Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs

05/20/2026

Matt Trevithick '20 spent nearly a decade working across Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan before coming to — and left with the foundation for a company.

Blank Slate, the AI-driven platform he founded, recently closed a strategic investment from a leading aerospace firm. The platform models individual forgetting curves and uses adaptive algorithms to close knowledge gaps for teams in defense, aerospace, and advanced manufacturing. The stakes are high by design: "If you don’t know how to jump out of a plane, that’s a problem," he says. "If you build a plane incorrectly, you're in the news."

The research behind it began at Yale Jackson, where Trevithick worked with Senior Lecturer Casey King on a randomized controlled trial showing that anticipated forgetting could be systematically reduced in cognitively healthy adults.

Now Trevithick is back — co-teaching "Field Operations in Global Affairs" with Senior Fellow Elliot Ackerman, focused on the practical mechanics of operating in complex environments.

"Jackson gave me the space to connect big ideas to real-world ex*****on," he said. "Coming back to teach, the focus is on closing that same gap for my students."

Read the profile:

Matt Trevithick is drawn to problems where failure is not an option. In zero-fail environments, the question is simple: how do you ensure the human mind performs reliably under pressure? Trevithick ’20 is the founder and CEO of Blank Slate, an AI-driven platform focused on workforce cognitive read...

05/13/2026

🏅 Congratulations to Bayan Galal ’23, undergraduate Global Affairs alum and Global Health Scholar, now now a medical student at the University of Pennsylvania, who has been selected to receive The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans, which support graduate study for immigrants and children of immigrants.

Read the Yale University News profile:

Three Yale students and a recent Yale College alumnus are among 30 individuals to receive Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans, which support graduate studies for immigrants or children of immigrants.

05/12/2026

🎙 Could the United States and China be headed toward conflict?

Few people are better positioned to address that question than 's Arne Westad, Elihu Professor of History and Global Affairs.

The most consequential foreign policy questions of our moment center on China — its rise, its ambitions, its economic reach, and the implications of its growing military strength. In a recent episode of The Foreign Affairs Interview, Westad discusses his new book, The Coming Storm: Power, Conflict, and Warnings from History. He draws on the long arc of Chinese and global history to examine what's driving Beijing's foreign policy, how China sees its role as a great power, and what history tells us about the paths both to war and to peace.

Westad sees warning signs in the historical record, and lessons for today's policymakers.

🎧 Listen:

The biggest questions in U.S. foreign policy today tend to be about China. Policymakers and analysts argue over the implications of China’s rise, the extent ...

05/12/2026

"The claim that America is outmatched in cyberspace — technically, organizationally or intellectually — is wrong."

General (Ret.) Timothy Haugh argues in The New York Times Opinion Section that the capability to defend the nation already exists, distributed across American industry, government, and academia. What has been missing is a clear legal framework and a shared expectation that defending against foreign cyberattacks is not an optional public service — for the private sector or for government.

Haugh is well-positioned to make this argument. A senior fellow at Yale Jackson's Blue Center for Global Strategic Assessment, he previously served as commander of U.S. Cyber Command and director of the National Security Agency.

Writing in the context of this week's Trump-Xi summit, General Haugh offers a substantive roadmap: empower technology companies to act, help states and municipalities afford better defenses, hold adversaries publicly accountable, and resource Cyber Command for the competition ahead.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/11/opinion/international-world/i-ran-the-nsa-this-is-how-to-defeat-chinas-hacker-army.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

Beijing has hacked America, but we have all the tools we need to fight back.

05/08/2026

🌍 Introducing the 2026 Yale World Fellows:
The Yale International Leadership Center has selected 16 extraordinary leaders for its flagship global leadership program — practitioners working across politics, public policy, global health, technology, environment, journalism, and the arts.

This year's cohort includes a Ukrainian journalist, a Chinese environmentalist, and a Kenyan orchestral conductor, among others selected from thousands of applicants worldwide.

"The world does not lack for problems or pessimists," said ILC director Emma Sky. "What it needs are skilled, courageous practitioners willing to create new possibilities. The 2026 World Fellows are exactly that."

Now in its 24th year, the World Fellows program has welcomed more than 400 fellows from 102 countries. It is housed at the International Leadership Center at Yale Jackson, which also runs parallel initiatives for practitioners in climate, peace, and multilateralism.

Read the announcement:

We are delighted to announce the 2026 Yale World Fellows. These 16 extraordinary individuals are leaders working in politics and public policy, global health, technology, environment, journalism, and the arts around the world. They include a Ukrainian journalist, a Chinese environmentalist, and a Ke...

05/08/2026

The Yale International Leadership Center is proud to announce the 2026 cohort of Yale World Fellows.

These 16 individuals are leaders working in politics and public policy, global health, technology, environment, journalism, and the arts. They include a Ukrainian journalist, a Chinese environmentalist, and a Kenyan orchestral conductor.

“The world does not lack for problems or pessimists. What it needs are skilled, courageous practitioners willing to create new possibilities. The 2026 World Fellows are exactly that,” says Emma Sky, Director of the Yale International Leadership Center.

Meet the 2026 cohort: https://worldfellows.yale.edu/class/class-of-2026/

05/05/2026

🎖️ invests in Ukraine's next generation of leaders:
Fifteen Ukrainian veterans — soldiers, advocates, and future policymakers — came to New Haven last week for an intensive leadership program developed with the Victor Pinchuk Foundation.

The cohort included a Marine who defended Mariupol and survived two and a half years in Russian captivity, a former film director turned drone operator, a medic who saved more than 200 lives, and a 24-year-old double amputee still on active duty while leading a veterans' NGO.

Over five days, they engaged with Yale Jackson faculty and senior fellows — including Michael Brenes, Zoe Chance, Robert Malley, Brandon Nappi, D.Min., M.Div., Emma Sky, Timothy Snyder, and others — on leadership, ethics, communication, and Ukraine's future. Sessions were facilitated by program lead Jimmy Hatch, a U.S. Navy SEAL veteran: "Built to teach Ukrainian veterans leadership and international relations, the program ended up teaching us."

"We are proud to welcome these veterans to Yale Jackson," said Dean James Levinsohn.

Read our coverage: https://jackson.yale.edu/news/yale-jackson-invests-in-ukraines-next-generation-of-leaders/

05/04/2026

⚡ Inside the New England power grid with students:

The Development, Environment, Society and Climate (DESC) student group recently visited ISO New England Inc., the independent operator of the regional power grid, to learn firsthand how it manages electricity markets and plans for the region's future energy needs.

DESC connects Jackson students, faculty, and senior fellows working at the intersection of environment, climate, and development — offering learning opportunities and building relationships with industry experts. Learn more: https://jackson.yale.edu/academics/mpp/student-life/

04/30/2026

🌍 A remarkable evening with the international Yale Jackson community in London:

Last night, we brought together alumni from the classes of 1990 to 2025, newly admitted students, Yale World Fellows, and faculty for a reception with guest of honor Baroness Theresa May.

The former UK Prime Minister — who has taught at Jackson in New Haven as a senior fellow — offered remarks on current global affairs before our dean Jim Levinsohn moderated a Q&A spanning climate, geopolitics, and the future of global institutions. A vivid reminder of the depth of the Jackson community abroad and the caliber of leaders it continues to attract.

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04/27/2026

🕊️ The 2026 Yale Peacebuilding Colloquium, "Peace, Power, and the Global Good," brought together peace negotiators, political scientists, neuroscientists, humanitarian lawyers, AI researchers, and anthropologists at for two days of evidence-sharing, debate, and planning.

The first day centered on public talks spanning democracy after conflict, artificial intelligence in mediation, environmental peacebuilding, and the science of early childhood as a foundation for lasting peace. Keynote speaker Sergio Jaramillo, Colombia's former High Commissioner for Peace, offered a framework for why peace agreements succeed or fail — and why the deeper challenge is political, not diplomatic. The second day turned to action: workshops focused on new collaborative research in Bosnia and Herzegovina and on advancing the culture of peace agenda ahead of the United Nations General Assembly in September.

A throughline ran across the conversations: rigorous evidence exists. The harder work is getting it into the rooms where decisions are made: into the hands of ambassadors, delegations, and mission staff who can act on it. That is the mission of Yale Jackson's Peacebuilding Initiative, and what this colloquium exists to advance.

Learn more: https://jackson.yale.edu/news/researchers-negotiators-and-policymakers-convene-at-yale-to-advance-the-science-of-peace/