Mahnoor spent six years in the development sector in Pakistan, working at the Centre for Economic Research in Pakistan (CERP) and the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), to implement randomized controlled trials in domains as diverse as education, property taxation and air pollution. In collaboration with the federal, provincial and local government, Mahnoor worked on a) implementing a technology-aided targeted instruction program in 600 primary schools in Islamabad, b) behavioral interventions geared toward bolstering parental involvement in children's education, c) surveys aimed at assessing the extent of educational learning losses during COVID-19, d) interventions aimed at revitalizing the link between property taxation and municipal service delivery in Punjab to improve taxpayers' attitudes toward the state and increase willingness to pay property tax, and e) increasing the consumption and production of air pollution forecasts and subsequently encouraging avoidance behaviors among citizens in Lahore - one of the world's most polluted cities. Mahnoor is passionate about data-driven, evidence-based policymaking. She particularly enjoys conducting fieldwork since she feels that is when "data is humanized," as she hears, understands and connects with the powerful lived experiences behind the data. At Princeton SPIA, she is looking for a more rigorous and comprehensive education in the complex processes involved in translating evidence into enduring, actionable policy. What she looks forward to the most is learning from the rich, varied personal and professional experiences of her cohort.

Julia comes to Princeton SPIA from the Center for Global Development (CGD), where she worked as a policy analyst for global health. At CGD, she conducted research on the use of data and evidence in development policy, with a focus on multilateral and bilateral aid, global health financing, and sexual and reproductive health. She recently managed a CGD working group on enhancing the policy value of impact evaluation and related evidence for global development. Previously, Julia worked on global health research related to frontline health care in Rwanda and child mental health in Kenya. Julia holds a bachelor’s degree in global health and international comparative studies from Duke University. She completed her MPA summer internship at the Asian Development Bank in Manilla, Philippines.

Sophia most recently served as a Research Associate for Stimson’s South Asia Program and Managing Editor of the publication South Asian Voices, a platform for analysts and academics from the region to publish rigorous analysis on South Asia’s security, political, and economic affairs. Her role at Stimson was a natural continuation of her position as the South and Central Asia Analyst for the U.S. Department of State’s Overseas Security Advisory Council, in which she served as a security and crisis liaison to the U.S. private sector and developed an interest in U.S. crisis management through her first-hand experiences. As an analyst, she chose to diverge from her earlier research on foreign and domestic terrorist networks (U.S. Department of State, Southern Poverty Law Center, and Chicago Project on Security and Threats) to grow her understanding of the intersection between climate change and economic and political stability. She plans to dedicate a future career of public service to addressing these issues internationally, particularly as they effect Asia. Sophia received a Boren Scholarship (2020-2021) to study Urdu in Lucknow, India, and plans to continue her study of South Asian culture and languages through Princeton and the Princeton SINSI Program.

Born and raised in the Republic of Korea, Ji Eun majored in political science and diplomacy at Yonsei University, Seoul. Ji Eun is a career diplomat and had served for 8 years before joining the MPA program at Princeton. Her job portfolio in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs extensively covered European and Southeast Asian affairs (mostly ASEAN), human rights and social affairs, press relations, and, most recently, North Korean nuclear policy. While she dealt with Southeast Asian affairs, her focus was on exploring cooperation between Korea and other countries' policies in the Indo-Pacific region. During her MPA studies, she hopes to dig more deeply into the geopolitical dynamics in the region, and how regional strategies would interact with each other. In her free time, she enjoys going to musicals, movies, and art exhibitions as well as exploring new cities. She also likes to play tennis, swim, and scuba dive (has a PADI advanced license), and she is currently learning golf, yoga, and pilates.

Peter spent most of his childhood on Long Island, New York, before moving to Missoula, Montana, in high school. He graduated from Williams College in 2020, where he majored in political economy and philosophy and minored in cognitive science. After graduating, he served with AmeriCorps VISTA as a data analyst at Emmaus, a homeless shelter and affordable housing developer in Haverhill, Massachusetts. He then worked as a data analyst for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, where he worked on data privacy, inter-agency data sharing, and analytics projects. Peter was selected to intern as a Data Scientist Fellow at the U.S. Census Bureau in Washington this summer, as part of the Coding it Forward Fellowship program. After graduating from Princeton, Peter hopes to continue working in the public sector designing systems and strategies to improve government service evaluation.