SFU alumna wins Fulbright Fellowship

Simon Fraser University PhD alumna and former instructor Nancy Teeple is heading to Vermont in January to take up the Fulbright Canada Research Chair in Peace and War Studies at Norwich University.

Teeple won the Chair due to her experience in Arctic security research, and her proposed project on U.S. Arctic policy and its implications for Canada.

Specifically, she says, her research will focus on “the extent to which Canadian priorities are considered when Americans are formulating their Arctic security and defence policies, and the impact this has on Canadian Arctic policy.”    

The project involves completing two major research papers—a literature review and a paper that examines policy and highlights areas for enhancing positive bilateral relations between the U.S. and Canada.

Teeple says the paper will seek to provide recommendations based on what she has learned about how effectively Canada’s Arctic priorities have been incorporated in current decision-making processes. She will also explore how the process might require Canada to make concessions to encourage better Arctic cooperation.   

Teeple graduated from SFU in June 2018 with a doctorate in political science, and also received the Dean’s Convocation Medal. Her doctoral research concentrated on the feasibility of creating a nuclear arms control regime in the Arctic in the context of the U.S.-Russia strategic arms competition.

Teeple is an adjunct assistant professor and research associate in the Department of Political Science at the Royal Military College of Canada where she is exploring issues surrounding nuclear strategy and deterrence. She is particularly interested in how emerging weapon technologies affect strategic stability.

The Fulbright scholarship is named after U.S. senator William Fulbright who introduced a bill in the U.S. Congress in 1945 calling for proceeds from the sales of surplus WWII property to be used to fund the “promotion of international good will through the exchange of students in the fields of education, culture and science.”