University of Georgia senior Justin Cohen will continue his studies in political science and international affairs in Washington, D.C., this fall as a James C. Gaither Junior Fellow. The highly competitive program, run through the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, offers one-year fellowships in D.C. to students seriously interested in pursuing careers in international affairs.
Cohen is one of 18 graduating seniors and recent graduates to be awarded the Gaither Junior Fellowship, and UGA is one of only three public institutions represented among this year’s recipients. Fellows were selected from a pool of applicants nominated by several hundred participating universities and colleges.
Cohen is UGA’s fifth Gaither Junior Fellow, and the first since 2016.
“We are so pleased that someone as passionate as Justin is the first UGA recipient of the Gaither Junior Fellowship in a decade,” said Meg Amstutz, dean of the Jere W. Morehead Honors College. “Justin is invested in politics and international affairs, and he is well-deserving of this award.”
An Honors student from Marietta, Cohen is majoring in political science and international affairs in the School of Public and International Affairs. He is also earning a minor in Jewish studies and a certificate in applied politics. He plans to dedicate his career to exploring and improving how institutional structure and design are shaping the changing nature of governance.
“I’m honored to be joining the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace as a Gaither Junior Fellow. The Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program is doing important work, and I’m eager to contribute,” he said.
Cohen has worked with a variety of governmental offices at the national level, drafting legislation introduced into Congress, briefing U.S. Cabinet officials on appropriations negotiations and preparing U.S. Department of State leadership for oversight hearings.
“I entered politics through campaigns as a teenager and have since worked across
legislative offices, executive agencies and policy organizations,” he said. “These roles provided a close view of how institutional design shapes outcomes in practice.”
Cohen is currently a state capacity initiative intern with the Niskanen Center, a think tank based in D.C. that works to advance U.S. public policy. He was a judiciary fellow in summer 2025 and, through the Honors in Washington Internship Program, a legislative intern in summer 2024 for U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff; a congressional analysis intern with the Department of State Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration; a legislative fellow for Georgia Rep. Spencer Frye; and a strategic planning and communications intern with the White House Office of Management and Budget.
He was a U.S. delegate for the Republic of Korea National Assembly Exchange Program in 2025.
Along with his legislative roles, Cohen conducted research with several UGA faculty members and presented his work at the annual CURO Symposium in 2023 and 2024.
With Jewish studies faculty, he translated and analyzed historically significant Yiddish and Hebrew postcards recovered from Holocaust victims in World War II-era Eastern Europe. As a Security Leadership Program Fellow with UGA’s Benson-Bertsch Center for International Trade and Security, he worked with program director Maryann Gallagher, researching congressional delegation behavior and legislative agenda-setting using a dataset of over 1,000 bills. He also examined legislative debates, historical context and procedural details of major congressional acts with associate professor Anthony Madonna.
On campus, Cohen has served in the UGA Student Government Association as a supreme court associate justice and as a liaison to the Athens-Clarke County government. Within Honors, he worked as an Honors teaching assistant, mentoring 15 first-year students in building their professional skills. Cohen has held additional roles as executive secretary of the Epsilon Lambda chapter of the Phi Mu Alpha Music Fraternity, a trombonist in the Redcoat Marching Band and an ambassador for UGA’s Arch Society and School of Public and International Affairs.
UGA’s Major Scholarships Office, housed in the Morehead Honors College, provides students across campus with assistance as they apply for national, high-level scholarships. For more information, contact Jessica Hunt at jhunt@uga.edu or visit https://honors.uga.edu/scholarships/external-scholarships/.