America in the World Consortium (AWC) Predoctoral Fellowship The University of Florida

America in the World Consortium Predoctoral Fellowship

The America in the World Consortium (AWC) is an initiative established in 2018 by a group of scholar-practitioners, including William Inboden, Paul Edgar, Peter Feaver, and Hal Brands from the University of Texas at Austin, Duke University, Johns Hopkins University, and later expanding to the University of Florida. The AWC was founded on the goal of cultivating the next generation of scholars and practitioners equipped to confront the geopolitical challenges of the twenty-first century. Through fostering a vibrant intellectual community, the AWC seeks to bridge the gap between academic scholarship and public policy, encouraging research that deepens understanding of American national interests and global leadership. Its mission rests on several core pillars: promoting original and policy-relevant research in history, political science, and law; cultivating respect for intellectual diversity in the study of US foreign relations and global affairs; and supporting emerging scholars in developing the tools necessary to contribute meaningfully to public debates on America’s role in the world. Each of the four AWC-affiliated institutions hosts post- and pre-doctoral fellows.

At the University of Florida, the AWC is hosted by the Hamilton School for Classic and Civic Education, an academic center devoted to the study of Western civilization, the American political tradition, and the principles of a free society. I found the Hamilton School to be an incredibly rich intellectual environment. The School’s focus on the roots of the Western republican tradition, democracy, and constitutionalism was greatly inspiring to my own work on Vietnamese republicanism. Moreover, the AWC Fellows worked closely alongside the War, Strategy, and Statecraft (WSS) faculty, who oversee one of the four undergraduate majors offered by the Hamilton School. These faculty members, namely, Charlie Laderman, Patrick Hulme, Barnaby Crowcroft, and Walter Russell Mead, worked closely with the AWC fellows.

My predoctoral fellowship with the America in the World Consortium at the Hamilton School essentially served as a dissertation writing fellowship. My primary responsibility was to complete my dissertation, “Cold War Citadel: Huế & The Global Vietnamese Civil War, 1945-1975.” I successfully defended the dissertation on 1 May 2026. During the predoctoral fellowship, I worked closely with the AWC principal at the Hamilton School, Charlie Laderman.

One of the most rewarding experiences in the fellowship year was presenting my work in a “Hamilton Presents” talk. In February 2026, I presented a chapter of my dissertation to the Hamilton School faculty. The historian, former diplomat, and sinologist, Jason Kelly, graciously served as a commentator for the paper. Jason and the Hamilton faculty provided constructive feedback on my work and encouraged me to publish it in an academic journal.

One of the major events of the AWC program was our fall summit in October 2025. The AWC fellows traveled to Washington, D.C., for the AWC summit hosted by our colleagues at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). While in D.C., the AWC fellows met with Hal Brands and Francis Gavin of SAIS, and Kori Schake and Paul Lettow of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI).

In March 2026, the AWC program hosted its annual Young Scholars Conference at the University of Texas at Austin. The theme was “America’s Nuclear Crossroads: Deterrence, Diplomacy and Disarmament in the 21st Century.” My conference paper examined how the leaders of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam interpreted American nuclear posture during the 1950s and early 1960s. While in Austin, the AWC program also hosted professional development workshops on job talks, cover letters, and CVs, equipping the fellows with practical tools to navigate the ever-competitive academic job market.