OCPL Fellowship

Our fellowship program helps fellows conduct original policy-oriented research by amplifying their existing expertise and connecting them with key policy stakeholders. Our second fellowship cohort, composed of scholars from a range of disciplines, joined OCPL in Winter 2024.

Sophie Bryant is currently pursuing an MPhil in Global and Area Studies at Merton College as a Rhodes Scholar. Originally from Moscow, she lived in Shanghai for five years before moving to her current home in the Adirondacks. She holds a BA from Columbia University in East Asian studies and mathematics and has conducted research at various think tanks, including the Council on Foreign Relations, the Brookings Institution, and Carnegie China. These engagements solidified her interests in Chinese domestic and foreign politics, Central Asian security, and Sino-Russian relations. Her current Master’s thesis examines how Soviet-era legacies and Kazakh nationalism inform public sentiment toward Chinese private and public sector involvement in Kazakhstan, especially in the tumultuous context of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Haitong Du is a second-year MPhil in International Relations student at Pembroke College. His current research concerns the Reagan administration's engagement with the People’s Republic of China in the 1980s. In particular, Haitong examines how bureaucratic actors working for the president shaped US foreign policy towards China as the Cold War was coming to an end. Haitong attended Tufts University, graduating in 2022 with a Bachelor of Arts, summa cum laude, in International Relations.

Julia Youjia Hoffmann is an MPhil student in International Relations at St Antony’s College. Having grown up in China, she has always been keenly interested in the country’s political culture and history and is now studying how nuanced understandings and engagements with China's historical traumas can improve contemporary Sino relations. She holds a Bachelor's degree with Honors in International Relations from King's College London. While doing her undergraduate degree in London, Julia worked on the editorial team of various student publications and now hopes to pursue a career in political publishing and/or policy analysis.

Muhammad Bin Abdul Majid is reading the Master of Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government. Prior to Oxford, he was a civil servant in Malaysia, where he served as an economist at the Prime Minister’s Office, an analyst at Bank Negara Malaysia, the Central Bank, and a Perdana Fellow to the Minister of Entrepreneur Development. His chief interest at OCPL is the geoeconomic dimension of US-China relations and its concomitant consequences to ASEAN member states’ green, infrastructure, industrial, and digital transformation strategy. His secondary interest is the impact of said relations on the global monetary and financial architecture, particularly in the context of financing the global green transition. Muhammad speaks Malay, Indonesian, and Arabic. He holds a BSc (Hons) in Economics from the University of Warwick. Muhammad is a Jardine Scholar.

Anniki Mikelsaar is a Saven European Scholar and an MPhil Candidate in the History Faculty. Her master's research contributes towards understanding the legacy of the popular movements of 1989 in Europe. She has contributed to the discourse on the dynamics of Europe-China relations through publications and talks. While completing her undergraduate at Sciences Po Paris and at the London School of Economics (LSE), she led the Finance & Investment Club, and represented the LSE at the U.S. Naval Academy's Foreign Affairs Conference, receiving U.S.-China Roundtable Best Delegate Award. Anniki conducted research over the summer at DCDC of the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD), and was a recipient of the Sir Richard Dearlove Scholarship which supported her at the Cambridge Security Initiative, where she studied the civil-military functions of digital infrastructure. Anniki speaks Estonian, English, French, and some Mandarin Chinese.

Elisabeth Siegel is a DPhil Candidate and Clarendon Scholar at the Department of Politics and International Relations. Her work pertains to the impact of emerging disruptive technologies on politics. She convenes the Cyber Strategy and Technology Studies working group and helms the Oxford Tech Policy Nexus. Outside of academia, she advises both public and private actors on key emerging technology policy issues. She has received degrees from Oxford and Yale.

Varya Srivastava is an author, political scientist, and policy professional. She is the VP of Product and Government Affairs at Network Capital - the world's largest career exploration platform. She leads the company's partnership with NITI Aayog’s Atal Innovation Mission to design policy interventions that make mentorship accessible to school students in India. This initiative reaches 10,000+ schools and 7.5 million school students. Her debut non-fiction novel studies ambition in Indian Gen Z and has been commissioned by Penguin Random House. It looks at the fears and aspirations of a young Indian generation born in a period of rising individualism, consumerism, and the internet. Varya's words have appeared in Vogue, Observer Research Foundation, and the Indian Express. She has been a student of Political Science at Indraprastha College for Women, University of Delhi. She is now a Masters student at the University of Oxford. In her free time, she enjoys existentialism, contemplating the human condition, and exploring Internet subcultures.

Ruofei Wang is currently a Master of Public Policy student at Oxford's Blavatnik School of Government. She has been focusing on AI, tech and Internet governance as policy analyst and researcher. Her research interests centre around the intersection of AI governance and international peace, particularly in relation to global AI superpowers. She wishes to be part of the effort to advance effective global collaboration in tackling risks and challenges posed by advanced AI technologies through impactful research.

Duo (Ellen) Yi is an MPhil student in Evidence-Based Social Intervention and Policy Evaluation and a 2023 China Rhodes Scholar at Linacre College, the University of Oxford. Duo's previous research experience covers China's state-society relations and China's foreign policy. Her current research interest lies in the area of information technology & politics and aims to investigate digital governance in authoritarian contexts. Duo holds an LLB in International Political Economy with honors at the School of International Studies, Peking University. Duo has an internship at the Institute of International and Strategic Studies, Peking University, and she is also a 2022 Samuel “Sandy” R. Berger Memorial fellow.

Tristan Yip is a BCL student at Balliol College and a concurrently enrolled Juris Doctor student specialising in public law at the Australian National University. He holds a BA in History, Chinese Studies and Chinese Language from the Australian National University, and is proficient in Mandarin, particularly written translation. Before studying at Oxford, Tristan worked at an Australian-based risk consultancy firm advising on geopolitical risk, with a focus on China and the Asia-Pacific region.

Fellowship Alumni

Julia Carver is a DPhil Candidate in International Relations at Nuffield College, the University of Oxford. Her research examines foreign policymaking towards the cyber and digital domains and how technological transformations have shaped strategic decision making. She currently works as a Lecturer in Politics at Magdalen College (Oxford) and as a research affiliate at the University of Oxford’s Changing Character of War Centre.

Constance Minett is a foreign policy adviser working for New Zealand's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Her current role is as a legal adviser focusing on International Humanitarian Law. She has also worked on New Zealand's relationship with Fiji, in Parliament as a Private Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and negotiated quarantine-free travel arrangements with Tonga, Vanuatu and Samoa. This year, Constance completed a Master of Public Policy from Oxford University. Her final report focused on international regulation of artificial intelligence, a topic inspired by her time spent at the International Law Commission as Dapo Akande's research assistant. Constance also has a Bachelor of Laws with first-class honours and Bachelor of Arts from Victoria University Wellington. She also spent three years studying Chinese as a Prime Minister's Scholar in Taipei and speaks fluent Mandarin.