YPFP has a team of seven regular contributors who write and edit for YPFP Blog. All members of YPFP are encouraged to participate in the discussion by posting comments.
The opinions expressed on the YPFP Blog are those of the individual authors only and do not represent the views of any other YPFP member or those of YPFP as an organization, nor those of any other organization with which the author may be affiliated. Please scroll to the bottom of the page to review the Blog guidelines.
Contributors
Rob Pierson [1] Contributor
Rob is a Congressional Aide for a Congressman from the Silicon Valley, California. Prior to beginning his job in the House of Representatives, he interned for Senator Chuck Schumer. Before coming to Washington, Rob spent a year in Israel doing the Otzma Fellowship, and traveling throughout the Middle East. While in Israel, he taught English to Bedouins and started a youth group for refugees from the South Lebanese Army. He graduated from Reed College where he served as the Editor-in-Chief of the Reed College Quest.
Puja Deverakonda Contributor
Puja is currently a Fulbright Scholar in Berlin, Germany, where she is researching the politics of natural gas pipelines and the future of German energy security. Puja is a 2007 graduate of Mount Holyoke College, where she studied International Relations and German Studies. Research from her senior thesis, which analyzed the post-Soviet Russian-Central Asian relationship, was used in her advisor Michael Klare's upcoming book Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet. She has previously interned at Internationale Politik – Global Edition, National Strategies, Inc., on Capitol Hill and the Department of Justice.
Devin Finn [2] Contributor
Devin is a consultant for the International Budget Project, a budget research and advocacy NGO, and the international arm of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. As a freelance reporter, Devin is currently writing on immigration, politics and Latin America. For two years prior to her work at IBP, she served as the Reporter for and Assistant Editor of the Latin America Advisor newsletters, a series of daily, weekly and monthly publications of the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington think tank focused on hemispheric affairs and policy. A 2004 graduate of Duke University, during college Devin traveled in Mexico and Central America doing development work, studied in Spain, and taught English. In 2005, Duke University published her senior political science thesis on state security responses to the insurgencies in Peru and Colombia. She is looking forward to graduate school in Fall 2007 in international migration and peace and conflict studies. Devin is a certified yoga instructor.
Sameer Lalwani [3] Contributor
Sameer Lalwani works in the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation where he concentrates on the geopolitics of the Middle East and South Asia. He is also an occasional correspondent for The Washington Note and TPMcafe. Prior to this, he served as a research assistant for Professor Kiren Chaudhry of the University of California, Berkeley, where he developed a keen interest in the intersection of Middle East politics, development economics, and critical theory. He graduated with a degree in Political Science from Berkeley and has studied at the Heinz School of Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon.
Dan Perez Contributor
Dan is an analyst with Pluribus International providing on-site analytical support to the Department of Defense, focusing on issues of defense technology and non-proliferation. He previously worked on defense acquisition and asymmetric conflict research projects with the Business Executives for National Security and the National Defense Council Foundation, where he published a joint op-ed in the Washington Times on U.S. national security policy toward China. He graduated with a B.A. in History with a minor in Foreign Policy Analysis from Tufts University and completed a certificate in International Studies from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
Anirudh Suri [4] Contributor
Anirudh Suri is a Junior Fellow and the Editor of South Asian Perspectives at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, working on foreign policy issues related to South Asia and Nonproliferation. He has previously interned with the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies (New Delhi, India), China Institute of International Studies (Beijing, China) and Goldman Sachs International (London, U.K.). Anirudh grew up in New Delhi, India but finished high school in Singapore and studied abroad at the London School of Economics during college. Anirudh graduated from Haverford College with honors in Economics and Political Science (IR focus). He speaks Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, basic Mandarin and is currently learning Farsi.
Jenny Tolan [5] Contributor
Jenny Tolan is a development associate at the Global Fund for Children (GFC). She works on corporate and foundation relations as well as with GFC's Global Media Ventures program. Prior to joining GFC, Jenny worked at Partners for Democratic Change, an organization devoted to building sustainable local capacity and conflict management worldwide. Jenny has spent time in South Africa, volunteering with the Masoyi Home Based Care Project and conducting research on women and AIDS vulnerability. Her research has been published in the Stanford Undergraduate Research Journal and the Roosevelt Review, a publication of the nation's first student think tank. Jenny graduated from Stanford University with a bachelor's degree in international relations and a minor in Spanish language and speaks Spanish.
Guidelines
All comments made on the blog should be in keeping with YPFP's mission statement, which emphasizes honest, informed, and thoughtful discussion. Moderation of comments is under the sole discretion of the YPFP Executive Committee, which may act accordingly in the event of a breach of membership standards. Such recourse may range from deleting the comment to revocation of membership in YPFP.
In addition to honoring our mission statement, bloggers and commenters must be aware of our non-attribution policy, which requires that all information obtained at off-the-record YPFP events may not be used in any way that would reveal the source of that information.
For more information about these guidelines or any other aspect of the YPFP Blog, please contact Blog director Joel Meyer [6].