Colin Powell School's Moynihan Center introduces 2024-25 Public Scholars Fellows

The Moynihan Center of the Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership at The City College of New York has announced its second cohort of the Moynihan Public Scholars Fellowship, which supports academic researchers, public service practitioners, or journalists committed to interrogating ideas in service of the public good.

The nine 2024–25 Moynihan Public Scholars and their projects are:

Emefa Addo Agawu, an independent writer and editor, who will work on AT/TENSION, a book-length series of essays about the unusual choices people make with their attention in an age of hyper-connectedness;

Michael Beckley, associate professor of political science at Tufts University, who explores how the two imminent trends of rapid automation and population aging are likely to decrease the United States’ strategic dependence on the rest of the world in Rogue Superpower: An Illiberal American Century;

Stephen Eide, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, whose research into comparative mental health policy will interrogate whether European mental health systems are more accountable with respect to serious mental illness than their American counterparts;

Nicolas Guilhot, professor of intellectual history at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, whose A Story One Tells: Conspiracy Theories, Liberalism, and the End of History considers the idea of conspiracy as a symptom of liberal culture’s current malaise;

Roya Hakakian, an independent journalist, who will tell the story of Hajj Sayyah (The Traveler), the first Iranian to become a naturalized US citizen and how he became deeply transformed in the process;

Clara Mattei, professor of economics at the University of Tulsa, who will work on her book, The Golden Hour: Booming Markets, False Narratives, and the Decades That Made Modern Society;

Angela Saini, journalist and lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, whose book project, OTHER: Sex, Race, and Why Putting People in Boxes Doesn’t Work, seeks to understand and interrogate the act of human classification;

Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins, assistant professor of history at Wesleyan University, whose Impossible Peace, Improbable War: Raymond Aron and World Order, will offer the first account of the origins and evolution of the French sociologist and public intellectual's thinking on World Order; and

Mark Vandevelde, the US private capital correspondent at the Financial Times, who will write the definitive work about private equity, “the business of buying and selling entire companies using other people’s money.”

Each Moynihan Public Scholar will receive robust unrestricted awards and will spend up to one year at CCNY writing, teaching, and engaging in public conversations on critical issues in public affairs. The Fellowship is administered by the Moynihan Center, which was established in 2023 with the purpose of supporting new leaders to make a difference in public affairs.

“The inaugural Moynihan Public Scholars brought the Moynihan Center to life, and these nine scholars will bring new intellectual and instructional energy to the Colin Powell School. Their depth and breadth of experiences are sure to energize our students as they explore their own paths to public service leadership,” said Andrew Rich, the Richard J. Henley and Susan L. Davis Dean of the Colin Powell School.

“This cohort expands upon the Moynihan Center’s established commitment to bold ideas, open debate, and scholarship that serves the public interest,” said the program’s executive director, Professor of Political Science Carlo Invernizzi Accetti.

“The Moynihan Public Scholars Fellowship has demonstrated, in its brief history, that rigorous research, public service, and popular communication can and must go hand in hand, and that will continue as we welcome this year’s class of scholars,” said Michael Miller, the managing director of the Moynihan Center.

The Moynihan Public Scholars program is made possible with generous support from the Leon Levy Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, and the Achelis & Bodman Foundation.

About the Moynihan Center
The Moynihan Center at The City College of New York (CCNY) advances the twin goals of public scholarship and public service. Taking inspiration from Senator Moynihan’s celebrated career, the Center cultivates leaders who cross the boundaries between critical thinking, public service practice, and popular communication. Through signature fellowship programs and a rich slate of public events, the Center works to ensure that the next generation of public scholars and public servants reflects the diversity of viewpoints and lived experiences represented at City College and beyond.

About the Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership
Established in 2013, the Colin Powell School is home to the social science departments at CCNY as well as the core leadership development and public service programs of the College. With almost 4,000 students, and graduating the most CCNY students annually, the Colin Powell School mission is to transform the nation’s most diverse student body into tomorrow’s global leaders. Half of our students are immigrants; more than seventy percent are first-generation college students. Eighty percent are people of color. Most come from lower income backgrounds. The Colin Powell School and City College remain among the most effective engines of economic and social mobility in the United States. The School is led by a faculty dedicated to the highest standards of research and to the university’s democratic and public obligations. Read more about the Colin Powell School.