Columbian College of Arts and Sciences

Nicholas Anderson is an Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at The George Washington University. His research and teaching interests include great power politics, military intervention and territorial expansion, conventional military operations, and East Asian international relations. His first book, Inadvertent Expansion: How Peripheral Agents Shape World Politics (Cornell University Press, 2024), was awarded the International Studies Association's International Security Studies Section Best Book Award for 2026. His research and other writings have also been published in journals such as International Security, International Interactions, Political Science Quarterly, The Washington Quarterly, Strategic Studies Quarterly, the Australian Journal of International Affairs, and International Relations of the Asia-Pacific, among other outlets. He previously had fellowships at the Institute for Security and Conflict Studies at the Elliott School of International Affairs, the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School, the MacMillan Center Program on Japanese Politics and Diplomacy at Yale University, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. He received a Ph.D. in political science from Yale University.

Dr. María José de la Fuente is a Professor of Spanish and Applied Linguistics, and affiliated faculty of the GW Alliance for a Sustainable Future.

Her research is situated at the intersection of Second Language Acquisition (SLA), Foreign Language Pedagogy, and Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), with a focus on how language instruction can support advanced cognitive, intercultural, and sustainability-related learning outcomes. Her scholarship has made sustained contributions to Instructed Second Language Acquisition (ISLA), particularly in the areas of learner attention, task-based instruction, and the principled use of the first language (L1) in the foreign language classroom. This work has appeared in leading refereed journals such as Studies in Second Language Acquisition, The Modern Language Journal, Language Teaching Research, and Computer Assisted Language Learning, as well as in major edited volumes and reference works.

Building on this theoretical foundation, her more recent work examines the pedagogical and curricular integration of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) into higher-education language pedagogy. She has edited Education for Sustainable Development in Foreign Language Learning (Routledge, 2022), a volume that foregrounds language classrooms as spaces for critical inquiry and global citizenship education. Her current publications extend this agenda through empirically informed and classroom-tested models for developing sustainability literacy in Spanish, including Desarrollo Sostenible en América Latina (Cognella, 2025) and a collaborative study in Language Learning in Higher Education (2025). In parallel, her contribution to Elsevier Encyclopedia of Linguistics synthesizes foundational SLA research on the role of attention in SLA for scholarly and pedagogical audiences.

She has authored three Spanish textbooks: Gente (LingroLearning), Puntos de encuentro: A Cross-Cultural Approach to Advanced Spanish (Cognella Publishers), and most recently Desarrollo Sostenible en América Latina: Developing Sustainability Literacy in Spanish (Cognella Publishers). Her teaching has been recognized with a GWU Bender Teaching Award, and she is a founding member of the GW Academy of Distinguished Teachers.

 Alexa Alice Joubin (name pronunciation) is the inaugural recipient of the bell hooks Legacy Award and holder of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Award. She writes about artificial intelligence (AI), race, gender, cultural globalization, Shakespeare, disability, and film and theatre. She teaches in the Departments of English, Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Theatre, International Affairs, University Honors Program, and East Asian Languages and Literatures at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., where she serves as founding Co-director of the Digital Humanities Institute and the Co-director the Taiwan Education and Research Program (Sigur Center for Asian Studies). She is a faculty of the GW Trustworthy AI Initiative (her Digital Humanities Institute is a partner program of TAI). She is also an affiliate at the NSF's Institute for Trustworthy AI in Law & Society (TRAILS). In 2024, she was named the inaugural Public Interest Technology Scholar (news story). 

Kathryn Kleppinger's research and teaching center on the related fields of French cultural studies and contemporary French and Francophone Literature. The foundational goal driving her work is to question the construction of literary labels and the social power dynamics inherent to cultural production. Her first book, Branding the Beur Author: Minority Writing and the Media in France, 1983-2013 (Liverpool UP, 2015), focuses on the mainstream media promotion of literature written by the descendants of North African immigrants to France (often called beurs). Her current book project, tentatively titled Double Decentering: Contemporary Representations of Migration in Marseille, takes an interdisciplinary approach to studying the historical, cultural, and sociological patterns shaping the populations of Marseille, France's second-largest city and oldest continuously operating port. She is also co-editing a volume, The Marseille Mosaic, bringing together scholars from various disciplines to analyze current debates about space and place in contemporary Marseille. Her research aims to propose alternative ways of thinking about France’s (and Europe’s, more generally) immigration debates, as Marseille has the longest history of any major European city in eventually integrating new arrivals from throughout the world. In addition to these projects, she has published articles on Francophone literature from several regions, including Algeria, Morocco, Congo, and Cameroon.

Peter Loge is the Director of the School of Media and Public Affairs at The George Washington University, an Associate Professor in SMPA, a Senior Fellow at the Agirre Lehedakaria Center in Bilbao, the founding director of the Project on Ethics in Political Communication, and a strategic communication consultant. Loge is also an affiliated faculty member at the Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication at The George Washington University and an Associate Fellow at Timothy Dwight College at Yale University.

Over the past three-plus decades, Peter Loge has served in senior positions for Senator Edward Kennedy, for three members of the US House of Representatives, and in the Obama administration. Peter has led and advised a range of campaigns and organizations, put the first Member of Congress on the internet, lobbied for “America’s Funniest Home Videos,” served as a Senior Policy Advisor for health care in the US House during the debate over the Affordable Care Act, and was a Chief of Staff in the House of Representatives during the Clinton impeachment proceedings. 

Michael Mann is an Associate Professor of Geography at George Washington University, where he specializes in geospatial data science, land use, agriculture, and environmental change. With a PhD in Earth & Environment from Boston University, his interdisciplinary research spans remote sensing, wildfire modeling, and spatial epidemiology. He is a leading contributor to open geospatial education through YouthMappers and projects like PyGIS, and has led research funded by USAID, NSF, Meta, and CalFire. His applied work supports resilience and sustainability in the U.S. and the Global South.

I am an Associate Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs and editor-in-chief of Nationalities Papers.

I teach undergraduate courses on International Affairs, Nationalism, Patriotism, and European Integration, as well as graduate seminars on Globalization Backlash Politics, Nation-Building in the Balkans, Nationalism and Nation-Building, and Qualitative Research Methods.

My research interests lie at the intersection of comparative politics, international security, and history, while I aim to develop theoretical frameworks that cross geographic boundaries. My publications focus on the impact of international politics on nation-building,  political development, and diaspora policy.  My award-winning book, The Politics of Nation-Building: Making Co-Nationals, Refugees, and Minorities was published by Cambridge University Press in 2012, and a co-authored book, Varieties of Nationalism: Communities, Narratives, Identities, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2023. I have also co-edited two volumes: Enemies Within: The Global Politics of Fifth Columns and The Microfoundations of Diaspora Politics. My work has also been published in the Annual Review of Political Science; Comparative Political Studies; Security Studies; International Political Science Review; Journal of Global Security, Studies; Perspectives on Politics; European Journal of Political Research; Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies; Territory, Politics, Governance; Nations and Nationalism; Political Science Quarterly; Social Science Quarterly; Nationalities Papers; Nationalism and Ethnic Politics; Ethnopolitics; as well as various edited volumes.

After completing my Ph.D. in political science at Yale University and a post-doctoral fellowship at the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies, I joined the Department of Political Science at George Washington University. I served as Associate Dean for Research at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs (2017-18) and a representative of the Elliott School of International Affairs to GW’s Faculty Senate since 2018.

Beyond GW, for over a decade, I have been serving as a member of the Board of Directors of the Association for the Study of Nationalities, the world’s largest scholarly organization dedicated to the study of nationalism, ethnic conflict, and ethnic conflict-management in Eurasia. From 2019 to 2021, I served as Chair of the Council for European Studies Research Network on “Historical Study of States and Regimes,” while since 2021, I have been serving as an executive board member. I am also a member of the editorial board of Nations and Nationalism and  Diaspora Studies.

Beyond academia, I engage with the public as a lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a member of PONARS Eurasia, and through briefings and presentations to various branches of the U.S. government. I bridge scholarly expertise and broader audiences through academic publications, public talks, and media commentary. My work has been featured in Foreign Affairs, the Washington Post‘s Blog, the Monkey Cage, Foreign Policy, and The Guardian. In addition to writing, I have co-produced American Constitutive Stories, a podcast exploring American national identity, and directed Searching for Andreas: Political Leadership in Times of Crisis, a documentary on the dangers of charismatic leadership.

Jordan S. Potash, PhD, ATR-BC, REAT, LPAT (DC), LCPAT (MD) is a registered, board certified, and licensed art therapist, as well as, registered expressive arts therapist (USA). He is Associate Professor in the Art Therapy Graduate Program at The George Washington University in Washington, DC. As an art therapist for 25 years, Potash has worked with clients of all ages in many settings including schools, clinics, and community art studios. He has worked with organizations in Washington DC focused on youth experiencing homelessness and families managing grief. His primarily interests are in the applications of art and art therapy in the service of community development, social change, and peacebuilding. Potash has authored several articles and book chapters as well as presented at conferences, universities, and communities globally including U.S.A., United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Israel, Korea, Singapore. In support of the art therapy profession, Potash served as Editor of Art Therapy (2019-2024) and led advocacy efforts for the passage and implementation of the DC Professional Art Therapist Licensure Amendment Act. For more information, view podcasts of past lectures, or to view his portfolio, please visit www.jordanpotash.com.

I am an experimental nuclear physicist, and I predominantly conduct research at particle accelerator facilities, both in the US and abroad. I'm originally from Pittsburgh, PA, and I received by PhD from MIT in 2016, working under the supervision of Richard Milner. I joined the physics faculty at GW in 2020. 

Gayle Wald writes and teaches about American culture, with an emphasis on popular music and popular culture, African American culture, and feminism and women in culture. She is the author of four books, including a biography of the rock-and-roll trailblazer Sister Rosetta Tharpe and, more recently, a biography of Ella Jenkins, the "First Lady of Children's Music." She has published widely on topic ranging from Riot Grrrl music to boy bands, and from Bob Dylan to the television show "Empire." She is the receipient of three NEH Fellowships as well as a Guggenheim Fellowship. At GW, she teaches courses on American cultural history, cultural theory, U.S. popular music, and other topics.