Steven Jackson, professor of political science at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, has been selected for a nine-month residential fellowship at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in Washington, DC.
Jackson is the first IUP and Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education recipient of the nine-month fellowship. He will be in residence at the Center from September 2023 through May 2024.
The Fellowship is highly competitive; applicants come from all over the world, and only one out of 15 are chosen for each academic year.
The nine-month residential fellowship will allow him to complete his current book project, China's Waters: Foreign Relations and Hydropolitics, which examines issues concerning water and the ways they impact China’s neighbors and countries around the world.
Topics addressed in the book include China’s upstream dams on transboundary rivers such as the Mekong, its competition over regional fisheries in the East and South China Seas and its distant-water fishing, China’s shipping and shipbuilding, its construction of foreign ports and their potential for naval use, and finally, its ambitions in the Arctic.
This is Jackson’s second book; his first book, China’s Regional Relations in Comparative Perspective: From Harmonious Neighbors to Strategic Partners, was published in 2018. He is also the author of a number of book chapters, articles, and book reviews.
“The Woodrow Wilson Center is one of the top think tanks in the world,” Jackson said. “It’s an incredibly rich environment to learn more about world issues, and DC is certainly one of the top world information centers, so I’ll be able to take advantage of presentations at other think tanks and institutions in the area.”
As a Woodrow Wilson Fellow, Jackson also will have borrowing privileges at the Library of Congress and an intern to provide research and other assistance.
“It’s a wonderful opportunity, and I am very honored to have been chosen for the Fellowship and am really looking forward to this experience,” Jackson said.
Jackson will retire from his IUP faculty position in June after almost 30 years of teaching and nine years serving as chair of the Department of Political Science.
During his tenure at IUP, he received a number of grants and awards, including a University Senate Research Committee grant for travel to Accra, Ghana; to Hong Kong; to Australia; and to China. He was a member of the team that successfully secured $1.7 million from the Department of Education for “Preparing Tomorrow’s Teachers to Use Technology,” a $600,000 Bell Atlantic grant for training teachers to use technology in the classroom; and a $385,000 Microsoft Supplemental Software Grant.
He also completed an Asian Studies Development Program Seminar and Field Study in Hong Kong and Shanghai; three National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institutes on Asia and Japan; and a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar for College Teachers on the Industrial Revolution.
Active in service, he has been a member of scores of university committees and was a long-time lecturer for the IUP School of Continuing Education’s Great Decisions Lecture series. He has been featured on a number of media outlets about political issues, including on Voice of America radio.
The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars was established within the Smithsonian Institution in 1971 as an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution dedicated to advanced academic research in international relations and political and social studies.
During residency, Wilson Center Fellows conduct research and write in their areas of interest, while interacting with policymakers in Washington and Wilson Center staff and other scholars in residence. The Center accepts policy-relevant, non-advocacy fellowship proposals that address key challenges confronting the United States and the world.