Alexander Nicholson, President
A native of South Carolina, J. Alexander Nicholson III (Alex) was a 2003 Boren Scholar at the American University in Cairo, Egypt, where he studied Arabic. He holds a Bachelors degree in international relations, a Masters degree in public administration, and is currently working on his dissertation for a Ph.D. in political science. Mr. Nicholson is the founder and Executive Director of Servicemembers United, a Washington-based educational, advocacy, and lobbying organization on minority defense personnel policy issues. He has been a major national figure in the movement to repeal the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law, and was instrumental in orchestrating that law’s ultimate repeal in 2010. In the course of that repeal effort, Mr. Nicholson appeared frequently on MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News. He is also the Executive Editor of the new defense and national security blog, DefensePolicy.org.
Philip Lyon, Vice President
Philip Lyon is a historian and the President of the Fulbright Association in Washington, DC. He was the 2011 Director of the Boren Forum, and served as the Boren Forum’s Co-Director from 2008-2010. Dr. Lyon was a Fulbright Fellow in Croatia in 2004-2005, when he was in residence as an analyst and researcher at the Croatian Institute for History. He completed his Ph.D. in History at the University of Maryland and earned his M.A. in International Relations at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). In 2010, he was a Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Dr. Lyon has also worked on elections and civil society promotion with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Kosovo, Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro. He has contributed chapters to several books including De Facto States: the Quest for Sovereignty and The Kosovo Crisis. In addition to the Fulbright Association, Dr. Lyon serves on the Board of Directors of the Washington Area Bicyclist Association (WABA). He speaks German, Spanish, and Serbo-Croatian.
Jonathan McKernan, Board Secretary
Jonathan McKernan is an attorney at the law firm WilmerHale with a practice focused on regulatory and transactional matters involving financial institutions. He received his law degree from Duke University, where he graduated with High Honors and Order of Coif. Jonathan also has a B.A. and M.A. in economics from the University of Tennessee, where he graduated summa cum laude and first in his class of the College of Arts & Sciences. Jonathan studied in Moscow as a 2002 Boren Fellow and worked at the International Trade Administration from 2003-2004.
Genie Lomize, Treasurer
Genie Lomize was a Boren Scholar at the Warsaw School of Economics in 2003. She graduated with degrees in Economics and Russian and East European Studies from the University of Michigan in 2004, whereupon she moved to Washington, D.C. to pursue a career in the Federal Government. Over the past five years, Ms. Lomize has worked in a variety of analytical positions at the U.S. Departments of Interior, Treasury, and Defense. She has additionally been involved in the leadership of the Boren Forum since 2006 and served as Co-Director of the organization in 2009 and 2010. She continues to work part time for the U.S. Government, while also pursuing a Master’s degree in International Trade and Investment Policy at the George Washington University.
Jessie Babcock
Jessie Babcock is the Country Director for Argentina, Chile and Uruguay in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy. Ms. Babcock was a Presidential Management Fellow (PMF) in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, from 2009-2011. In her role as a PMF, Ms. Babcock has had the opportunity to work on a range of national security and defense policy issues, including humanitarian assistance and peacekeeping in Africa and disaster relief in Haiti. Prior to her PMF appointment, Ms. Babcock was a 2008 National Security Education Program (NSEP) Boren Fellow in Kenya, where she studied Swahili and conducted research on women-owned microenterprises in the Rift Valley. Additionally, Ms. Babcock has over six years’ experience in the nonprofit sector, including service as an AmeriCorps*VISTA volunteer and as a member of the Board of Directors of the Saint Paul Civic Symphony, in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Ms. Babcock has taught English and composition in several countries overseas, and speaks Kiswahili, Mandarin Chinese, and Spanish. Ms. Babcock graduated with a Master of Business Administration in Sustainable Development from The Heller School for Social Policy & Management at Brandeis University. She holds a Bachelor of Arts summa cum laude in English and Spanish from Mount Holyoke College.
Josh Boyd
Bio coming soon.
Todd Chappell
Todd Chappell is a career employee of the U.S. Department of Defense with service in both Iraq and Afghanistan. A graduate of the National War College, Fletcher, and the Coast Guard Academy, Todd completed his NSEP Fellowship in Irkutsk, Russia in 1998.
Kim Fassler
Kim Fassler studied at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center from 2009-2010 on a Boren Fellowship. She holds a M.A. in International Relations from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and a B.A. in Political Science and Chinese from Williams College. Originally from Honolulu, she has worked in journalism, communications, and energy market research. She currently works at the U.S. Department of Defense.
Phil Koretz
Phil Koretz studied Arabic as a Boren Fellow in Damascus, Syria during the 2009-2010 academic year. He holds a master’s degree from the University of Chicago’s Committee on International Relations, where he specialized in security studies, and a bachelor’s degree in history from Middlebury College. Phil now works for the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs as a Regional Issues Officer, covering the Maghreb.
