Former UK Prime Minister Theresa May to join Jackson School in the spring
Theresa May, the U.K. Prime Minister from 2016 to 2019, has been named inaugural senior fellow of the Jackson School’s Blue Center for Global Strategic Assessment.
Giri Viswanathan, Senior Photographer
Former U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May is set to join the Jackson School’s Blue Center for Global Strategic Assessment in the spring as a senior fellow.
May served as prime minister of the United Kingdom from 2016 to 2019 and was the second female prime minister of the U.K. She was most known for her efforts to negotiate the terms of “Brexit,” the U.K.’s withdrawal from the European Union and her vision of “one nation” conservatism. May resigned as prime minister in 2019.
“We’re excited that Theresa May, former prime minister of the United Kingdom, will join the center in the spring as our inaugural Blue Senior Fellow,” said Phil Kaplan ’12 LAW ’20, the center’s executive director.
The Blue Center, launched on Aug. 8, aims “to research and teach the art of statecraft and global strategy.” Founded upon a gift from Neal Blue — CEO of General Atomics — the Blue Center will adopt an issue-centric focus, studying national defense, diplomacy, intelligence and international economic relations.
According to the Jackson School website, the Senior Fellow program will “bring emerging leaders on issues of peace and conflict to Yale for an intensive period of research, mentoring, and training.”
Kaplan told the News that the center is especially interested in cross-disciplinary scholarship. He stated that one of the main philosophies of the center will be to maintain a focus on scholarship applicable to real-life international relations.
“We’ll engage in a wide variety of programming each year,” Kaplan said. “This fall, we are planning to host the prime minister of Kosovo for a lecture on the economic and diplomatic developments his country has undergone since its independence. In a few weeks, the Center is also planning to host a delegation from the African Union’s Peace and Security Council for a conference examining the last 20 years of the organization’s peacebuilding and security work.”
In fall 2021, the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs became the home of International Security Studies, a Yale program about international security. With the launch of the center, ISS will be discontinued, although programs previously hosted under ISS will be continued under the Blue Center. While maintaining a broader focus than ISS, the Blue Center will continue supporting ISS’s international history-based research and introduce initiatives in data science, political science and economics.
The Blue Center’s board of faculty directors, drawn from the Jackson School professors with joint appointments from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, will comprise Lorenzo Caliendo, professor of economics, management and global affairs; David Engerman, professor of history and global affairs; and Jennifer Gandhi, professor of political science and global affairs.
As executive director, Kaplan drew from his experience in the U.S. Department of Treasury, working closely on the sanctions on Russia in the aftermath of the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
According to Jim Levinsohn, dean of the Jackson School, the Blue Center will retain a rigorous quantitative backbone, remaining in sync with developments in AI.
“The Blue Center will provide resources to bring in new faculty, senior fellows, and will help us recruit some of the best graduate students to Jackson,” said Levinsohn. “The center will also fund research and teaching initiatives proposed by faculty. I expect that new courses will be developed with Blue Center funding. One example is a new course planned for this spring on how to use AI tools to combat human trafficking.”
The Jackson School of Global Affairs was established in 2022.
Alyssa Jhingree contributed reporting.