The World Cup officially kicks off today, and soon 48 soccer (football) teams from around the world will begin their quest for the coveted title as World Champion, playing across three countries – the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Many in the U.S. foreign policy community are waiting with bated breath to see how this…
Biography Alisa Shapiro is a summer 2026 intern with the global policy program at Penn Washington. Originally from South Jersey, she recently completed her third year at the University of Pennsylvania. At Penn, Alisa studies international relations and economic policy, and is involved with the executive board for the West Philadelphia Tutoring Project. Her academic…
Examine the durability of American global leadership as traditional alliances, institutions, and assumptions face unprecedented strain – and define what effective U.S. engagement looks like in a transformed international order.
Develop forward-looking U.S. Arctic strategy at the intersection of great-power competition, energy security, environmental governance, and the rights of Arctic peoples.
On May 7-9, The Special Competitive Studies Project held its annual AI+ Expo, an event that has become widely recognized in D.C. for the depth and breadth of companies, universities, government officials, and diplomats engaged in the discussion and practice of AI. Beneath the flashy drone shows, walking robots, and multitudes of AI companies from startups…
In January 2025, Chinese startup DeepSeek released an AI model that appeared to match America’s best —built for a fraction of the cost using chips crippled by U.S. export controls. Whether DeepSeek truly matches OpenAI’s capabilities remains widely disputed, but the market’s verdict was immediate. The announcement wiped $600 billion from Nvidia’s market value in…
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Technology Leadership Summit on March 11, 2026 offered a useful opportunity to consider how questions of technology leadership increasingly cut across domestic and global policy. In this joint reflection, Nikki Hinshaw, Global Policy Programs Coordinator, and Sasha Nicholas, Domestic Policy Programs Coordinator, offer their respective perspectives on the summit and on the role the University of Pennsylvania is playing in…
Penn Washington is pleased to announce that Nicole (Nikki) Hinshaw has joined the team as Global Policy Programs Coordinator. Hinshaw comes to Penn Washington from Purdue University’s Institute for Tech Diplomacy, where she built cross-sector partnerships with industry leaders, diplomatic missions, academic institutions, and the U.S. government in support of democratic values through technology policy.…
Penn Washington is pleased to welcome Iris Ferguson as a Visiting Scholar focused on Arctic strategic competition and advancing stability and security in the region. Iris joins Penn Washington following a distinguished career spanning the Department of Defense, the Department of Commerce, and the U.S. Senate. Most recently, she served as the inaugural Deputy Assistant…
Penn Washington is pleased to welcome Daniel Schneiderman as our new Director of Global Policy Programs. In this role, Daniel will lead the development and execution of Penn Washington’s global policy initiatives, connecting the University’s intellectual resources with policymakers and policy influencers working on pressing international challenges. Daniel arrives following a distinguished career spanning the…
