To Boldly Go: Disability, Diplomacy, and Star Trek’s Vision of the Future

Ambassador Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley, SAIS '84 (MA), is a nonresident senior fellow at the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative of the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs and at the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. A thirty-year diplomat, Abercrombie-Winstanley served as the Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer for the Department of State and as US ambassador to the Republic of Malta. Through a series of senior positions that included advising the commander of US cyber forces on US foreign-policy priorities, expanding US counterterrorism partners and programs as deputy coordinator for counterterrorism, and coordinating the largest evacuation of US citizens from a war zone since World War II, her professional life has played out almost daily in international media.

Abercrombie-Winstanley, a Cleveland native, has degrees from George Washington University and Johns Hopkins University and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the American Academy of Diplomacy. She has been an active board member and advisor for several organizations committed to excellence in educating and leadership development, including the Middle East Policy Council, the Forum on Education Abroad, College Now of Greater Cleveland, Women of Color Advancing Peace and Security, and the International Career Advancement Association. Abercrombie-Winstanley is a co-founder of the Leadership Council for Women in National Security and has written for the Foreign Service Journal and the New York Times. She is also the co-author of two papers published in the New York Review of Science Fiction.

Dr. Darcie Draudt-Véjares, A&S '21 (PhD),  is a Fellow for Korean Studies in the Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, DC. A political scientist and policy analyst, she publishes regular commentary on South and North Korean domestic politics and foreign policy, Northeast Asian relations, and US-Korea policy. Dr. Draudt-Véjares also holds a non-resident fellowship at the National Bureau of Asian Research. 

Outside of her day job, Draudt-Véjares is deeply interested in science fiction and speculative fiction as media that interrogates our current political and social problems and explores future and alternative approaches to emerging and deep-seated challenges. At JHU she taught an undergraduate course titled 'Understanding Diplomacy through Star Trek,' drawing connections between speculative power structures and real-world international relations.

Dr. Draudt-Véjares holds a PhD in Political Science from the Johns Hopkins University, an MA in Korean Studies from the Yonsei University Graduate School of International Studies, and an AB with Honors in Anthropology from Davidson College