On April 13th Judit Trunkos successfully defended her dissertation titled "Social Trust and Soft Power: The Role of Social Trust in Democratic Countries’ Soft Power Use." Her Committee includes Robert H. Cox (Chair), Tobias Heinrich, Timothy Peterson and András Simonyi (outside member at George Washington University). The project focused on social trust's impact on countries' soft power use. The dissertation also produced a new dataset on countries' soft power use. Dr. Trunkos is currently teaching an honors course on soft power at the University of South Carolina.