Center Team

Eitan Hersh is a Professor in the Department of Political Science and the inaugural Director of the Center for Expanding Viewpoints in Higher Education (CEVIHE) at Tufts University. Hersh’s research focuses on U.S. elections and civic participation. Hersh is the author of Politics is for Power (Scribner, 2020), Hacking the Electorate (Cambridge University Press, 2015), as well as scholarly articles. Hersh earned his PhD from Harvard University in 2011 and served as Assistant Professor of Political Science at Yale University from 2011 to 2017. His public writings have appeared in publications such as the New York Times, USA Today, The Atlantic, POLITICO, and the Boston Globe. Hersh regularly testifies in voting rights court cases and has appeared before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary regarding the role of data analytics in political campaigns. He teaches courses on elections, American conservatism, and technology and politics.

Arik Burakovsky serves as Associate Director of CEVIHE. He oversees the Center’s operations and communications and supports its strategy and partnerships to advance constructive engagement across differences in higher education. He previously served as Associate Director of the Russia and Eurasia Program and the Hitachi Center for Technology and International Affairs at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. His research interests include Russian foreign policy and political economy, soft power, public diplomacy, and international relations forecasting. Before completing his MA in Law and Diplomacy from The Fletcher School, Arik interned in the Public Affairs Section at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. He studied the Polish language and culture as a Boren Fellow at the University of Warsaw in Poland. He was also a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant in Omsk, Russia, and served twice as Resident Director of the ROTC Project GO intensive summer Russian-language program in Narva, Estonia. He has written for The Conversation, TIME, The National Interest, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, and other online and print publications. Arik received his BA in Political Science and International Relations from the University of California, San Diego.

Shani Agarwal Hood serves as Program Manager for CEVIHE, overseeing student engagement and programs. She mentors the Center’s student leadership ecosystem and directs the Edge Fellowship for first-year undergraduates. She also works closely with Hersh and Burakovsky to coordinate the Center’s programming, communications, and curricular innovation. Previously, Shani served as Program Director of the Harvard Catholic Forum and has held both graduate student and professional fellowships with the Abigail Adams Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She has also worked in the fields of Catholic elementary education and Classical architecture & urban planning. She received her AB in Classics from Bowdoin College and completed her Master of Theological Studies at Harvard University, with an interdisciplinary focus on medieval religion, history, and art. At Harvard, she was also a Teaching Fellow in the Department of History of Art and Architecture. Her research interests include ancient and medieval religion, art history, political philosophy, classical languages, and film studies.

Nicholas Rishi serves as Administrative Coordinator for CEVIHE, overseeing financial processes, office management, scheduling, event logistics, and coordination across the university. He also supports programs such as the Postdoctoral Fellowship in Expanding Viewpoints and the Edge Fellowship for first-year undergraduates. He graduated from Tufts University in 2026 with a BA in International Relations and a minor in Russian and East European Studies. He was involved in the Center’s inaugural year as an undergraduate student research assistant and a member of the Student Advisory Board. As a student, he was part of several student organizations, including the Tufts Federalist Society, CIVIC, and The Tufts Tribune. He is interested in international relations, short fiction and poetry writing, and Russian literature.