Patricia
Dorsher
University of Minnesota, Humphrey School of
Public Affairs
Patricia Dorsher is a
Master of Public Policy candidate at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey
School of Public Affairs with concentrations in global policy and nonprofit
management. She has a B.A. in Japanese Studies from DePaul University in
Chicago and studied at Kansai Gaidai University in
Osaka for one year as an undergraduate. Upon graduation, Patricia moved
to Nagano Prefecture as a Coordinator for International Relations in the Japan
Exchange and Teacher Programme for four years.
She returned to the United States in 2011, doing direct service social work in
Florida before deciding to pursue further education in her home state of
Minnesota. Patricia’s professional interests are international
development and human rights policies, and she is currently working with Ashoka
on the new Feedback Labs initiative to integrate citizen opinion more
effectively into international development projects. She is very excited and
grateful to have this opportunity to return to Japan.
Cristina Garafola
Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced
International Studies
Cristina Garafola is a
masters candidate at the Johns Hopkins School of
Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and has completed graduate coursework at
the Hopkins-Nanjing Center for Chinese and American Studies. Cristina is
interested in the ramifications of China’s rise for the United States and the
Asia-Pacific region. She recently returned from living in Myanmar (Burma)
during winter 2013, where she studied Burmese intensively and met with
political and economic actors engaged in reform efforts there.
This summer, Cristina will be working in the
U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue Office at the Department of the
Treasury. She has previously worked at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies (CSIS) and in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific
Affairs at the Department of State. She was also a 2010 American delegate for
the Forum for American/Chinese Exchange at Stanford. Cristina is fluent in
Chinese and has a working knowledge of Burmese and German.
Olivier Garaud
Georgetown University, Edmund Walsh School of
Foreign Service
Olivier Garaud is
currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Asian Studies
at Georgetown University’s Edmund Walsh School of Foreign Service. Previously,
he worked for the U.S. Department of Defense at the National Defense
University, where he provided program and administrative support for senior
military officers from over sixty countries. Olivier accompanied the officers
across the United States on their Field Studies Trips, at once improving U.S.
mil-to-mil relations with international partners and allies while at the same
time learning about international security. At Georgetown, he is specializing in
U.S.-Japan-China relations and the issue of historical memory of World War II
in China and Japan. Olivier graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. in East Asian
Studies from New York University (NYU). He has studied abroad in China twice,
once on a Boren Scholarship, and has also studied in Japan.
Lisa Gomi
Harvard University, Kennedy School of
International Studies
Lisa Gomi is currently
a candidate for a Master in Public Policy (MPP) degree
at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, where she is concentrating in
International and Global Affairs. She recently interned at the U.S. Trade
Representative’s Office (USTR), in the Office of Japan, Korea, and APEC Affairs
assisting with issues related to the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement
(TPP). Prior to coming to the Kennedy School, she worked as an economics
reporter for the Washington, D.C. bureau of The Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan’s
largest daily newspaper. There she helped cover U.S. fiscal, financial,
monetary, and trade policy, particularly on topics of interest to Japan, such
as the TPP. She has also interned at the U.S. Consulate in Osaka, Japan, and
has conducted independent research on privatization in Japan. She graduated
from Brown University in 2010 with a B.A., magna cum laude, in both International
Relations and Economics.
Raymond Kaniu
Syracuse University, Maxwell School of
Citizenship and Public Affairs
Raymond B. Kaniu is a
graduate student of International Relations at Maxwell School of Citizenship
and Public Affairs, where he is a Gerald B. & Daphna Cramer International
Studies graduate research assistant at the Moynihan Institute of Global
Affairs. Raymond completed his BSBA double major in Global Business and
Accounting at Suffolk University in Boston last year graduating with honors. He
has previously served as a UN Student Ambassador for UNAGB, a financial
executive intern for Corporate Accountability International, and is currently
volunteering with AmeriCorps, where his contribution to the city of Syracuse
has been recognized by the Mayor of Syracuse for national service. Upon
completing his studies at Maxwell, he will continue at the Hertie
School of Governance in Berlin and at the International Institute of Social
Studies in The Hague. Raymond was born and raised in Kenya, where he has spent
most of his life. He is interested in International Political Economy (IPE) and
policy innovation for development. As a student and citizen of the world, he
hopes that this new opportunity will enhance his understanding of Japan and
facilitate a disciplined approach to Japan’s foreign relations.
Jon Keesecker
University of Michigan,Gerald Ford School of Public Policy
Jon Keesecker is a
Master of Public Policy candidate at the University of Michigan’s Gerald R.
Ford School of Public Policy. His academic interests include environmental
policy, international trade, and economic development in the Asia Pacific.
Previously, Jon worked as a grassroots community organizer, freelance radio
journalist, and clean water advocate with Food & Water Watch in Washington
D.C. Prior to participating in the Japan Travel Program, Jon worked with
Village Capital to cultivate social enterprises in Burma as a Fellow with the
William Davidson Institute. He has traveled widely and before beginning his
graduate studies spent a year backpacking from France to China. Jon holds a
B.A. in Philosophy from Central Michigan University.
Mark Koski
University of Michigan,Gerald Ford School of Public Policy
Mark Koski is a Master of Public Policy Student
at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy who is focused on international
public policy. Over the summer of 2013, he completed an internship with the
International Organization for Migration in the Department of International
Cooperation and Partnerships with a thematic focus on Migration, the
Environment, and Climate Change. Before attending the Ford School, Mark earned
a Bachelor of Arts degree in History with a minor in Portuguese. After
graduation, he aspires to work in the US State Department making international
public policy.
John Speed Meyers
Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson School of
Public Policy
John Speed, a student at the Woodrow Wilson
School, previously worked at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary
Assessments, a defense think-tank. He has also interned at the Department of
Defense in offices focused on defense spending. An International Relations
major while at Tufts University, John Speed studied abroad in China and spent
one college summer in Beijing during the Olympics. At WWS he studies US defense
policy and East Asia in preparation for a career in government. John Speed will be interning at the State Department in the
Office of Chinese and Mongolian Affairs.
Daniel Mingrone
Tufts University, Fletcher School of Law and
Diplomacy at Tufts University
Dan is a master’s candidate at The Fletcher
School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, where he is focusing on
International Security Studies and Pacific Asia. His specific interests include
cybersecurity, nuclear non-proliferation, and the US, Japan and South Korea
trilateral relationship. This summer, he will be interning in the Office of the
Secretary of Defense, working on Russia policy.
After graduating from McGill University in 2005
with a B.A. in Psychology, Dan first worked on a political campaign and then
for a government relations firm in Connecticut. He then moved to South Korea,
where he resumed his study of the Korean language and also interned at an NGO
that catalogued human rights abuses in North Korea.
Justin Moore
University of Pittsburgh, Graduate School of
Public and International Security
Justin Moore is pursuing a Master of Public and
International Affairs with a focus on International Political Economy from the
University of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public and International
Affairs. Justin’s academic research focuses on the interplay between
natural resource policy, energy security, and foreign relations in East
Asia. Prior to graduate study, Justin completed his undergraduate career
at West Virginia University, where he graduated summa cum laude with degrees in
Political Science and Asian International Studies and minors in Japanese,
French, and History. He has also traveled and studied in Japan.
Currently, he is completing an internship conducting corporate sustainability
research with the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of
Policy in Washington, D.C.
Dana Rafter
University of Denver, Josef Korbel School of
International Studies
Dana Rafter is an M.A. Candidate in
International Security at the University of Denver’s Josef Korbel School of
International Studies. During the past year, Dana conducted research on the
political Islamist movement in Amman, Jordan as a Boren Fellow with the
National Security Education Program. As a participant in the Dubai School of
Government’s Gulf Exchange, he held meetings with security officials and political
leaders in the United Arab Emirates to discuss to changing
social and political dimensions of the region in the post-Arab Spring era.
Additionally, he has studied intensive Arabic with the State Department’s
Critical Language Scholarship in Tunisia, and he lived in Cairo, Egypt for one
year as a Boren Scholar. This will be Dana’s first trip to Japan, and he hopes develop his understanding of international security from the
Japanese perspective and gain insight into Tokyo’s hopes for the U.S.-Japanese
strategic partnership in the coming decade.
Vicki Romo
Syracuse University,Maxwell
School of Citizenship and Public Affairs
Vicki Michelle Romo is
a graduate student in the International Relations program at Syracuse
University. While receiving her bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Rice
University, she volunteered in the Dominican Republic, Ghana, and Mexico
focusing on health and development. After graduating in 2008, she worked for
Berlitz Japan in Tokyo and improved her Japanese language skills. She is
currently interning at the Atlantic Council in Washington, D.C. focusing on
energy and environmental policy. She is excited to return to Japan and learn
more about their future in nuclear energy. She hopes to pursue a career in
energy economics and international development.
Jennifer Rosenberg
Yale University, Whitney and Betty MacMillan
Center for International and Area Studies
Jennifer S. Rosenberg holds a B.A. from Columbia
University and a J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania School of Law. Jennifer
previously held fellowships at the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York
University School of Law and at the Brennan Center for Justice. She also served
as a legal advisor to a USAID rule of law project in Kosovo and as a judicial
law clerk in the Southern District of New York. Her advocacy and scholarship has addressed evidence-based governmental decision-making in
social policy areas, namely education, housing, and reproductive health.
Jennifer’s focus at Yale is on International Development, with an emphasis on
leveraging social science research to improve public policy and development
projects in ways that advance gender equality while empowering women and
adolescent girls.
Travis Sharp
Princeton University,Woodrow
Wilson School of Public Policy
Travis Sharp is a Master’s in Public Affairs
candidate at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and
International Affairs, where he studies international relations. He also serves
as a non-resident fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), a
U.S. national security policy think tank, and as an intelligence officer in the
U.S. Navy Reserve. During summer 2013, Sharp served as a Rosenthal Fellow in
the Pentagon’s Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy.
Prior to entering graduate school, he spent six years working at think tanks in
Washington, DC, including as the Bacevich Fellow at
CNAS and as a military policy analyst at the Center for Arms Control and
Non-Proliferation, where he started as a Herbert Scoville Peace Fellow. Sharp
holds a B.A. in Politics and U.S. History from the University of San Francisco,
where he played Division 1 varsity soccer.
John Warden
Georgetown University, Edmund Walsh School of
Foreign Service
John K. Warden is a master’s candidate in the
Security Studies Program at Georgetown University, concentrating in US national
security. Previously, he was a research assistant at the Center for Strategic
and International Studies (CSIS), where he worked on various projects relating
to nuclear deterrence, arms control, missile defense, and U.S. alliances with
the Project on Nuclear issues (PONI) and Defense and National Security Group
(DNSG). He was executive director of the PONI working groups on US-China
nuclear relations and US-Russia arms control, coordinated the CSIS US-Japan-ROK
Track II Trilateral Dialogue on Nuclear issues, and twice directed the PONI
Nuclear Scholars Initiative, including editing the accompanying journals.
Warden has published articles in Proceedings Magazine, PacNet,
and 2012 Global Forecast and was a frequent contributor to the PONI Debates the
Issues blog. He earned his BA in political science and history from
Northwestern University and remains involved with the Northwestern Debate
Society as an assistant coach and visiting instructor.