Internship Stories

Katherine Caby Styers, Maxwell in D.C. Program

This Fall semester, I was able to live, work, and study in Washington D.C. through the Maxwell school. This experience was been amazing and I met many new people and found interesting opportunities while living here. I took two academic courses taught by practitioners who are well-known in their fields. One of the best things about these classes however are the guest speakers which have come to class and brought their own expertise to us. This has provided me with networking opportunities as well as a chance to learn about different career paths. 

In addition to these two classes, I was able to get academic credit through a research internship. With the help of my mentor Mark Jacobson, I researched Chinese narratives used in Australia to help further foreign policy goals. I also assisted with a book chapter focusing on narratives of spy-warfare and accusations of biowarfare in the Korean War. This internship allowed me to explore many different avenues of interest including East Asia, foreign policy, and public diplomacy. 

Being in D.C. also allowed me to experience Congressional hearings, explore the many museums, meet new people, attend think tank events, and visit gardens and parks. I never thought that I would be able to live in such a huge, diverse city, but Syracuse has helped achieve this accomplishment. I look forward to seeing how my education at Syracuse will help me succeed in D.C. and help me contribute to making the US a better place.

Caby Styers is an MAIR student who will graduate in December. She previously interned at Vrije Universiteit Brussel under the Korea Chair as part of the European and Global Internship Program in Brussels.

MAIR Program

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Maxwell-in-Washington Program

Varsha Srinivasan, Policy & Advocacy Summer Fellow at the DC Charter School Alliance

My name is Varsha, and I am a dual-degree MPA/IR student at the Maxwell School. I received an Experiential Learning Award to work as a Policy & Advocacy Summer Fellow at the DC Charter School Alliance through Leadership for Educational Equity (LEE). I worked directly with the Senior Director of Government Affairs as a liaison for the organization, providing summaries and recaps of key bills and legislative decisions at Committee of the Whole Meetings. Additionally, I conducted research on DC Council members to prepare informational background on members for future stakeholders to review and gain a stronger understanding of the political context surrounding education policy, specifically with respect to charter schools. I also took an active role in helping to develop the National School Choice Week plan and conduct research on relationship mapping tools to find the most effective platform to visualize and understand the impact of different connections on policy decisions.

Through my time as a Summer Fellow, Leadership for Educational Equity made available a series of networking events, supplemental trainings, and professional development opportunities in the area of education policy. I gained a stronger contextual understanding of policy impacts on charter schools, especially during the COVID pandemic, by attending Committee of the Whole meetings and legislative sessions to hear from the key stakeholders and strategic partners from each of the 8 DC Wards. Given the disproportionate charter school presence in Wards 7 and 8, which have been historically marginalized, under-resourced, and misrepresented, I learned the importance of community-specific reforms to create a more equitable policy landscape for the diverse residents of the DC metro area.

As a woman of color, a former teacher of color at a low-income school in North Las Vegas, and a former Fulbright English Teaching Assistant in Colombia, I am committed to pursuing roles focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, specifically as they relate to closing the lifestyle gap for historically marginalized communities. Given the challenges of the current pandemic and resulting sociopolitical climate, I sought to use this Award to gain a deeper understanding of how multiculturalism and sociocultural awareness can contribute to implementing more effective and relevant policies by establishing meaningful relationships with residents of each Ward, specifically through the work of each Council member. I was able to cultivate my management and teamwork skills by observing the direct impact of research and legislative processes on constituents, which allowed me to develop more meaningful outreach strategies. This unique opportunity has taught me to continue developing my professional skills and establish meaningful relationships to create more inclusive and equitable policy reform in my current internship with the Partnership for Public Service as a Leadership Development Intern.

MPA/MAIR Program at the Maxwell School

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Maxwell-in-Washington Program

Kyle Downey, District Office of Sean Patrick Maloney, House of Representatives

For my off campus experience, I was working for the District Office of Sean Patrick Maloney in the House of Representatives.  Day-to-day the people were friendly and the work was interesting.  The mission of the district office is twofold.  The first and primary mission is to provide services to local constituents, such as helping them navigate federal bureaucracies or recording their opinions and current bills.  The second mission is to facilitate the Congressman’s interactions with local people and interest groups by setting up town hall meetings and keeping in regular correspondence with members of the community.  I worked for the Director of Grants and Outreach, so our job sometimes involved us meeting with new businesses that might move to our district, which combines elements of both the previous two missions.

Many of the constituents, especially these new businesses we met with, were looking for funding for their projects.  As such they were often interested in learning about federal grants that might apply to their specific businesses and projects.  To make the process easier for them, I spearheaded an ambitious new project.  I collected information on all 2000 federal grants and then compiled that information onto a website page I built from scratch.  The website page provides an interactive dashboard which users can interact with in real time.  All the different grants are on one page with a scroll down bar.  Users can hold their mouse over any one grant to see an expanded format which display detailed paragraphs about eligibility.  Users can also filter which federal agency they are looking through via a dropdown menu.

Kyle Downey

Kyle Downey is an dual MPA/MAIR student at the Maxwell School.

MPA/MAIR Program

Jill Watkins, UNICEF in Geneva

For the past three months, I have been interning with the Global Child Protection Area of Responsibility (CP AoR) led by UNICEF in Geneva, Switzerland. I began my work remotely while I was in the U.S. finishing up my spring semester at Syracuse and had the opportunity to join the team full-time in Geneva at the start of May.

First day working at the UNICEF Office in Geneva

Although I have only been here a few weeks now, I have been able to meet with my colleagues, spend a few days in working in the office and have been tasked with substantially more responsibility. I am working on two main projects right now beyond my day-today duties.

The first is helping to create a Field Cooperation Framework to increase collaboration between Child Protection field coordinators across different regions of the world. To better understand the work that needs to be done to increase collaboration across regional contexts, I have helped organize and manage online consultations with staff around the word. The Framework is expected to be completed by the end of September.

The second main opportunity I have been able to help with is creating and disseminating a survey to measure youth perceptions of climate-related disasters in South East Asia. This has been my favorite task so far, as it directly relates with my personal interests and passions. The survey was translated into 12 different languages, which I was able to act as the lead organizer for, and just went live last week. I am looking forward to help analyze the results of the survey in June.

Overall, I am elated to be in Geneva working for an organization I am so invested in. I have high hopes that the remainder of the internship will go as well as the first half has, and I am grateful to Syracuse for assisting me in this opportunity. I highly recommend this internship to anyone interested in emergency humanitarian assistance specifically focused on child protection.

Jill Watkins is an MAIR student who will graduate in December. She is currently interning at the Partnership for Public Service in Washington, DC.

MAIR Program at the Maxwell School

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Magaribi Lehani Hervé, Al & Legacy in DRC

Al & Legacy is a consulting firm founded by a Congolese economics expert M. Al Kitenge to contribute to the improvement of the “DRC doing business environment “and to enhance the relevance of public-private partnerships in boosting economic growth and inclusion of start-ups and small and medium sized enterprises. Al & Legacy is a well-regarded consulting think tank in analyzing the impact of public policies on the financial and economic growth of the Democratic Republic of Congo and mechanisms to address the challenges of governance. 

Al & Legacy launched the Gouvernix Project to mobilize citizens through a positive participation to open their eyes and ears on how public policies are designed, resources are allocated and managed and why it is worthy to participate and make one’s voice be heard.  

As a graduate student in public diplomacy and as part of my experiential learning last spring semester 2021, I was very interested in this internship at Al & Legacy as an opportunity to share my modest contribution to the mobilization of citizens on issues that matter to the image of the entire Nation: governance. The Nation’s image is something none should joke about. We need to be very sensitive on how the governance issue undermines the reputation of the country and pulls down efforts of economic growth and development.  

My role was to do research on selected topics, collect data, as well as write and share publications to be posted in the project website, where citizens can access them. This exercise enabled me to improve my communication and enhance my analytical skills.  

In the case of the Democratic Republic of Congo, governance has been for many years a huge challenge for both public and private sectors.  Every year, the DRC loses millions of dollars due to corruption, mismanagement of resources and lack of transparency in doing business, governing the public sector, and mostly in limiting the citizen’s participation in the control of public managers. 

Both the Maxwell school and Newhouse school are equipping me with the skills, techniques and tools necessary to bring an appreciated added value to this project.   

I feel connected to my country and honored to share my small stone to its building, though I am miles away from it.

Magaribi Lehani Herve is currently finishing his PDGC degree in Washington, DC, while interning at the Center for Civilians in Conflict and Catholic Universities of America’s Office of Military and Veterans Student Services.

Public Diplomacy and Global Communications Program

Haley Hardie, SocialCauses in Cape Town, South Africa

Picos de Europa, Spain

I spent the spring semester interning with SocialCauses, a startup nonprofit based in Cape Town, South Africa. SocialCauses believes in leveraging technology for social good; to that end they are developing a vetting and capability assessment system (NPGO) for nonprofits in the region.

My role this semester was to interview a variety of local nonprofit organizations (NPOs) to learn about how they conduct impact reporting and whether that data is used to measure the country’s progress towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). I found that most NPOs have not engaged with the SDGs and lack the resources to conduct robust monitoring and evaluation.

The data I collected will be used to inform capacity-building efforts in the sector to strengthen monitoring and evaluation systems. Additionally, the data will inform the design of NPGO, including using the platform to help NPOs identify how their work aligns with the SDGs to enhance NPOs’ competitive advantage when applying for funding.


Zoom meeting with one of my supervisors wearing the iKapa Impact sweatshirt they sent me from South Africa.

Although my internship was completed remotely, I feel like I have had a unique experience getting to work closely with dozens of organizations to see how nonprofits do their work. This internship has helped me to develop skills in research design, survey creation, and data collection, synthesis, and analysis. More broadly, I have learned about nonprofit management systems and governance and monitoring and evaluation. As I prepare to enter the development sector, I believe this internship has added significant value to my degree at Maxwell.

Haley Hardie is an MAIR student who will graduate in December. She also interned at the Asian Development Bank and South Dakota Voices for Peace as part of her MAIR degree.

MAIR Program at the Maxwell School

Ed Strong, UNICEF’s C4D Team

I was an intern for UNICEF for the spring semester in 2021.  I worked in the C4D team, which stands for Communication for Development.  More specifically, I was a member of a small team working on a USAID grant specifically for the incorporation of Social Sciences into Community Engagement (SS4CE).  The central focus was the incorporation of community engagement principles into UNICEF protocols for interaction with target communities.  That meant working with local actors, listening to community concerns, focusing on minority or underrepresented voices in the community, providing expertise and direction but also listening to ensure that community concerns are address rather than ignored.

My work was interesting and rewarding. I helped review results from a survey about the use of social science in community engagement which had been filled out by responders from academia, government positions, NGO’s, Civil Society’s, and UN organization.  I created graphs and charts to help visualize quantitative answers and provided analysis of qualitative responses. 

Ultimately, my main project with C4D was to help create a strategy for knowledge management (KM) for the department.  The UN has recently released a global strategy for KM covering from now to 2025.  My work was to create a plan to begin the process of bringing C4D into compliance with the global KM goals.  I built a base of KM resources and worked to develop the strategy and begin implementation.

Atlantis Transatlantic Dual Degree Program
The Maxwell School
The Hertie School of Governance

Madeleine Williams, UNCEF’s Public Partnerships Division

For my internship, I was fortunate enough to be offered a six-month fellowship with the UNICEF Public Partnerships Division (PPD) in their Africa, MENA, and South-South triangular Cooperation Team. The PPD works to strengthen UNICEF’s position as a partner of choice among governments and inter-governmental actors for children’s rights around the world.

Madeleine Williams

My work as an intern consisted of assisting in the development and implementation of advocacy engagement plans with African leaders from African Member States on education and nutrition. As well as financial analyses from Power Bi platform, social media strategizing, and supporting in any way that was needed. One project I was especially proud of being a part of was assisting in the Mental Health Webinar with the SSTC team. I was able to communicate professionally and effectively with higher ups and form the external invitation and graphic card that was sent out to all the permanent missions. The range of the work they have given me has been invaluable to learning and understanding diplomacy in an international sphere in the context of Africa.

This is how fund the atmosphere at UNICEF can be even in a remote setting.

Although I have been fully remote for the entire internship, the atmosphere within my all-but-one female work team has been inspiring, fulfilling, challenging, and engaging to work with. I not only would love to one day continue working with UNICEF, but this internship has solidified my interests in working at an NGO and has showed me the importance and impact of humanitarian action.

A zoom meeting with the UNICEF Intern group! This group is a great way to interact and network with other interns and learn from colleagues working in UNICEF.

Madeleine Williams is in her second year of studies in the Atlantis program. This program allows her to complete an MAIR degree from the Maxwell School in Syracuse, New York and an MPP from the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin.

Atlantis Transatlantic Dual Degree Program
The Maxwell School
The Hertie School of Governance

Sarah Forland at Hopeprint: Interning from Home During a Global Pandemic

Finding a summer internship is a trying process of searching, applying, and writing cover letter after cover letter until you get an interview that leads to a job. So, when my summer plans to participate in one of Maxwell’s global programs was abruptly cancelled due to COVID-19, I really considered calling the summer a wash. However, after a few more applications and offers, I decided to intern with Hopeprint, a local Syracuse non-profit that works to build community and provide resources for refugees and New Americans to prosper in place. Being able to work within a community in which I also lived, felt valuable and purposeful after feeling disconnected by the shift to working from home and self-isolating.

During my internship, I served as the Fund Development Intern Team Leader working with other interns to research private and government funding opportunities and draft grants for Hopeprint’s planned expansion into new cities across America. I particularly worked on researching government-based grants for each of Hopeprint’s locations, looking at every level from federal to city for grant opportunities and public programs in place to assist with community development needs in line with Hopeprint’s mission. At the end of this internship, one of my main deliverables will be a government funding guide on how to locate, apply for, and use government grants and community development programs, as well as which funding opportunities best align with each location’s projects.

While this was all new territory for me, the most important learning aspect was learning how to intern from home. How do I manage distractions, create work-life balance, and feel motivated to get work done when my cat keeps interrupting my Zoom calls? I’m still working on those answers, but I’m taking my summer internship from home experience as practice for the new learning and working environment that lies ahead. Each week during the all-team meeting, everyone shares their “hopeprint” for the week—what kept you going, what inspired you, and what made you remember why you chose non-profit/public service work—and my “hopeprint” for this pandemic summer is Hopeprint.

Sarah Forland is a recent graduate of the Public Diplomacy and Global Communications program from the Maxwell and Newhouse Schools. She formerly interned at the American Security Project and the Global Engagement Center (GEC) at the U.S. Department of State.

Sarah Forland working from home.
Sarah Forland working from home for Hopeprint

Public Diplomacy and Global Communications Program

Sarah Forland, Exploring Public Diplomacy with ASP and the GEC

This spring semester I had the opportunity to intern at the American Security Project (ASP) in Washington D.C., as a Public Diplomacy and Strategic Communications Intern. ASP is a non-partisan research organization that aims to inform Americans—representatives, opinion leaders, and the general public alike—of the ever-changing nature of national security concerns in order to forge a bipartisan consensus on a national security strategy for the 21st century.

Sarah Forland
Sarah Forland

As a student interested in exploring public diplomacy’s role in national security strategy, this internship was the perfect opportunity to research topics from Russian disinformation to the growing importance of subnational diplomacy to the future of internet and tech regulations. Each week I worked on writing various articles about issues in public diplomacy, building a solid writing portfolio that matched my career and academics interests. I also assisted with other ASP projects, such as the organization’s podcast and other perspective and strategy reports.

In addition to my internship with ASP, I was able to complete my academic research consultancy (a component of the Public Diplomacy program) with the Global Engagement Center (GEC) at the U.S. Department of State. I worked specifically with the Technology Engagement Team to research and create reports on social media regulation around China’s treatment of Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region and on the emerging threat of deep fake technology.

While both of my experiences were virtual, I was still able to safely explore Washington, D.C., attend many virtual events, and even meet other interns that I collaborated with for various projects. Both opportunities provided insight into public diplomacy’s role in national security strategy and addressing new and emerging threats to the information space, helping inform my future career goals.

Sarah is a recent graduate of SU’s Public Diplomacy and Global Communications program between the Maxwell and Newhouse Schools.

Sarah Forland on the National Mall
Sarah Forland (C) on the National Mall

Sarah Forland in DC with friends
Sarah Forland (C) in DC with friends

Public Diplomacy and Global Communications Program