Degree Pursued: PhD

Committee Chair/Advisor: Anne Blackburn

Primary Language: Chinese, French, Thai 

Research Countries: Myanmar

Research Interests: Buddhism in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia, Konbaung Empire, Pali/Sanskrit Cosmopolis

Aleia Manning is an MHA candidate in Cornell’s Sloan Program in Health Administration and a Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellow with the South Asia Program. Her academic and professional interests focus on health equity, maternal and reproductive health, and solving challenges facing large health systems. Through her FLAS fellowship, she studies South Asian language and culture to deepen her understanding of how cultural context shapes care delivery and patient experience.

Carmine Couloute is a PhD student in the Department of Government, concentrating in International Relations and Political Theory.

Her doctoral studies will ethnographically examine the enduring impact of French colonialism in Francophone West Africa. She aims to explore how telecommunications boycotts and protests over 'war taxes' facilitate practices of sovereignty and self-determination during political upheaval.

Alican Taylan, MArch, MEng, is a Ph.D. student in the History of Architecture and Urban Development (HAUD) at Cornell University, where he studies nineteenth-century environmental and colonial history. His dissertation committee is co-chaired by Esra Akcan and María González Pendás (HAUD), and Aaron Sachs (History) is his third committee member. Recently, he curated Strategic Landforms (2024) at Cornell AAP, an exhibition about French military architectural production in Senegal over the nineteenth century.

Victoria E. Pihl Sørensen is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Performing and Media Arts. Her doctoral research examines population control and eugenics in Danish popular culture from an anti-racist feminist point of view. She holds an MA in Women’s and Gender Studies from the CUNY Graduate Center. She recently published "'In Women’s Hands': Feminism, Eugenics, and Race in Interwar Denmark" (2023), in the feminist journal Women, Gender & Research.

Esam Boraey is a PhD student in government, specializing in comparative politics and political economy with a regional focus on the Middle East. His research explores the intersection of authoritarianism, social movements, and economic development, particularly how state structures and societal norms shape political and economic outcomes in the region. 

Salvador Ernesto Pineda is a second-year MBA student at Cornell University and holds an MA In Latin American Studies from Georgetown University.

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. 

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. 

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.