Adviser: Salman Ahmed, Senior Fellow in the Geoeconomics and Strategy Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, former Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Strategic Planning, NSC

Research topic: “Winning in the Age of Geo-Economics: How Should the United States Use Economic Statecraft to Project Power?”

Michael Battalia is a dual-degree master’s student in the School of Foreign Service and the Department of History. His ISD research will explore the increasing use of private companies to achieve geopolitical goals, examining case studies of Russian private-sector activity in the Netherlands, the U.A.E. in India, France in Brazil, and China in South Africa. He will assess whether the United States should also adopt elements of these strategies, and make recommendations for how the US government’s diplomatic and military institutions would implement such an approach. Michael worked for six years as a management consultant with Deloitte, where he advised Middle Eastern governments on how to approach economic statecraft. He has a bachelor’s degree from the London School of Economics.