April 13, 2011 — The University of Virginia's Miller Center of Public Affairs has named nine promising young scholars as its 2011-12 Miller Center National Fellows. Each will receive a one-year, $20,000 grant to support research and writing on U.S. politics, foreign policy or global politics.

Each fellow will also be guided by a "dream mentor," a leading national scholar in his or her field, and take part in workshops to learn how to reach a broader audience with their scholarship.

"The fellows all analyze politics through the lens of history, spanning the disciplines of political science, sociology and history," said Brian Balogh, chair and founder of the fellowship program. "Besides sponsoring this cutting-edge scholarship, the Miller Center trains its fellows to distill their findings for non-specialists – to better inform citizens and improve the quality of public discourse."

The 2011–12 Miller Center Fellows, with their project titles, are:

•    Michael Beckley, Columbia University, "The Unipolar Era"
•    Emily Charnock, University of Virginia, "From Ghosts to Shadows: The National Party Organizations and Interest Groups"
•    Sheena Chestnut, Harvard University, "Intelligent Autocrats: Secret Police & State Violence Under Authoritarianism"
•    Jack Epstein, Ohio University, "Behind the Menancing Racket: Organized Labor, Federal Anti-Racketeering Policy, and the Law and Order Origins of the Modern American State, 1927-70"
•    Robert Henderson, University of Maryland, "Dream Deregulated: The Transformation of Housing Finance, 1968-85"
•    Andrew Kelly, Northwestern University, "Entering the New Frontier: The Origins and Development of Scientific Capacity in the United States and Great Britain"
•    Aila Matanock, Stanford University, "International Insurance: Explaining Why Militant Groups Participate in Elections as Part of a Peace Agreement"
•    Rachel Moran, Penn State University, "Body Politic: Federal Policy-Making on American Physique, 1890-1965"
•    Victor Nemchenok, University of Virginia, "A Dialogue of Power: Development, Global Civil Society, and the Third World Challenge to the International Order, 1970-88"

In its 12 years, the Miller Center's fellowship program has helped launch the careers of more than 100 scholars and public affairs experts. Fellows now teach at such prestigious universities as Yale and Northwestern and work at institutions ranging from the State Department to the U.S. Air Force.

The program's emphasis on reaching a broader audience through opinion/editorials, blogs and other media has also proven successful. Fellows' work regularly appears in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Politico and Slate and on PBS and NPR.