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Japan Travel Program for US Future Leaders 2013

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.