We are thrilled to share some exciting news about one of our outstanding alumni. Zabdi, a first-year Ph.D. student in Political Science at UCLA, has received an Honorable Mention in the highly competitive 2025 NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP)! 🎉

This recognition speaks to the importance and promise of Zabdi’s research, which centers on environmental and distributive politics. His work explores how access to essential utilities—such as water, electricity, and sanitation—and the quality of service provision influence political participation among marginalized communities.

Zabdi’s research spans Latin America and the Middle East, with a particular focus on how resource extraction and infrastructure access shape people’s relationships with local political institutions. His commitment to examining these critical issues across global contexts is both timely and deeply impactful.

Please join me us congratulating Zabdi on this well-deserved honor. We’re incredibly proud to see our alumni doing such meaningful and influential work in the world. I can’t wait to see where his research takes him next.