2022 Lincoln Fellows
Kayvon Afshari is a producer for Fox Nation, where he produces long-form documentaries. He has documented the rise of cancel culture over two seasons of the series Canceled in the USA. He produced The Attempted Assassination of Ronald Reagan and a documentary about the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. He has worked at Fox News Channel (The Ingraham Angle, The Next Revolution with Steve Hilton), the CBS News Foreign Desk, and VICE on HBO. He holds a B.A. in political science from McGill University and an M.A. in international relations from NYU.
Kayvon Afshari is the Dr. Mark Carlson, M.D. Lincoln Fellow for 2022
Megan Basham is a culture reporter for The Daily Wire and Morning Wire podcast, where she reports on art, entertainment, and religion. Her work has also appeared in such outlets as The Wall Street Journal, National Review, Focus on the Family, The American Spectator, and Townhall. She is also a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic, and has interviewed a number of celebrities, including Mel Gibson, Reese Witherspoon, Joaquin Phoenix, Sandra Bullock, and Adam Sandler. For 13 years, she wrote for WORLD magazine, where she rose from freelance film critic to entertainment editor and co-host of its flagship daily news podcast, The World and Everything in It. She is a recipient of the Robert Novak Journalism fellowship and has appeared as a commentator on FOX News, MSNBC, BBC, CBN, The Today Show, Newsmax, and NewsNation, as well as numerous regional TV and radio news broadcasts. Her 2008 book, Beside Every Successful Man, was published by Penguin/Random House.
Megan Basham is the Dr. Ronald Gabriel, M.D. Lincoln Fellow for 2022
Daniel Bieber is a Special Tactics Officer with Air Force Special Operations Command. He is a graduate of the United States Air Force Academy and Hillsdale College Van Andel Graduate School of Statesmanship, where he studied Western politics and philosophy. He graduated the Special Tactics training pipeline in 2019 and has since been assigned to the 26th Special Tactics Squadron at Cannon Air Force Base, New Mexico. He currently serves as a Flight Commander to lead, train, and equip Special Tactics Airmen to conduct air to ground integration in support of special operations missions across the globe. As a member of Special Tactics, he has conducted multiple deployments to the Middle East under Operation Inherent Resolve. He is a native of Cherokee, Iowa, and currently lives in New Mexico with his dog, Sam.
Daniel Bieber is the Adam Pruzan Lincoln Fellow for 2022
Clint Brown is the Executive Director of the United States Senate Steering Committee, which is a group of Senators, chaired by Senator Mike Lee of Utah, who work together to push for conservative outcomes. Prior to that, Clint served as the Legal Policy Director at the Pacific Legal Foundation. In that role, he helped establish a policy and government affairs practice within the law firm. Clint has also served as a counsel to the Senate Budget Committee. He started his career on Capitol Hill working for Senator Jeff Sessions on the Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Bankruptcy and the Courts before moving to Senator Sessions’ personal staff.
Clint Brown is the Gary and Lisa Lainer Lincoln Fellow for 2022
Richard Caster is a husband, father, entrepreneur, and a leader in the conservative movement of Arkansas. He currently has a notable career as a financial advisor with Edward Jones. Richard’s journey into politics began in 2009 when he founded the Ozark Tea Party. From there, he became the youngest elected official in Arkansas history when he secured a seat on the Baxter County Quorum Court in 2010. Later that year, Richard gave the keynote address to the Republican Party of Arkansas State Convention. Richard graduated from Hillsdale College in 2016 with a BA in Political Economy. He then returned to Arkansas where he was promptly elected Chairman of his local Republican Party and named to the Arkansas Business “20 in their 20s” list. Richard additionally hosted a conservative talk radio program from 2010 to 2018, interviewing some of the Nation’s brightest conservative minds. He now serves as First Vice Chair of the First District Republican Party of Arkansas–a position in which he most recently led a national effort to secure the signatures of 321 pro-life state legislators from 35 different states for an amicus brief in the Supreme Court case Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health. Richard plans to take on larger roles within the Party to advance the conservative cause in Arkansas and beyond.
Richard Caster is the Richard and Jacqueline Lombardi Lincoln Fellow for 2022
Alvino-Mario Fantini is the Editor-in-Chief of The European Conservative. He is also founder and managing director of the European Documentation and Information Centre, a think-tank in Vienna, Austria. Mario has worked for Bridge News, The Far Eastern Economic Review, The European Wall Street Journal, and the World Bank. His writings have appeared in several publications, including The American Spectator, The New Criterion, and The American Conservative. He is on the board of the Center for European Renewal, and is a member of the Philadelphia Society, Mont Pelerin Society, and Institut d’Études Politiques in Liechtenstein. He was a recipient of a Robert Novak Journalism Fellowship and is currently a fellow at the Russell Kirk Center and the Abigail Adams Institute. He is a graduate of Dartmouth College.
Alvino-Mario Fantini is the Davy Rosenzweig and Daniel Bardavid Lincoln Fellow for 2022
Hugh Fike currently serves as Chief of Staff for Congressman Michael Cloud of Texas’ 27th Congressional District. He served as Deputy to the Associate Director of Legislative Affairs at the Office of Management and Budget during the Trump Administration where he led the drafting and communicating of Statements of Administration Policy and led the rollout of the President’s Budget to the U.S. House of Representatives. He has also served in policy roles for Representatives Raul Labrador (R-ID) and Dave Brat (R-VA). He is a graduate of the James Madison Fellows Program at Hillsdale College and received his Masters in Public Policy and undergraduate degrees from George Mason University.
Jon Gabriel is the Editor-in-Chief of Ricochet.com, host of Ricochet’s “King of Stuff” and “The Nightcap” podcasts, and an opinion contributor to the Arizona Republic. His work has been published in the Wall Street Journal, New York Post, National Review, Washington Examiner, and USA Today, among other outlets. Jon is a summa cum laude graduate of Arizona State University’s Cronkite School of Journalism and is a former submarine reactor operator for the US Navy.
Stephen N. Limbaugh III has ventured a career in the performing arts as a concert pianist and composer. Limbaugh’s compositions have been recorded by the Russian Philharmonic Orchestra and Valentina Lisitsa. His debut album, Pants, was the top-selling album of contemporary concert music on the Billboard Classical charts in 2014. As a solo pianist, his engagements include the Golden Globes, the Emmys, the White House, and the Nashville Scoring Orchestra. Limbaugh parlayed his success as a performer and composer into writing the musical scores for conservative films made by Dinesh D’Souza, Mike Cernovich, PragerU, and Amanda Milius. Stephen is the son of federal judge Stephen N. Limbaugh Jr. of the 8th Circuit Eastern District, and is a cousin of the late talk radio king Rush Limbaugh.
Ara Lovitt is a Managing Director and member of the investment committee at Silver Point Capital, an investment firm with approximately $16 billion in assets under management. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College and a J.D. from Stanford Law school.
Ara Lovitt is the James Carr Lincoln Fellow for 2022
Micah Meadowcroft is the managing editor of The American Conservative and a co-host of the magazine’s podcast, TAC Right Now. In addition to TAC, his essays, columns, and criticism have appeared in publications such as the New Atlantis, the Wall Street Journal, and American Affairs. He is also a 2021-22 Robert Novak journalism fellow for the Fund for American Studies, reporting on the revival of classical education. Before joining TAC, Micah served as White House Liaison at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under President Donald Trump and assisted in speechwriting there. He holds an M.A. in social science from the University of Chicago, where he wrote on political theory with a focus on technology and political theology. Previously, he worked as associate editor of the Washington Free Beacon. His B.A. is in history from Hillsdale College and he hails from the Pacific Northwest.
Amanda Milius directed and produced the most watched documentary of 2020, and one of the top political documentaries of all time, The Plot Against the President, considered the de-facto debunking of the RussiaGate hoax, based on Lee Smith’s book of the same title. She worked in the Trump administration at both the White House and State Department, as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Content. Prior to working in politics, Amanda worked extensively in and around the film industry in Los Angeles. Her parents are both industry veterans—her father is one of the most highly regarded writer/directors in Hollywood, John Milius (Apocalypse Now, Dirty Harry, Red Dawn, Conan The Barbarian), and her mother is actress Celia Kaye. She is the founder of AMDC Films, a documentary & feature film entertainment company. She holds a master’s degree in production from the University of Southern of California School of Cinematic Arts.
Amanda Milius is the Jack Roth Charitable Foundation Lincoln Fellow for 2022
Joshua Steinman is a former military officer turned Silicon Valley entrepreneur. In between stints at venture-backed startups, he spent four years as the Senior Director for Cyber Policy on the National Security Council, where he coordinated all cyber, telecommunications, cryptocurrency, and supply chain policy for the United States Government. Many years ago, as an undergraduate student of Joseph Cropsey and John Mearsheimer, he considered joining the Academy, but instead chose the profession of arms. He is now the co-founder of @GalvanickCo, an industrial control systems cybersecurity company. You can find him at @JoshuaSteinman on Twitter and blogging at steinman.substack.com.
Mary Vought is the President and Founder of Vought Strategies, a Washington, DC-based PR firm, and the Executive Director of the Senate Conservatives Fund. She worked in the U.S. Senate and U.S. House for several conservative leaders. Mary’s work—which has focused on the areas of healthcare policy, government oversight, and disability advocacy—has been published in The Washington Post, USA Today, Fox News, Newsweek, and The Wall Street Journal. She proudly serves as a Presidential Appointee on the National Council of Disability. She is the only female council member and advocates for those in the disability community, including her youngest daughter, who has cystic fibrosis. Mary is also an Independent Women’s Forum fellow.
Mary Vought is the Michael Burstein Lincoln Fellow for 2022
