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Longmeadow native joins elite ranks |
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Samuel Dorison
Reminder Publications submitted photo
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Jan. 16, 2012
By Katelyn Gendron
Assistant Managing Editor
LONGMEADOW — They’re inventors, congressmen, Supreme Court justices and Pulitzer Prize winners. They’re an elite group of more than 1,500 American innovators who’ve led the nation as Marshall Scholars and now Longmeadow native Samuel Dorison is one of them.
The highly competitive scholarship, which began in 1953 to thank the United States for the assistance the United Kingdom (U.K.) received under the Marshall Plan, will allow him to pursue a graduate degree in Security Studies at the University College London.
A 2011 graduate of Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and a 2007 alumnus of Loomis Chaffee in Windsor, Conn., Dorison touts an impressive resume at the young age of 23. As a college sophomore he spent the summer interviewing detainees at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba as a paralegal; he’s served as a member of WorldTeach in Cape Town, South Africa, in 2008; and currently works as a research assistant at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs focusing on the impacts of the Arab Spring on national security.
“Developing effective national security policies while simultaneously protecting human rights is an incredibly important issue in the 21st century. I hope to continue studying security and human rights, and the U.K. has incredible graduate degrees on this topic. I’m also excited to study in an international context,” Dorison said.
His decision to pursue study in national security and international relations was reinforced by his time spent at Guantanamo and the writing of his senior thesis on the U.S. detention policy in the War on Terror, which garnered him the award for best thesis on U.S. foreign policy at the Wilson School.
“Speaking with individuals at Guantanamo reinforced my desire to focus on the intersection between international security and human rights. I wrote my thesis about U.S. detention policy because I wanted to understand how the government decided whom to detain during the War on Terror. My experiences speaking with detainees and writing my thesis convinced me that the U.S. can and should improve its processes for determining which individuals are held in U.S. custody,” he explained, noting that his current work at the Belfer Center has also strengthened his resolve to continue work in this area of government policy.
“I work directly with Professor Graham Allison, the director of the Belfer Center and former Assistant Secretary of Defense. My current research focuses on the Arab Spring as well as topics concerning Afghanistan and Pakistan. Working at the Harvard Kennedy School, I hope to gain a clearer perspective on these topics and learn as much as possible from Professor Allison, who is a leading expert on U.S. national security,” Dorison said.
Dr. Phil Budden, British Consul General to New England, called Dorison and the three other New England recipients of the Marshall Scholarship an extraordinary group that will most certainly change this country’s future for the better.
“I am not surprised that New England has supplied so many of the very best and brightest American students applying to join the 2012 class of Marshall Scholars. I am honored to have been on the Boston Selection Committee that chose to send some of them to the U.K. to study at our own universities. They will be a part of the Marshall program that will see the bonds of our transatlantic relationship and our mutual prosperity flourish in the next generation,” Budden said.
Dorison said he plans to pursue a complimentary degree at University College London after completing the 12-month Security Studies degree in October 2013. When asked if he had any political aspirations or desire to work in the private sector after graduation, he replied, “I don’t have definitive long-terms plans for life after graduate school. I would hope to continue working on national security policies and human rights issues.”
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