Meet the Spring 2019 Writing Fellows Program Virtual Class

This month, AF is kicking off the spring 2019 term of the Writing Fellows Program. With a total of 35 students, it’s our biggest class to date! Below, meet the 20 fellows who will make up the virtual section of this spring’s class.

Julian Adorney
Julian Adorney is a Young Voices contributor. He has written for National Review, Arc Digital, The Federalist, and Playboy. He blogs at The Empathetic Libertarian.

 

 

Ibrahim Anoba
Ibrahim Anoba is an analyst in African political economy and researcher in Africa’s liberal philosophy. He is managing editor at African Liberty where he is also in charge of academic programs.

Ibrahim has extensively written on Africa’s trade policies and local economic development. He is from Lagos, Nigeria and lives in Maryland.

 

Lindsay Atkinson
Lindsay Atkinson is a policy analyst for the Idaho Freedom Foundation (IFF). She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in international studies in May 2018 after a whirlwind semester abroad in Granada, Spain.

Before working with IFF, she participated in the Summer 2018 Koch Internship Program where she received training on the principles of a free and open society. Lindsay seeks to increase government accountability and informed voter decision-making.

 

Kristiana Bolzman
Kristiana Bolzman is a Catalyst Policy Fellow with the Independent Institute, a think tank in the San Francisco Bay Area, and a Young Voices contributor. She studied politics and journalism at Hillsdale College, graduated from The Heritage Foundation’s Young Leaders program, was accepted as a 2018 Generation Liberty Fellow at the State Policy Network, and has served at Fox News and on Capitol Hill. Her research and writing focuses on education reform and the preservation of civil liberties.

 

Marissa Gentry
Marissa Gentry is a proud activist and a freelancer of 6 years hailing from Indianapolis, Indiana. She currently resides in Bloomington, Indiana, with her partner and children and is focused on experiences that will help her grow her career as a journalist and research professional. She got her start early on in debate and speech groups and led multiple conservative student organizations and grassroots projects in college. Her work has previously been featured on Fox News, the Drudge Report, and Campus Reform.

 

Vance Ginn
Vance Ginn, Ph.D., is the director of the Center for Economic Prosperity and senior economist at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, one of the nation’s premier free market think tanks.

Dr. Ginn is a leading free market economist and former university lecturer who was honored with the “Champion of Freedom” award from Grassroots America—We The People. He is passionate about securing freedom so people prosper in Texas and beyond. This includes conducting sound research on the benefits of relieving people from excessive government spending, taxes, and regulations.

He is a first generation college graduate, and earned his doctorate in economics from Texas Tech University. He gives keynote speeches, appears in major media outlets, publishes papers in top-ranked academic journals, conducts policy research on critical issues, and works to turn papers into policy.

 

Pat Hall
Pat Hall graduated from The College of New Jersey in May 2018. He founded The College’s Young Americans for Freedom chapter during his junior year and served as chairman until he graduated. He worked as a communications intern for the executive director of the Committee to Unleash Prosperity, a supply-side economic advocacy group, during his senior year before moving to Santa Fe, New Mexico to serve as the director of boards and commissions for Governor Susana Martinez.

 

Anthony Hennen
Anthony Hennen is the editor/writer at the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal in Raleigh, North Carolina, and co-founder of Expatalachians, an Appalachian-focused journalism project. He earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Ohio University and a master’s degree in politics/philosophy/economics from the Cevro Institute in Prague, Czech Republic.

 

Abby Hoyt
Abby is an education policy research assistant at the Show-Me Institute, a state-level think tank for Missouri. Her work focuses on advancing free-market educational options for students in the state. Previously, Abby interned at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy researching education policy for the state of Michigan. She earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from Azusa Pacific University in California and is originally from the Minneapolis area.

 

Savannah Lindquist
Savannah currently serves as the communications and outreach coordinator for the Ladies of Liberty Alliance. She is the recipient of the 2017 Bettina Greaves Distinguished Ambassador Award from the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE) and a member of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education’s (FIRE) Prometheus Society. As a passionate gun rights activist, she has been featured on CNN, NRA TV, and Townhall, among others.

 

Hunter Lovell
Hunter Lovell is a senior at Louisiana State University studying political communication with minors in political science and business. He was a 2018 National Journalism Center fellow and interned for the Washington Free Beacon where he wrote more than 30 stories on various issues including foreign policy, healthcare, and labor. Hunter has worked as a sports anchor, reporter, and producer for LSU’s student-run television station, Tiger TV. He has also written several news stories for the school newspaper, the Daily Reveille. Hunter is a three-time Society of Professional Journalist finalist and received third place for AP Best College Sports Story in 2016. Hunter will cover the 2019 Louisiana gubernatorial election and the Louisiana Legislative Regular Session for LSU’s Manship School News Service.

 

Tom Romeo
Tom has a bachelor’s degree in psychology and an MPH from the University of Arizona. Being a free-market minded individual, he completed the Ronald Reagan Fellows program at the Goldwater Institute in Spring of 2018. He currently serves as a policy analyst for the Goldwater Institute and is participating in the KAP program through the Charles Koch Institute. As a policy analyst he compiles data and research pertaining to a diverse set of initiatives, from short-term rentals to the opioid crisis.

 

Evgenia Sidorova
Evgenia (Jen) Sidorova is a policy analyst with Reason Foundation’s Pension Integrity Project.

Sidorova holds master’s degrees in economics and political science from Stony Brook University.

 

Lindsey Stroud
Lindsey Stroud is a state government relations manager at The Heartland Institute. Her role includes interacting with elected officials and staff, legislation tracking, and research and writing on various issues.

Lindsey’s work includes research on vaping and tobacco policy, and Article V constitutional reform efforts. Lindsey is co-author of “Vaping, E-Cigarettes, and Public Policy Toward Alternatives to Smoking.” Lindsey’s work on vaping and tobacco harm reduction has appeared in papers across the country, and in international media outlets.

Prior to joining The Heartland Institute, Lindsey worked as a legislative assistant to a Minnesota state senator, and as a session staffer for a Virginia state delegate in 2015. In 2012, she interned for a U.S. Congressman in Virginia.

Lindsey graduated magna cum laude from Tidewater Community College with an associate’s degree in social science in 2012. In 2015, Lindsey graduated from the College of William and Mary with a bachelor’s degree in government. While at William and Mary, Lindsey was a staff writer for the Flat Hat News and covered student government.

Lindsey is currently a board member for THR4Life, a 501(c)3 that promotes tobacco harm reduction and has volunteered at numerous organizations.

 

Aaron Tao
Aaron Tao is a product marketer and entrepreneur at Abraxas Technology, a veteran-owned data analytics startup in Austin, Texas. His business articles have been published by Billboard Insider, OOH Today, and the Outdoor Advertising Association of America.

When he isn’t focused on building his startup, he also enjoys writing on civil liberties, economic development, entrepreneurship, and science. His public policy articles have been published by CapX, Intellectual Takeout, Newsweek, Quillette, ValueWalk, The Washington Post, the Foundation for Economic Education, the Ludwig von Mises Institute, and the University of Texas McCombs MSTC blog.

He earned a master’s degree from the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin, and a bachelor’s degree with honors from Case Western Reserve University.

 

Kelvey Vander Hart
Kelvey Vander Hart is the associate editor of Caffeinated Thoughts, a freelance writer, and a fundraiser within the free market movement. She previously clerked in the Iowa State House of Representatives before moving to Missouri and obtaining a bachelor’s degree in social work. While now based in Kansas City, Missouri, Kelvey is a native of Des Moines, Iowa.

 

Josh Waters
Josh Waters is the executive director and attorney for Political Strategies LLC representing the Conduit family of organizations in Arkansas who advocate for limited government and economic freedom. Josh writes news articles, opinion pieces, advocacy pieces, and makes presentations on behalf of Conduit. Josh resides in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

 

Janae Wilkerson
Janae started working for the Idaho Freedom Foundation in late 2017 as the assistant to the president. She eagerly dove into research, development, writing, and communications, and is now IFF’s development communications specialist. Janae transforms policy and legislation into concrete stories to show donors how they advance freedom and make Idaho a better place to live.

Janae graduated with honors from Northwest Nazarene University in 2017, with a degree in English and a minor in philosophy. Janae is a native of Boise, ID, and can often be found at the Farmer’s Market, reading in downtown coffee shops, or singing in a musical. Janae is a member of the International English Honors Society. Her work has been published in academic literature journals, the Idaho Freedom Foundation, and the National Review.

 

Raheem Williams
Raheem Williams is an active economist and policy analyst who works with numerous liberty-based academic research centers and think tanks. He received a bachelor’s degree in economics at Florida International University and a master’s in financial economics from the University of Detroit Mercy. He is the founder of “The Policy,” a forum that promotes public policy dialogue across socio-economic levels.

 

Rebekah Yeagley
Rebekah May Yeagley is in her last semester at Utah State University in Logan, Utah, as an economics major. Rebekah currently works as a research fellow at the Center for Growth and Opportunity. She specializes in conservation issues and recently published a research paper about better engaging private landowners in endangered species conservation. Rebekah also published an opinion piece on the same topic in RealClearPolicy. She plans on pursuing a career in public policy or political journalism. She grew up in Ames, Iowa, where she lived until she served an 18-month mission in Southern Brazil for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.