The Team
Research Fellows
Ilya Kursenko is an M2 student in Political and Ethical Philosophy at the Université Sorbonne, Faculté des Lettres. His research interest is Plato and the reception of his philosophy in the European tradition of political philosophy. He completed his M1 in French Philosophy at Saint Petersburg State University.
Whilst pursuing his BA in International Affairs from the Kazan Federal University, Ilya presented a thesis on Plato's "The Republic" reception in the early Cold War era texts of anglo-american International Relations Theory Schools. He has been a member of international political youth associations involved in international security and international politics issues at the United Nations, OSCE, IAEA, and other international organizations. Ilya is currently a research fellow with the Streit Council where he is conducting a research project on the connections between Platonic tradition and the Federalist concept, as well as a wider study of Federalism and Antique origin.
Lerato Tsebe is from Pretoria, South Africa. She is currently enrolled as a M.A student in Development Studies at the University of Johannesburg (UJ). She received a B.A. in Political Studies, Sociology and International Relations and a B.A. Honours (with Merit) in Political Studies, from the University of the Witwatersrand. She is also currently a Research Associate at the Institute for Pan-African Thought and Conversation (IPATC), at the (UJ). Her research concentrations include, African Governance, African Diplomacy, Africa at the United Nations and Peace & Security.
Stefan Pedersen, Ph.D., is in 2022-23 an Honorary Research Fellow in the Centre for Advanced International Theory/Department of International Relations at the University of Sussex. Since 2018, he has been a Research Fellow with the Earth System Governance Project (Utrecht University), where he is currently a co-lead of its Taskforce on Planetary Justice. He completed his Ph.D. in Political Theory at POLIS, University of Leeds and then subsequently taught IR and Political Theory there. He also holds a BSc and a MSc in Political Science from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. His research interests include Global and International Political Theory, Institutional Cosmopolitanism, Ideology Studies, and Global Environmental Politics. His current work is primarily on Planetary Politics – from studying its early inception in the 20th Century to theorizing its present and future prospects as a new means of grounding the collective institutions of humanity. He is published in Environmental Philosophy, Globalizations, and Journal of Political Ideologies. Present efforts include writing a monograph and editing a Special Issue for Environmental Politics.
Sterre van Buuren graduated from Sciences Po in 2022 with a MA in International Security. She previously completed a BA in International Studies with a specialization in Russia and the former Soviet Union at Leiden University. Her research focuses on nuclear weapons and existential risk, as well as the philosophy of the state and the international system more broadly.
Executive Director
Tiziana Stella is a historian of US foreign policy, international organization, and federalism. Since 2004, she has been the Executive Director of the Streit Council, where she manages programs and research. She is currently working on an intellectual biography of Clarence Streit that focuses on the impact of federalist thinking on US foreign policy planning in the twentieth century.
Tiziana received a Ph.D. with distinction from the University of Pavia, Italy. She conducted her Ph.D. research in the US as a Fulbright Scholar and a Luigi Einaudi Foundation fellow. She has been a researcher with several European and American organizations, including the Luigi Firpo Foundation. Her dissertation won the Alberto Aquarone Prize for best work on American history.
Tiziana worked for the Council for a Community of Democracies in preparation for the Warsaw 2000 conference that, led by US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, established the Community of Democracies. From 2001 to 2004, she directed the Euro-Atlantic Institute for International Integration Studies, overseeing the work of an American-Russian foreign policy research group.
She is the author of several publications and has been a speaker at numerous international conferences on issues related to the history of and prospects for the international order, and the reform of Western institutions. She taught at the Russian State University for the Humanities; the Moscow State Institute of International Relations; the Moscow State University; and the Higher School of Economics in Moscow. She also led academic seminars for the US National Guard’s Institute for National Defense Studies in Washington, DC; the US Foreign Service Institute in Arlington, Virginia; the University of Tubingen in Germany; and several Italian universities.
Sofia Eliodori is a political scientist who earned her Ph.D. in the field of International Relations from the University for Foreigners of Perugia in 2022, with a thesis focused on the contemporary evolution of the US role in the world and American foreign policy. To develop her research, in 2019 she was a visiting scholar at the City University of New York (CUNY). Currently (2023), she is collaborating as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University LUISS Guido Carli in Rome, engaged in the European Horizon2020 Project EUARENAS, focusing on democratic and participatory dynamics in cities. She's also part of the team of the Center for International and Strategic Studies (CISS). Her primary area of interest lies in understanding the intricacies of United States domestic and foreign policy, Atlantic relations, and Italy-US relations. She's also attentive to populism, diasporas, political communication, and public diplomacy. She's a Research Fellow at the Streit Council with a project oriented at the exploration of the multifaced dimension of federalism as a foreign policy tool, able to affect and modify citizens' participation, sovereignty, global governance, and public diplomacy.
Interns
Mike Dupre is an Undergraduate student at Boston University from New Hampshire studying Sociology, Business, and International Relations. On campus, he is the host of “Cold War Five: America’s Role Abroad” and has conducted research into non-proliferation as well as international conflicts. His academic interests include responsible national security and the convergence of diplomatic and defense strategy, particularly in relation to Russia and the Former Soviet Union.
Brandon Nakasato is a 2012 graduate of New England College with an MA in Public Policy where his Master's thesis discussed UN reforms to address the global democratic deficit. He previously completed a BA in Political Science and History from Western Kentucky University. His research interests concern the democratization of global decision-making and the development of a transnational or postnational civic identity.
Max Friedman graduated from the University of Maryland in 2023 with a BA in Criminal Justice and Global Terrorism Studies. His previous experience includes serving as a research assistant of insurgent civil-military relations at the Maryland Center for Undergraduate Research, interning in the Special Victims Unit of the Baltimore City State’s Attorneys Office, and working as an administrative assistant at University of Maryland Education Abroad. His research interests include Middle Eastern politics and security as well as U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East.