ViCS Undergraduate Fellows
Nicholas Hirsch is an Aerospace Engineering undergraduate at the University of Florida, Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering. Currently, he is the director of the Guidance, Navigation, and Control sub-team at Florida Rocket Lab, a member of the UF Undergraduate Research Scholars Program, and a member of both the ViCS and SMART labs under Dr. Siroky and Dr. Wang respectively. He is currently studying how machine learning can be used to predict ethnic separatism and conflict. In addition, his other research interests include the guidance and control of autonomous air vehicles as well as optimal trajectory planning for space missions.
ViCS Predoctoral Fellows
Dilruba Tas (she/her/hers) is a ViCS predoctoral fellow and fourth-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Political Science at the University of Florida. Her research interests include gender and women’s studies, women’s political violence and participation in armed rebellion, and international security studies with a regional focus on the Middle East. dtas@ufl.edu
Suren Mohammed is a Ph.D. student in Political Science at the University of Florida. Growing up in a conflict-ridden country and region characterized by various conflicts, from ethno-nationalist to sectarian, he has been interested in studying the causes and consequences of conflict and violence. His research interests center on the dynamics of ethnicity, secessionism, and nationalism, with a special focus on the empirical Kurdish conflict in Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and Iran. He is interested in studying how ethno-nationalist movements think when pursuing secession. Additionally, his research interests extend to the foreign policies of Middle Eastern states in shaping regional conflict dynamics and how conflict in the region has impacted state capacity. suren.mohammed@ufl.edu
ViCS Postdoctoral Fellows
Arthur Honig is a ViCS Postdoctoral Fellow and Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Florida in the Bud Shorstein Center for Jewish Studies. His research focuses on security issues, mainly in the Middle East. He has published on violence and diplomacy in Intra-state conflicts, civil-military relations, intelligence, deterrence and coercion, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and foreign policy decision making. He finished his PhD in political science at UCLA, and was subsequently a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Military & Strategic Studies at the University of Calgary. Since then, he has taught at Tel Aviv University, Duke University, Tokyo International University, and Hampden Sydney College. ohonig@ufl.edu