2025 Edition
Academia Tocqueville 2025 Students
Marjorie Baker
Marjorie Baker was born and raised in Northern Virginia. She attended the University of Virginia and studied Foreign Affairs and Slavic Studies. She taught English in Ukraine and Poland and currently works in defense contracting as an Analyst at Deltek.
Hannah Falvey
Hannah Falvey is a recent graduate of Arizona State University with dual degrees in Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership (SCETL) and economics and minors in philosophy and political Science. She researches how moral frameworks shape civic culture and economic systems. Her work with the Fund for American Studies and as a junior fellow with the School of Politics and Global Studies have provided opportunities to apply philosophical insights to contemporary governance challenges.
Hadar Hazony
Hadar Hazony is an Israeli-born doctoral candidate in political theory
and constitutional studies at the University of Notre Dame. He
received his B. Ed. In Bible and History from Herzog College. He is
completing a dissertation on Nietzsche and Hegel's conceptions of
power.
Rianna Ramsey
Rianna Ramsey is a May 2025 honors graduate from Arizona State
University’s School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership
where she studied economics, the great books, ballroom dance, and
leadership. She is also a part-time classical Latin tutor, served as a
student leader in a theology club and community service team, and is
attending law school this fall.
Michael Turchetti
Michael Turchetti is a senior director of public policy at Eli Lilly and an
MA candidate at Hillsdale College's Van Andel Graduate School of
Government in Washington, DC. Michael's work and study focuses on
the impact of public policy on society, and how statesmanship, politics,
and culture influence policy development. Born and raised in Newport,
RI, Michael moved to Washington, DC for college at American
University and now lives in Manassas, VA with his wife, Natalie, and
their two young children.
Grace Benz
Grace Benz is from Ann Arbor, MI where she was born and raised with seven other siblings. She is pursuing an MA in political theory at Boston College with a particular interest in the intersection between religion and politics (especially in the modern era) as well the way modern epistemology has informed our current political moment.
Yiyang Fang
Yiyang Fang is a recent graduate of the double degree program
between Sciences Po and the National University of Singapore,
majoring in political science. He is interested in political and legal
theory, constitutional studies and comparative politics. He is an
incoming MA candidate in Political Science at the National University of
Singapore.
John Hennenfent
John Hennenfent attended graduate school at Georgetown and
Sciences Po, worked five years in politics in his native Canada, and for
the last four years has practiced law in Vienna at an international firm.
He is completing a book on European politics. His interests lie in the
political tradition of Christian democracy and Catholic Social Teaching,
including their relation to international politics.
Jaden Stewart
Jaden Stewart is a rising senior at Princeton University, where he
majors in politics with minors in history and the history and practice of
diplomacy. At Princeton, he served as the Chairman of the Cliosophic
Society, the oldest conservative debating society in the nation, and as
the secretary of the Princeton Christian Fellowship. Jaden has interned
with Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Congressman Byron Donalds, and the
United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. He hails from Los
Angeles, California.
Edward Wenger
Edward Wenger has practiced law in a number of different
jurisdictions throughout the United States since receiving his J.D. from
Vanderbilt in 2009. He has clerked on two U.S. Courts of Appeals (the
Fifth Circuit and the D.C. Circuit), and he also served as general
counsel to the West Virginia Attorney General and as Florida’s Chief
Deputy Solicitor General. From 2022-25, Edward completed a Masters
Degree at Hillsdale College’s Van Andel School of Government in
Washington, DC.
Jack Carlson
Jack Carlson is a PhD student in Government at the University of Texas at Austin. His research focuses on the political philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, with additional interests in the thought of Saint Augustine and themes such as compassion. He received his BA
from the James Madison College at Michigan State University.
Bridget Groff Haskett
Bridget Groff Haskett is a PhD candidate and teaching fellow in
philosophy at the Catholic University of America. Her research
interests include modern philosophy and aesthetics, especially 18th
century French philosophy. She is currently writing her dissertation on
Rousseau, focusing on the role of taste and aesthetic judgement in
Rousseau's account of education and the cultivation of civic virtue.
Samuel Knut
Samuel Knut holds a bachelor's degree in Politics & Government from
Sciences Po Paris with a major in comparative constitutional law. His
interests include legal philosophy, political economy, and Catholic
Social Thought, in particular Catholic responses to Marxism. From
2024-25, he completed a one-year liberal arts program in Slovakia
focused on New Natural Law Theory, and is now an MA candidate at
Sciences Po-Paris.
Charles Stalzer
Charles Stalzer is a former U.S. Air Force officer and pilot and a
current PhD student at the University of Notre Dame in constitutional
studies. Prior to arriving at Notre Dame, he attended Hillsdale
College's Graduate School of Statesmanship.
Kristen Ziccarelli
Kristen Ziccarelli grew up in Germany, Slovenia, Boston, Chicago, and
Virginia. Having attended Christopher Newport University and received
an MS from the University of Edinburgh, she serves as the Director of
Global Coalitions & Senior Policy Analyst, Center for Homeland
Security and Immigration at America First Policy Institute. She
previously served in the U.S. Embassy in Berlin, Germany and currently
resides in Washington D.C.
