Editorial Team
Otto Faludi is a fourth-year Political Science major at York University’s bilingual Glendon College in Toronto, Canada. He is a co-founder, the Managing Director, and the Editor-in-Chief of FreedomWritersCA, and he also works as a research assistant for the Canadian Business Ethics Research Network. In addition, Faludi is actively involved in extracurricular activities on campus, and he serves as the Vice-President of Glendon NATO, while also double-hatting as the Public Relations Director for the Glendon College Political Science Association. He speaks Hungarian and English fluently, and has a working knowledge of French, German, and Spanish. Faludi’s main areas of interest include international relations, politics, human rights, and peace and conflict research.
Vivian (Yalda) Shahriar Bahrami is a fourth-year undergraduate student specializing in Political Science at York University’s bilingual Glendon Campus. She is the assistant editor of FreedomWriters.ca. As the founder and president of CYCL (Circle of Young Canadian Leaders) at Glendon, she works in collaboration with a number of other university chapters to promote leadership among students and encourage them to become actively involved in issues of peace, security and human rights both domestically and internationally. In 2010, Shahriar served as an intern for the Canadian International Peace Project where she worked on a number of initiatives in an effort to improve cross-cultural understanding and social justice issues. In the past she has been published in a number of student-led magazines and journals and has also served as the assistant editor of One Magazine. Her main areas of interest include constitutional law, Aboriginal rights, international legal ethics and the amelioration to the access of justice.
Our Writers
Nathan Brand is a resident of Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire, United Kingdom. He is majoring in Political Science and Russian language at the University of Leeds, and recently finished a one-year long excursion to Moscow, Russia, where he taught English at Moscow State University. Brand’s main areas of interest include Russian, British, and European politics, as well as English and Russian literature, and environmental and social studies. Brand has been featured in Stratford’s local newspaper The Stratfordian in recent years, and aside from political journalism he is also an amateur writer of poetry and prose.
Kirsten Gerrie is currently a student at Queen’s University in Kingston studying Politics and Philosophy. She enjoys participating in Model United Nations and Model Parliament conferences, as well as volunteering for the local NDP candidate. Her areas of interest include Latin American Politics, Post-Communist Politics and the Politics of War.
Gleb Matushanksy holds a Bachelor of Administrative Studies from York University and originally hails from Kiev, Ukraine. He is an avid political commentator with a strong interest in peace and conflict issues, international law, Middle East politics, and finance, and he has fluent knowledge of English, Russian, and Hebrew.
Uri Marantz has worked as a research intern for the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and the Hudson Institute in New York, New York. He holds a Combined Honours Bachelor of Arts in International Relations and Political Science from Glendon College at York University, a Master of Arts in Political Science from the University of Windsor, and a Master of Public Policy from the University of Michigan. He has contributed monthly essays to Beyond ONE and served as the managing editor and chief contributor to The ISSUE, both online magazines specializing in social justice, international affairs, and philosophical issues.
Claire Rush holds a BA in Communication Studies from Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Canada. She is currently a student in Journalism-Print and Broadcast at Humber College in Toronto. She will be writing this year for the Humber newspaper, Et Cetera and Humber’s magazine, Convergence. Her main area of interests are U.S. politics, human rights, international relations and religion.
Dr. Yan St-Pierre is a native of Montreal, Canada. He has lived in Berlin, Germany for several years, where he works as the Director of Programmes for the New Security Foundation. He obtained his doctorate in National Security Policy Studies from the University of Geneva, where his studies focused on European counter-terrorism policy, and he has lectured at multiple universities across Europe. Dr. St-Pierre published his first book in the spring of 2012, which deals with terrorism and is entitled “Genèse d’une culture anti-terroriste: l’approche occidentale face au terrorisme”. Dr. St-Pierre’s interests include behavioural analysis, history, political philosophy, policy development and application, and counter-terrorism studies.
Guest Contributors
Easha Acharya is a third-year Political Science student from Vancouver, currently completing her degree at York University’s Glendon College. She previously studied Economics and Global Studies at Vancouver Island University before relocating to Toronto. She is passionate about writing, literature, and language. Her areas of interest include Canadian, American, and South Asian politics. She speaks both English and basic Hindi and is currently expanding her knowledge of French.
Salvatore Andolina holds an Honours B.A. in International Studies and Economics from York University’s Glendon College. He is currently completing his Master of Arts in Security and Defense Management and Policy at the Royal Military College of Canada, and has served in the Canadian Forces’ reserve unit for several years. Andolina’s interests include international relations, national and international security issues, strategic defense and policy initiatives, and counter-terrorism studies.
Olivia Blackmore is a third-year History major at Glendon College, York University, where she is also completing a certificate in Law and Social Thought. She is currently the editor of the Ideas and Issues section of ProTem, Glendon College’s student newspaper. Her main interests are 20th century American, Canadian, and European history, as well as creative writing, journalism, and law.
Shakir Chambers is a first year PhD student in Political Science at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. International relations and public policy are his major and minor fields of study, respectively. He holds Master’s degrees in both History and Political Science and has lived, worked, and/or attended school in both Western Europe and Asia. His areas of interest include international security, U.S. and Canadian foreign policy, developments in the Asia-Pacific with a focus on the implications of China’s rise for regional security, and the Middle East with specialization in U.S.-Israeli-Iranian relations.
Jonathan Cramman is a fourth-year student majoring in International Studies at Glendon College in Toronto, Canada. Cramman speaks English, French, and Farsi, and has a keen interest in international relations, politics, linguistics, and social sciences on the whole.
Matt Gordner is a Trudeau Scholar and a PhD student at the University of Toronto’s Department of Political Science. Matt holds an Honours BA in Philosophy and Political Science from York University, an MA (magna cum laude) in Middle Eastern History from Tel Aviv University, and an MA in Political Theory from the University of Alberta. Gordner specializes in Middle Eastern politics, comparative politics, and political theory. Specifically, his research focuses are on democratization in the Arab world, Islamist and secular-liberal discourses, and Israeli-Palestinian politics. Gordner’s dissertation work centers on a comparison of Egyptian and Tunisian democratic transition. He has received a number of awards for community involvement and academic achievement, including the Queen Elizabeth II Award, the Alberta Heritage Award, and the Government of Alberta Citizenship Award. Gordner is a Senior Analyst at Consultancy Africa Intelligence and the director of The Peace by Piece Initiative, a non-profit organization dedicated to dialogue on sensitive issues of local and global scope.
Conner Marvin is a third-year Political Science undergraduate student at York University’s bilingual Glendon College. He is a member of Glendon NATO, and he is a co-founder as well as the Vice-President of the Glendon Political Science Association (GPSA). Marvin speaks English and French and his interests include Canadian politics, US politics, international relations, nationalism, language, and identity issues.
Jared Milne is a graduate of the Campus Saint-Jean at the University of Alberta with a Master’s Degree in Canadian Studies and a Bachelor’s Degree in Canadian History, minoring in Poltiical Science. Canadian unity is one of Jared’s greatest passions in life, and he actively works to try and understand the many different cultures, perspectives and backgrounds in Canada, inspired by his original French immersion education. He has worked as a public servant, a municipal intern and a historical researcher, and his commentaries on Canadian politics have been published in many different newspapers and websites.
Alexander Moldovan is an undergraduate Political Science student at York University’s bilingual Glendon College who will be entering his fourth year of studies in September 2013.
Dagny Pawlak is a second-year Political Science major at York University’s bilingual Glendon College. She speaks Polish, English, and French, and has a working knowledge of Spanish. Her main areas of interest include Political Science and politics, African history, and social issues at large. She is the current President of the Glendon Political Science Association, as well as a dedicated member of the group Canadians for Obama. Pawlak is also actively involved closer to home with Ontario provincial Liberal politics.
C.L. Smith is a PhD candidate in the Political Science department at the University of Toronto and he focuses on Latin American affairs. He holds a BA in Latin American studies from Brooklyn College-CUNY and an MA in International Relations from the City College of New York-CUNY and recently served as a Guest Professor at the Universidad de Los Andes in Mérida, Venezuela for the 2011-2012 academic year. He also spent time working for Fundación Por La Madre, a nascent NGO that provides educational initiatives for communities of internal refugees in the Colombian department of Magdalena and has travelled extensively throughout the region. His interests include alliance formation, foreign policy, and security issues.
Past contributors
Aschille Clarke-Mendes hails from Trinidad and Tobago and is an undergrad at the University of Toronto, studying Political Science and History. He has plied his trade for the Barbados Nation and Trinidad and Tobago Guardian. He enjoys jazz music and playing chess.
Sahand Khoshbaten is a co-founder of FreedomWritersCA. He is holds a BA from York University in Toronto, Canada where he majored in Health Management, but outside of school he has been a vocal human rights activist for many years with a view to his country of origin, Iran. Khoshbaten’s parents were activists and refugees who fled Iran in the 1980s, and their struggle has inspired him to become involve in political activism among Iranians in the diaspora.
Gary Moore spent three decades practicing law in South Africa, a stretch which included included the peak of apartheid-related turbulence in the 1980s. As a graduate of the Master of Law program at University College London, Moore specializes in legal issues pertaining to national constitution arrangements, European competition law, and international treaties. He has been published in the leading South African newspaper Business Day and he works closely with the Johannesburg-based Free Market Foundation for Southern Africa, an economic think-tank operating in that country.
Samuel Partridge is a New Zealand expatriate who works as an English teacher in Hong Kong, where he resides with his wife Regina. Partridge is a graduate of the University of Auckland and his main areas of concentration include China’s economic, military, and social standing, and he is a regular critic of Chinese media and communication censorship.
Michael Pietrzak recently completed a five year tour of duty as a political staffer with several ministers of the Ontario Government and has volunteered as a Field Counsellor with the United Nations. He has retained most of the idealism he began with, and still believes that politics is the best way to effect positive change on a large scale. Michael is currently indulging his inner artist by following his passion for creative writing, and has launched a project to bring affordable renewable energy to families in the Developing World, through which he has traveled extensively. He holds a Master of Arts in International Relations from the University of Windsor, Ontario.
Alejandra Ramirez is a resident of San Antonio, Texas and is currently completing her undergraduate degree in Journalism and English at the University of Texas at Austin. Ramirez has pursued her journalistic interests in the past at various newspapers; she currently writes for The Horn newspaper in Austin, and is also interning at San Antonio-based The Current. Ramirez’s interests include culture, history, politics, literature, and music.
Joshua Shultz has extensive writing and research skills and holds Bachelor’s degrees in Political Science and Philosophy from the University of Central Oklahoma where he graduated with honours in December 2011. He is currently a resident in the state of Oklahoma, and enjoys keeping up with the modern political debates of the day in the United States. He has recently joined FreedomWritersCA and is also a contributor to HubPages, where he forecasts social and political trends on a regular basis.
