ACDIS Graduate Student Affiliates are current graduate and PhD students at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who are interested in arms control, domestic security, or international security.  

To learn more about our Graduate Student Affiliate application - please click here to visit the information page on our website.

Current Graduate Affiliates

Myla Burton

PhD Program - Doctor of Philosophy, Political Science

Research Interests: Post-Soviet defense and security. The relationship between religion and state security/nuclear weapons. Applications of time series analysis, permutation tests, and hypothesis testing in Political Science. 

Previous Education: B.A. Political Science, Pre-Law; J.D. Health Law & Policy and Litigation & Dispute Resolution; M.A. Political Science from Southern Illinois University Carbondale 

Do Young Gong

PhD Program - Political Science

Dissertation: Bullets to Bargains: The Impact of Wartime Coup Attempts on Civil War Management and Resolution

Previous Education: B.A. in English Language and Literature, Political Science and M.A. in Political Science and International Relations from Ewha W. University - M.S. in Applied Statistics from UIUC (expected 2025)

Seungmi Kim

PhD Program - Political Science

Bio:

Previous Education:

 

Elisia Meyle

PhD Program - Chemistry

Bio:

Previous Education:

Vesal Razavimaleki 

PhD Program - Physics

Bio:

Previous Education:

Emmy Tither

PhD Program - Informatics

Bio: Doctoral student in Informatics specializing in applied information science with a commitment to advancing human rights and international security. I specialize in transforming noisy signals into actionable insights by using mixed methods, revealing underlying human behaviors and emotions. My proficiency in managing both complex and sparce open-source testual, audio, and geospatial datasets ensures useable intelligence for policy-making grounded in the complexity of diverse sociocultural contexts. I plan to pursue a career in public service after my doctoral studies.

Previous Education: B. Sc Social Sciences with Social Anthropology + Cert.HE Social Anthropology; Birkbeck, University of London - MA Documentary Arts; University of Cape Town

 

ACDIS Graduate Affiliates (prior to 2024)

Igor Dubinsky - Nuclear, Plasma, Radiological Engineering

       Non-proliferation Risk Analysis Index for Small & Micro Nuclear Reactors

Lula Chen – Political Science

Chenghao Ding – Nuclear, Plasma, and Radiological Engineering

Bei Yang - Department of Economics

Nico Daiyega – Physics  

      Emergency phase, mechanically induced, particle resuspension and resuspension stabilization