Yale professor selected as the Perry World House Lightning Scholar

Sarah Bush, an associate professor at Yale University’s political science department, has been selected to be the 2019-2020 Perry World House Lightning Scholar. Bush is the first scholar selected to be part of the new program, which was launched this year.  

The Lightning Scholar program invites tenure-track faculty from other institutions to produce a research project while residing in Philadelphia and collaborating with global affairs scholars at Penn, for either a semester or a full academic year. The program chooses faculty working on subjects related to the PWH’s two main research themes: "The Future of the Global Order: Technology, Power, and Governance," and "Global Shifts: Urbanization, Migration, and Demography."

Director of PWH William Burke-White said the program supports research which addresses global challenges such as climate change and nuclear competition, The Almanac reported. 

“In choosing Sarah Bush, we are promoting a top-flight scholar still early in her career, bringing a new voice to campus, and catalyzing research that will have a real policy impact,” Burke-White told The Almanac.

Bush completed her Ph.D. in Politics from Princeton University in 2011 and taught at Temple University before coming to Yale. Her research examines the efforts of international actors to support democracy and female representation in developing countries. In 2015, Bush published her first book, “The Taming of Democracy Assistance: Why Democracy Promotion Does Not Confront Dictators." 

PWH opened in September 2016 to advance dialogue on issues of global importance. The center selects political and scholarly leaders to come to campus each year as part of its visiting fellows program. Last year's fellows included former U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work and former National Security Advisors Susan Rice and Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster.