Director’s Message

Over the past year, the Mortara Center has continued to promote and energize faculty and student research at the School of Foreign Service. Focusing on pressing global problems from climate change to financial crisis to mitigating violence in post-conflict states, the Center has hosted hundreds of events, convened working groups, and supported deep student mentorship experiences through the Mortara Undergraduate Research Fellowship program. For the 2017-2018 annual report, I would like to draw your attention to two exceptional programs, which exemplify the extraordinary work happening at Mortara and the School. The Center was honored to host the launch of the Mortara Distinguished Professor of Diplomacy Madeleine Albright’s book Fascism: A Warning. The book calls on policy-makers and scholars across the globe to rededicate themselves to the study and protection of democracy. It reminds everyone here on the Hilltop and in DC as to the stakes of political apathy and charts an ambitious agenda as to how we can all meet that challenge. We also inaugurated a new initiative, the Mortara Faculty Fellows. The program brings together an interdisciplinary group of nine faculty to conduct research on two clusters: globalization and disorder and social stratification. The aim of the program is to leverage the immense expertise in the school and catalyze synergies among the faculty. In this multiyear effort, SFS faculty and students are working daily to help our country and the world grapple with these complex problems.

I hope that you will come to the next Mortara event and be inspired by the breadth of international studies at Georgetown.

Sincerely,
Abraham Newman
Director, Mortara Center for International Studies
Professor, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service