Scholar in Exile

How Visiting International Scholars Contribute to the Academic Community: Meet Maurizio Geri

Andrew J Schappert — Wed, 15 Jan 2025 18:04:36 +0000

How Visiting International Scholars Contribute to the Academic Community: Meet Maurizio Geri Andrew J Schappert Wed, 01/15/2025 - 13:04

Maurizio Geri has wasted no time in exploring opportunities at ��AV’s Schar School of Policy and Government. The voluble Italian is a distinctive presence in the classroom, at panel discussions, and at various social events held throughout the semester at the school.

Visiting international scholar Maurizio Geri: ‘I had great interactions with interested and passionate students.’ Photos provided.

But Geri, it should be noted, is not a student, nor is he a member of the faculty. He is one of about a dozen Schar School visiting international scholars who spend a predetermined amount of time at the university. The scholars, many of them professors elsewhere, come to the Schar School to use George Mason resources in accomplishing their research and contributing to relevant classroom discussions.

In Geri’s case, the senior strategic international security analyst is capitalizing on his more than 20 years of experience with nongovernmental organizations, think tanks, and international institutions to develop “a better strategy for NATO and European Union cooperation to combat hybrid warfare from Russia and China,” he said.

“The work studies the technology and energy sectors in particular,” he said, with hopes to “improve cooperation in dual-use emerging disruptive technologies.”

Geri, an Italian Navy Lieutenant Reservist-POLAD (a political advisor), was awarded the 2023 EU Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoc Fellowship’s Horizon Europe, a prestigious and competitive flagship program for doctoral and postdoctoral training through a fellowship from Ca’ Foscari University in Venice.

The practice of universities hosting visiting international scholars began in ancient Greece, with cross-border scholarly exchanges, notably Plato’s Academy of Athens and the Library of Alexandria, where scholars from different regions shared knowledge.

In modern times, the practice was institutionalized in the late 19th century, beginning in Germany and spreading across Europe and into the United States. While the scholars benefit from research resources, the schools—including students and faculty—gain new viewpoints and fresh insights.

Maurizio Geri: ‘Maurizio is eager to work with students and colleagues. He is a wonderful addition to the school.’—Professor of Public Policy Desmond Dinan

“Visiting international scholars such as Dr. Geri enrich the academic climate of the Schar School,” said Schar School dean Mark J. Rozell. “They bring diverse perspectives on public policy issues and help build research and academic program collaborations for our faculty and students.”

Desmond Dinan, the Schar School professor of public policy who supervised Geri’s visit, has seen the effects of a visiting professor first-hand.

“International scholars bring different perspectives, experience, and insights to the classroom and, more broadly, to the intellectual life of the school. Maurizio Geri is a great example,” he said, citing Geri’s credentials and activities on campus.

“He also happens to be a reservist in the Italian navy, which made his participation in my European Security class in the fall of 2024 even more interesting. On top of all that, Maurizio is eager to work with students and colleagues. He is a wonderful addition to the school.”

Among the visiting international scholars at the Schar School is Tetiana Khutor, founder of the Institute of Legislative Ideas, a Ukraine-based think tank that devises legislative strategies and policies to combat corruption, assist asset recovery, and encourage good governance. She also teaches anticorruption policy as a professor at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.

Khutor came to George Mason as an academic participating in the New School’s New University in Exile Consortium, made up of a global group of colleges dedicated to supporting scholars facing threats at home that force them to leave or prevent them from performing meaningful work. George Mason is one of 12 in the United States participating in the program.

Khutor and Geri participated together in a panel discussion on hybrid warfare with Russia’s economic sector hosted by the Schar School Center for Security Policy Studies (CSPS) and they coauthored an op-ed in the influential political publication, The Hill.

In addition to guest lecturing and auditing several classes, Geri published his initial studies on Russian hybrid warfare against Europe’s energy sector and on NATO-EU cooperation in technologies last year in the Journal of Strategic Security and the Security and Defense Journal published by the Bulgarian Ministry of Defense.

At the moment, Geri is continuing his work via the German Marshall Fund of the United States and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium. He returns to the Schar School in the fall before finishing his fellowship in Venice in 2026.

“I had great interactions with interested and passionate students” at the Schar School, Geri said. “The faculty is always kind and very prepared. I look forward to being back in the fall.”

In This Story

Mark J. Rozell

Desmond Dinan

Request Schar School program information

Learn more about the Schar School

Topics

Visiting International Scholars

Schar School of Policy and Government

Schar School Featured Stories

Schar School News for January 2025

Campus News

Scholar in Exile

international scholars

Schar School Hosts ‘Scholar in Exile’ from Ukraine: Tetiana Khutor

Andrew J Schappert — Mon, 08 Jul 2024 17:26:55 +0000

Schar School Hosts ‘Scholar in Exile’ from Ukraine: Tetiana Khutor Andrew J Schappert Mon, 07/08/2024 - 13:26

‘Scholar in Exile’ Tetiana Khutor: ‘It’s hard to find any Ukrainian who is not involved in this fight.’ Photos by Ron Aira/Creative Service

When Tetiana Khutor was 5 years old she told her parents, “We have to establish an anticorruption commission that will go to all the regions of Ukraine and check everything,” she recently recalled. The Kyiv native got the idea from watching television news programs about rampant corruption in her home country in the years following the fall of the Soviet Union.

At 8 years old, her primary school classmates were so impressed with her potential that they wrote in essays, “When Tetiana is president, she will make changes for the better,” she recalled with a laugh.

Now at 31, Khutor is doing just as predicted. She is the founder of the Institute of Legislative Ideas, a Ukraine-based think tank that devises legislative strategies and policies to combat corruption, assist asset recovery, and encourage good governance. She also teaches anticorruption policy as a professor at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.

And since March, she has been a professor of practice at ��AV’s Schar School of Policy and Government as an academic participating in the New School’s New University in Exile Consortium, made up of a global group of colleges dedicated to supporting scholars facing threats at home that force them to leave or prevent them from performing meaningful work. George Mason is one of 12 in the United States participating in the program.

In her case, Khutor’s research and teaching was interrupted by Russian missile attacks.

“You cannot work in such conditions,” she said. It’s not just the danger, she said, but “you want to do everything you can to help [the war effort]. To volunteer, to help Ukrainian forces. So, thinking about science and research, for scholars, it is impossible to work in such a condition.”

As a professor of practice at the Schar School, Tetiana Khutor hopes to build support for her work in Washington, D.C.

The war has inspired Khutor to change the focus of her studies in an effort to help rebuild the country. At George Mason, she is lecturing on “the instruments of confiscation” in seized Russian assets—billions of dollars that could be used to defend and reconstruct Ukraine.

Things are happening rapidly for her. In just her first few weeks at the Schar School, she was an invited panelist at the Ukraine Action Summit on Capitol Hill, where she addressed the need for the adoption of the Rebuilding Economic Prosperity and Opportunity for Ukrainians Act (aka the REPO Act) and the confiscation of Russian assets. The summit gathered more than 500 delegates from 47 states and convened some 350 meetings with elected officials to advocate for Ukraine. The bill was adopted.

She also served as a guest speaker in a panel discussion at the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. She cowrote an op-ed in the widely read Washington media outlet, the Hill, about paying for Ukraine’s reconstruction. The piece was coauthored by Schar School postdoctoral researcher and European Union Marie Curie fellow Maurizio Geri.

Khutor came to the Schar School through the scholar in exile program at the behest of Distinguished University Professor Janine Wedel, a renowned expert on corruption in post-Soviet Russia and Central and Eastern Europe. Wedel said she admires Khutor’s “courage and sheer chutzpah in analyzing what’s happening and taking appropriate action. She’s very impressive.”

Khutor is the third Scholar in Exile to come to the Schar School in five years and the second at the invitation of Wedel. Other scholars previously hosted by the Schar School include Ararat Osipian and Anton Liagusha.

“I’m not interested in inviting someone who is just looking for a place to land” away from danger at home, Wedel said. “I’m looking for somebody who is truly accomplished and committed to the country, and Tetiana is a top-notch academic and practitioner. And she’s someone who can really contribute to the Schar School and what we’re trying to do.”

Wedel said Khutor can, given George Mason’s proximity and access to Washington, successfully work for her country while maintaining her nongovernment organization at home. “She has staff in place for that,” she said.

“She’s fighting like hell for Ukraine. The networking and groundwork that’s been laid for her here will make her efforts more effective when she goes back to Ukraine,” Wedel added. “She’ll go back with a wealth of new contacts and knowledge about how things operate here.”

Meanwhile, Khutor’s husband remains in Ukraine, contributing to the war effort by developing and producing drones for the Ukranian army.

“It’s hard to find any Ukrainian who is not involved in this fight,” she said.