Hamilton Lugar School (HLS) graduate Kyle Tucker has been named as a fall 2023 Herbert Scoville Jr. Peace Fellow, placing him in a highly selective program where he will spend a year as a researcher for a think tank or NGO (non-governmental organization) in Washington, D.C. Tucker says he would have become a teacher if it weren’t for an announcement he happened to hear while attending an Indiana University (IU) open house for prospective students.
Tucker completed his BA in International Studies and Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures, with minors in Intelligence Studies, Russian and East European Studies, and World Political Systems in May 2023. However, when he was attending high school in Sellersburg, Indiana, Tucker thought he was going to be a teacher.
Tucker explains, “I was interested in teaching because it seemed related to things I liked such as languages, cultures, history, and politics. So, in looking at colleges, I was exploring teaching programs around Indiana.”
During an open house for prospective IU students, Tucker had his first inkling that there was a career field that could be an even better fit for his interests. He says, “People were getting called out to go to different sessions. One of the things I heard was ‘Global and International Studies.’ I was like, ‘Huh! What is that?’”
Tucker was intrigued, so as soon as he got home, he went online to learn more. He laughs, “I know it sounds ready-made for a pamphlet or something, but I swear it’s true. I scoured the entire School of Global and International Studies website from top to bottom, and I was like, ‘Oh. My. Gosh! This is what I want to do!’”
Until that moment, Tucker hadn’t even thought of global and international studies as a career path. He explains, “Nobody in my family or in my family’s network had ever worked in the government or done anything like that, so I didn’t have any personal influences or inspiration.”
However, Tucker loved learning about the history of the Cold War, nuclear weapons, and issues related to nuclear proliferation. He says, “I learned about the legacy of [Indiana Senator] Richard Lugar when I was still in high school. When I saw that Lugar and Rep. [Lee] Hamilton were connected to the school, that also piqued my interest.”
The next step was convincing his parents that IU was the place for him. Tucker says, “My family thought IU was too big. They wanted me to go somewhere smaller.”
When Tucker came back to campus with his parents and took them to the Global & International Studies Building, things changed. He says, “We did the tour for people interested in International Studies, and my parents were sold.”
Once enrolled at IU, Tucker participated fully in what the school had to offer. As a first-year student, he lived in the HLS Living Learning Center, and became involved in the Russian Flagship program, where he served as a student ambassador. He also participated in the IU Bridges program, volunteering as a Russian Language instructor for local elementary children.
During the 2021-2022 academic year, Tucker participated in a capstone course with Associate Professor of International Studies Emma Gilligan. Tucker says, “I had already chosen nuclear weapons as my thesis topic, but then on February 24, 2022, my topic became a whole lot more relevant when the invasion of Ukraine started, and all the nuclear rhetoric started to increase.”
Tucker had to edit his conclusions after Russia attacked Ukraine. He says, “Unfortunately, my paper was more timely and topical than I would have liked, but it was interesting to study such an important topic live as the situation on the ground developed.”
Tucker’s capstone thesis, The Evolving Nature of Russia’s Nuclear Weapons Doctrine, received the 2021-22 Daniel Armstrong Memorial Research Paper Award for Best Undergraduate Paper during the Robert F. Byrnes Russian and East European Institute’s fall reception in September 2022.
Tucker says the award wouldn’t have been possible without the support of faculty. He credits Professor Gilligan’s teaching, and says, “I am also thankful for the advisor for my senior thesis, Dina Spechler. I took every single one of her classes as well. She’s been a major inspiration to me as I became more interested in Russian and nuclear security issues. I even served as her teaching assistant for one semester.”
Another faculty member who was important to Tucker’s academic journey is Jeff Holdeman, senior lecturer in Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures and Director of Undergraduate Studies. Tucker says, “I only took one of his classes, but it was a big learning experience for me. He continues to serve as a mentor and advisor to me.”
In the summer of 2022, Tucker completed a summer undergraduate nonproliferation fellowship at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. During that program, he conducted research on the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program and received training on issues related to the spread and control of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), including nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, as well as regional security issues in the former Soviet Union, Eurasia, East Asia, South Asia, and the Middle East.
For his capstone year of the Russian Flagship program, Tucker spent the 2022-2023 academic year at Al-Farabi Kazakh National University with the support of a prestigious Boren Scholarship. During the spring semester, he was a project intern at the Nuclear Technology Safety Center in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
Although the pandemic prevented Tucker from studying abroad earlier in his college career, he found his capstone year in Kazakhstan to be very beneficial. Tucker says, “It was a whirlwind of learning what to do, what not to do, how to say things [in Russian].”
Tucker’s IU coursework prepared him for his classes abroad, explaining, “Thanks to my language classes in Russian and Kazakh, I had a firm baseline of language skills to survive in Kazakhstan. I also better understood local history and culture thanks to a Central Asian history class I took.”
However, the experience of living, studying, and working abroad provided experience with daily communication that can’t easily be replicated in a classroom. Tucker says, “I got here [Kazakhstan], and I realized I didn’t know the slang term for cash – paper money. I went to KFC and I tried to order chicken strips and they said something to me, and I’m like ‘What did you just say? Am I speaking the same language?’ That was so difficult at first – the cadence of daily interactions. But I think we’re all adjusted now. There is always something new to learn every day, but I’m not really faced with major surprises anymore.”
During his time in Kazakhstan, Tucker says his patience and flexibility have improved. Overall, gaining a greater appreciation for cultural diversity has been one of the biggest benefits. He says, “When I first got here and things were done differently than I was used to, I would think, ‘Why would they do this?’ Then, over time, I gained more perspective. I understand the logic behind it. Even though I have a different background, a different culture, I can better analyze and comprehend the similarities and differences.”
As graduation neared, Tucker was juggling offers from multiple graduate schools when he received the exciting news that he received the prestigious Herbert Scoville Jr. Peace Fellowship for Fall 2023. The fellowship program recruits and trains the next generation of policy and advocacy leaders on a range of international peace and security issues and was established in 1987 in honor of longtime nuclear arms control activist Dr. Herbert (Pete) Scoville, Jr. Through this program, Tucker will be assigned to an organization in the D.C. area where he will work for a year.
Tucker says, “The process of picking my host organization will take another month or two, but I know I will be working at an NGO related to nuclear policy or peace and security. I am so incredibly excited that this will be my first post-graduate opportunity. I can’t wait to begin!”
While he waits to hear where his Scoville Fellowship will take him, Tucker reflects on his first campus visit when he had not yet heard of global and international studies. He says, “I still can’t believe that an education with such niche programs exists in Indiana of all places. As a native Hoosier, I’m very thankful that I could study in my home state and take advantage of IU’s underappreciated and incredibly valuable international connections. As I learned more about the legacies of Hamilton and Lugar, I became even more inspired to follow in their footsteps and learn everything I can about making the world a safer place.”
Update June 2023: Kyle Tucker will begin his nine-month Scoville Fellowship at the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) in August 2023. He will be working with the NTI’s Nuclear Materials Security (NMS) team, which focuses on increasing nuclear safety and preventing the proliferation of radioactive materials. The team recently published a new edition of the NTI Nuclear Security Index.
The Hamilton Lugar School is well represented in the fall 2023 Scoville Fellowship cohort. Of the four fellows, two are HLS graduates. In addition to Tucker, the group includes Mackenzie Knight, class of 2021, who will complete her Scoville Fellowship at the Federation for American Scientists (FAS) Nuclear Information Project.
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The Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies (HLS) was established in 2015 and is housed within the Indiana University College of Arts and Sciences (COAS). The school is #1 in the U.S. for its number of Area Studies Centers recognized by the U.S. Department of Education Title VI program. Through HLS and COAS, Indiana University is #1 in the country for number of foreign languages taught (80) and number of U.S. Department of Defense Language Flagship Programs (3).