John Aroutiounian Fellows
The John Aroutiounian Fellowship (JAF), the flagship student fellows program of the Abigail Adams Institute (AAI), is designed for select undergraduate and graduate students who have demonstrated an exceptional commitment to holistic intellectual exploration, community-building, and alignment with AAI’s mission of promoting truth-seeking humanistic inquiry.
The Fellowship honors John Aroutiounian, a brilliant young scholar whose deep faith, intellectual passion, and generous spirit left a lasting impact on everyone he met.
Undergraduate Fellows
Anna Linder, Harvard College ‘27
Anna Linder is a Harvard College History and Science concentrator from Tallinn, Estonia. Anna's interests center on the history of measurement and standardization, and on the political economy of innovation. Anna has worked at the European Commission on critical raw materials policy and served as chief operating officer of a private equity real estate fund. She is the founder of Growth Intelligence, a clinical decision support company working on fetal growth assessment.
Luis Cardenas, Harvard College ‘27
Luis Cardenas is a senior at Harvard College studying Government and History. His research interests center on political theory and intellectual history, with a particular focus on statecraft and constitutional development in the United States and across the Spanish-American world since the nineteenth century. His emerging scholarly interests also include the origins and development of Anglo-American Hispanism. A native of South Texas and northern Mexico, his policy work accordingly focuses on U.S.–Mexico diplomatic relations and national security.
Lillian Rousey, Harvard College ‘27
Lillian is a Harvard College undergraduate studying history. Her academic interests include American history, political thought, and the evolving relationship between the United States and the Arab world in the twenty-first century. She serves on Harvard's Intellectual Vitality Student Advisory Board and is conducting research on Anglo-American diplomacy during the opening years of the Second World War. Beyond her academic work, she composes original works for orchestra and string quartet.
Dorde Ivanovic, Harvard College ‘27
Dorde Ivanovic is a member of the Harvard College Class of 2027 concentrating in Computer Science with a secondary in Neuroscience. Originally from Podgorica, Montenegro, and a graduate of United World College Adriatic, he is interested in artificial intelligence, human cognition, the philosophy and politics of technology, and the moral responsibilities created by powerful computational systems. His broader intellectual interests center on liberty, human dignity, practical judgment, institutional responsibility, and how scientific and technological progress can be directed toward the common good.
Elizabeth Choi, Harvard cOLLEGE ‘27
Elizabeth Choi is a senior at Harvard concentrating in History. She serves as president of the Harvard Catholic Center, an editor-at-large for the Arts section of The Harvard Crimson, and a peer tutor at the Academic Resource Center. Originally from Boston, she is interested in Catholic social thought and cultural history.
Siddhu Pachipala, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, ‘27
Siddhu Pachipala is a senior at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he is completing double majors in Mathematical Economics and Political Science. He is a cadet in Army ROTC, intending to commission in military intelligence. He founded and leads re:FOUNDING, which puts next-gen civics material in Texas schools. His writing on American political thought has appeared in The New York Times, CNN, Newsweek, and Slate.
Richard Rodgers, Harvard College ‘28
Richard Rodgers is a junior at Harvard College, where he studies History and the History of Art and Architecture, with a secondary field in Medieval Studies. His academic interests include political theory, medieval art and architecture, and the medieval Anglosphere. He is the editor of Political Thought of the Middle Ages, an anthology of political theory from the third through the fifteenth century. He is the Hao Fellow in Medieval and Renaissance Art at the Harvard Art Museums, the George Andrew Kellner Fellow at the Harvard Catholic Forum and a fellow in the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard’s Institute for Quantitative Social Science. Before attending Harvard, he served for more than six years in the United States Navy.
jULIA lAgRAND, harvard College ‘28
Julia LaGrand is a junior at Harvard College, concentrating in philosophy and pursuing a secondary in either mathematics or economics. A dedicated musician, she is also pursuing a Masters in Violin Performance in New England Conservatory's dual degree program and she sings in the Harvard choruses. She is currently a Mellon Mays Undergraduate fellow, a Human Flourishing Fellow, president of the Harvard Undergraduate Salon for the Sciences and Humanities and board member and former co-director of the Humanities 10 Alumni mentorship board. Beyond pursuing a broad humanistic education, she is particularly interested in the metaphysics, ethics, social theory and public policy of disability.
Eli Solomon, Harvard College ‘28
Eli Solomon is a rising junior at Harvard College studying Government with a secondary in Economics and a language citation in Spanish. His academic interests lie primarily in Western political philosophy, and he has spent this past summer diving into the writings of the American founders. In his free time, Eli enjoys working out, boxing, and playing the drums.
Yuanyi Ma, Hravard College ‘28
Yuanyi is a sophomore studying History and East Asian Studies with an interest in Chinese intellectual history. She is also passionate about education and has spent her past two summers developing and teaching interdisciplinary courses in China with the Harvard Undergraduate Association for U.S. Cross-Cultural Relations. Yuanyi is from Montreal, where she spent two years studying Liberal Arts before solidifying her interests at Harvard. Around campus, Yuanyi is an arts editor and executive of The Harvard Advocate, an executive and editor of the Harvard Review of Philosophy, and a member of the Harvard College Debate Union. In her spare time, she can be found catching a film at the Harvard Film Archive or reading by the Charles.
Amelia Barnum, Harvard College ‘28
Amelia Barnum is a Social Studies and Philosophy concentrator in Winthrop House, focusing on the philosophy of sex and gender. As an editor for The Crimson’s Editorial Board, she enjoys clashing with peers about her vision for a tech-minimized college experience as well as the role of religion on campus and the efficacy of administrative policy in changing students’ academic commitment, ethical makeup, and career choices. Interested in cyber and information warfare, she spent this summer as a Security Studies Fellow with the Hertog Foundation. On campus, she is also a citizenship test tutor and a member of the University Choir.
Joseph Juhasz, Harvard College ‘29
Joseph Juhasz is a sophomore at Harvard University studying classics. His primary academic interests include intellectual history, the Catholic intellectual tradition, languages, and philosophy. He plays in various classical music ensembles in his free time.
Jaxson Brewer, Harvard College ‘29
Jaxson Brewer is a sophomore at Harvard College studying Chemistry. His primary interests are intellectual property law, the history of Christianity, and bioprecipitation mechanisms. Originally from Kentucky, he writes for the Harvard Undergraduate Law Review; much of his work focuses on the legal and ethical implications of advancing technology.
Yavuz Atlamaz, Harvard College ‘29
Yavuz Atlamaz is a rising sophomore at Harvard College who plans to do a joint concentration between Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations and Philosophy with a secondary in Government and an Arabic language citation. He is particularly interested in Islamic philosophy and its intersection with western philosophy as well as general political philosophy.
Graduate Fellows
Michael Makiej, Suffolk University Law school ‘27
Michael Makiej is a 3L at Suffolk University Law School in Boston, Massachusetts. His academic interests include constitutional law, eighteenth century political philosophy, and social media psychology. At Suffolk he is president of the Catholic Law Students Association and an executive board member for the Journal of High Technology Law. He has published several pieces on the impact of artificial intelligence on international relations and American Law.
oSCAR gONZALEZ, Tufts University ‘27
Oscar Gonzalez is in his second year of a MA in Philosophy at Tufts University. Before this, he received a BA in Liberal Arts from St. John's College, Annapolis. His academic interests are primarily in the history of philosophy, particularly Ancient Philosophy, as well as 19th- and early 20th-century continental philosophy, contemporary virtue ethics, and Wittgenstein.
Aric Pierce, Harvard Kennedey School ‘27
Aric Pierce is an Australian-American Master in Public Administration candidate at Harvard Kennedy School. Before commencing studies, he served in senior policy and leadership roles across the Australian government, Parliament, state government, and professional services, including as Chief of Staff to the Leader of the Opposition in South Australia, Senior Adviser to the Deputy President in the Australian Senate, Ministerial Adviser to the Australian Minister for Finance, and Senior Associate in Public Policy and Economics at PwC Australia. Academic interests include constitutional government, political philosophy, public leadership, environmental stewardship, the intellectual traditions of the American Founding, and the civic virtues that sustain free societies. Outside professional work, has volunteered in conservation initiatives, mentored university students, and enjoys reading widely in history, philosophy, and theology in the belief that lifelong learning is essential to both good citizenship and good leadership.
Bri Mirabile, Harvard Kennedey School, MIT Sloan SCHOOL OF mANAGEMENT ‘28
Bri Mirabile is a dual-degree student at Harvard Kennedy School and the MIT Sloan School of Management, where she is earning her Master in Public Policy and Master in Business Administration. Bri began her career in government consulting at Deloitte, advising state health agencies on Medicaid innovation. She has also analyzed White House policy priorities across multiple administrations and assessed their implications for Deloitte’s Public Sector Consulting business. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Bri served as president of Kalos Academy, a national nonprofit supporting first-generation, low-income college students.
Trevor Bormann, Massachusetts Institute of Technology ‘29
Trevor Bormann is a 4th year PhD student at MIT studying materials science, particularly how grain boundaries of metals change the local composition of metallic alloys and how this can strengthen or weaken the alloy. He previously attended the South Dakota School of Mines earning B.S. degrees in metallurgical engineering and computer science. Outside of research, he particularly enjoys emergency medicine, firefighting, and philosophy with a particular soft spot for the works of Plato.
Grace Benz, Boston College ‘30
Grace Benz is a first-year doctoral student in the Political Science department at Boston College where she is concentrating in modern political thought. Prior to Boston College, she attended Ave Maria University in Florida where she studied Politics and History. Her research interests include: the theology of classical liberalism, the knowability of natural law, and Kant’s conception of public enlightenment. In her free time, she enjoys running, learning languages, kayaking, gardening, and spending time with her siblings.
Pamela Brenner, Harvard University
Pamela Brenner is a Ph.D. candidate in the Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations department at Harvard University, where she works on Yiddish literature and Jewish culture. Pamela holds a BA from Barnard College and an MSt from the University of Oxford, and has studied Talmud, Jewish law, and rabbinic literature at Orthodox institutions of higher learning. Her areas of research include Yiddish popular fiction, the female religious experience in Eastern Europe, and Jewish-Christian relations. She is completing a translation of short stories by the popular 19th century author Shomer. In addition to her academic work, Pamela is an Orthodox Jewish educator and teacher in the Boston area, and lectures widely on Jewish culture and Yiddish literature. She lives with her family in Cambridge.
Anton Njavro, boston University
Anton Njavro is a PhD candidate in the Computer Science Department at Boston University. His research is in the domains of Real-Time Systems and Operating Systems, with the goal of building both theoretical and practical frameworks needed to design safe and predictable computing systems. His interests also include the history and philosophy of Computer Science, along with World History; with a special focus on the history of his home country Croatia.