dal348@cornell.edu
Brett Reichert

Prize for Best Essay in Technology and International Security Policy Winner 2024-25
Brett Reichert is a U.S. Army Goodpaster Fellow and PhD student in Public Policy at Cornell University. His research examines how emerging military technology affects conflict dynamics and the use of force. He is interested in the ways legal regimes respond to and shape technological development in armed conflict and the national security context. He is particularly interested in the rise of automation and autonomy in military systems. He holds a Master of Policy Management from Georgetown University.
Additional Information
Chiara Visentin

IES Graduate Fellow 2025-2026
Chiara Visentin is a PhD candidate in the Medieval Studies Program at Cornell, with a background in philosophy and sociology. She is interested in the transformations of political cultures, identities and institutions in the central Middle Ages and especially the 12th century, with a focus on the Anglo-Norman and Angevin polities, extending between the British Isles and Western France, as well as their neighbors like Capetian France, and more distant but related polities such as Norman Sicily.
Additional Information
Program
Role
- Student
- IES Current Graduate Fellow
- Graduate Fellow
- Graduate Student
Contact
Email: cv284@cornell.edu
Rachel Horner

IES Graduate Fellow, Spring 2026
Rachel Horner (she/her) is a PhD candidate in music and sound studies at Cornell University. She holds an MA in musicology and a BM in vocal music education and Spanish from Rutgers University. Rachel’s research investigates the intersections between sound, language, and identity, especially in the context of Spanish and Latin American cultural festivals.
Additional Information
Program
Role
- Student
- IES Current Graduate Fellow
- Graduate Fellow
- Graduate Student
Contact
Email: rkh74@cornell.edu
Nora Siena

IES Graduate Fellow 2025-2026
Nora Siena's dissertation, “Inoperative Brevitas: The Contamination of Short Literary and Philosophical Forms and the Twentieth-century Italian Racconto,” identifies a paradigmatic mode of twentieth-century European poetics and philosophical programs in the disruption of the historical tie between textual brevity and exemplarity.
Additional Information
Program
Role
- Student
- IES Current Graduate Fellow
- Graduate Fellow
- Graduate Student
Contact
Email: ns929@cornell.edu