2026–27 Buffett Research Fellows: Buffett Institute for Global Affairs

2026–27 Buffett Research Fellows

The Buffett Research Fellowship Program awards fellowships of one to four quarters to doctoral students in years 3-5 whose research deals with subjects outside the contiguous United States and/or within Tribal Nations. Learn about the 2026–27 cohort of Buffett Research Fellows below.

LEARN MOR ABOUT BUFFETT'S RESEARCH FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM

2026–27 Research Fellows

Ana Luiza Vedovato

Political Science, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences

Ana Luiza Vedovato is a Political Science PhD candidate at Northwestern University's Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences specializing in International Relations and Comparative Politics. Her research examines the relationship between conflict and international order, with a particular interest in the historical and long-term effects of war on state and regional formation in Latin America. Ana’s current project investigates nineteenth-century Latin America and the emergence of international norms of sovereignty recognition. At Northwestern, she is also affiliated with the Comparative-Historical Social Science (CHSS) and Latin American & Caribbean Studies (LACS) clusters.

Ekaterina Kulinicheva

Art History, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences

Ekaterina Kulinicheva is a PhD candidate in Art History at Northwestern University's Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. Her research explores the material and economic dimensions of art making and the role of artistic experimentation in broader social, industrial, and political projects. Ekaterina's dissertation examines the intersections of the early Soviet artistic avant-garde, Soviet nationalities policy, and the Bolsheviks' politicized economic experiments in Central Asia. Before beginning her doctoral studies, she worked in sports journalism and remains an enthusiastic follower of the Olympic Games, looking forward to Los Angeles 2028.

Eli Kuto

Anthropology, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences

Eli Kuto is a PhD candidate in the Department of Anthropology at Northwestern University's Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. Eli’s dissertation examines socio-ecological strategies employed by Indigenous communities in Northern Ghana to mitigate vulnerability to food insecurity during periods of climate and sociopolitical crises. His research integrates archaeology, archaeobotany, ethnography, environmental science, and geochemical analysis to enhance local/Indigenous food-getting strategies and generate policy-legible and intellectually rewarding insights on climate, violence, and food insecurity. His collaborative and single-authored works have appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the Bulletin of the Society of Africanist Archaeologists (Nyame Akuma), Ghana Studies Journal, Journal of Conservation and Management of Archaeological Sites, and the Northwestern University Information Technology Blog.

Jodie Koh

Management & Organizations, Kellogg School of Management

Jodie Koh is a PhD Candidate in Management & Organizations at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. Her research examines how diverse actors and organizations coordinate to advance progress on sustainability issues. Her dissertation investigates how voluntary sustainability certification standards come to be adopted by smallholder oil palm farmers in Malaysia to ensure the farmers' continued access to and participation in global markets. She collaborates with non-profit organizations to understand how these intermediaries act as cultural brokers, bridging the gap between technically demanding, resource-intensive certification standards and the lived realities of smallholder farming communities.

Sara Kayyali

Political Science, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences

Sara Kayyali is a PhD candidate in Political Science at Northwestern University's Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. Her research looks at how the involvement of foreign actors impacts state-society relations during major transitions such as revolutions, economic crises, and conflicts. She was previously the senior Syria and Jordan researcher in the Middle East and North Africa Division of Human Rights Watch and worked with civil society at the Open Society Foundations.

Umar Yandaki

African History, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences

Umar Yandaki is a doctoral student in African History at Northwestern University's Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, working at the intersection of urban history and material culture. His work traces urban life, the built environment, and memory in West Africa, drawing on multilingual archives across three continents, oral traditions in Hausa communities, and the enduring presence of historical monuments in contemporary landscapes. Spanning the medieval, early modern, and modern periods, his research brings new materialist frameworks into dialogue with indigenous knowledge systems to produce histories that recognize the sophistication of African urban thought while speaking to global conversations about space, power, and belonging.