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APL Nov. 13 event
News December 18, 2025
Policy Reform in Afghanistan A Student-led Discussion with APL Affiliate - Abdullah Azizi
On November 13, the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs’ Afghanistan Policy Lab and the School’s SPIA Diversity & Inclusion Team co-hosted a panel discussion on the topic “Reform and Government Effectiveness in Afghanistan.” Princeton SPIA students Heather Mercer MPP ’26, Valerie Chua MPA ’26, and Mert Ozturkoglu BA ’28 and former APL affiliate Abdullah Azizi led the discussion. Former APL Affiliate delivering the presentation The event opened with a presentation by Azizi, who outlined the existing theoretical models and empirical studies, stating they provide narrowly scoped diagnostic tools and overly…
Robertson Hall, Princeton University. Photo By Nicole Guglielmo
News December 16, 2025
Princeton SPIA Meets the Moment in 2025
For the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, 2025 was a year that required meeting an extraordinary moment.Shortly after President Trump’s inauguration, the new administration initiated significant changes in the federal workforce. For an institution and an alumni base so deeply rooted in public service, adaptability and resilience were paramount. The School pivoted in numerous ways, welcoming a variety of speakers who discussed the various pathways to service, connecting alumni with students and with one another, and leveraging the SPIA DC Center’s capacity as a hub for policy discourse, networking, dialogue, and professional growth…
Image by Shutterstock / Billion Photos
News December 11, 2025
Princeton Summit Charts Future of Criminal Justice Open Data
The growing amount of data available on the United States criminal justice system has made it much easier for researchers to gain deep insights into it. But the diverse community of practitioners advancing that work — including academics, public agencies, journalists, lawyers, and computer scientists — often operate in siloes that limit awareness, lead to inefficiencies in effort, and reduce the potential impact of such insights.To help break those siloes down, the Criminal Justice Initiative at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs convened an open data summit in August, supported by funding from Arnold Ventures, for national…
map of caribbean
News December 10, 2025
Princeton SPIA Faculty Share Expert Perspectives on Caribbean Boat Strikes
PRINCETON, NJ – Following recent reports of boat strikes in the Caribbean involving the United States, faculty from the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs (Princeton SPIA) are sharing expert perspectives to provide context and clarity, and potential implications of the situation. Eduardo Bhatia, John L. Weinberg/Goldman Sachs & Co. Visiting Professor and Visiting Lecturer in Public and International Affairs:"Recent Caribbean boat strikes continue to make headlines, and my policy and legal conclusion is unequivocal: these interventions are illegal. They violate established maritime law requiring interdiction…
SPIA accolades header
News December 09, 2025
SPIAccolades — December 2025
Elke Weber, a professor of psychology and public affairs and the Gerhard R. Andlinger Professor in Energy & the Environment, was the recipient of the 2025 I.N.S.P.I.R.E. Award from HEC Lausanne.Presented by the business school of the University of Lausanne in Switzerland since 2018, the I.N.S.P.I.R.E. award (“INspiring Success: Promoting Inclusion, Research, and Excellence”) recognizes “a researcher within the international academic community whose exemplary career inspires the next generation and encourages women's careers in academia,” according to the university’s story about Weber’s selection.Weber’s research focuses on…
SPIAction Newsletter
News December 05, 2025
SPIAction Newsletter — December 2025
Career Day Inspires Students to Reimagine Public ServiceThe event served as an opportunity for nearly 100 students to ask candid questions and learn about potential career paths.
Policy workshop group at Mpala Research Centre in central Kenya.
News December 04, 2025
Policy Workshops Offer SPIA Students Real-World Experience in Public Affairs
For nearly three decades, the policy workshop has been a cornerstone of the graduate program in public affairs at Princeton University. Building on the analytical skills acquired in the first year, the workshops are designed to help students strengthen skills like collaboration and consensus building that are not typically taught in academic settings.“When you work on policy, it’s less about the individual and more about bringing people together from different groups. That’s why public policy is so hard,” said Eduardo Bhatia, the John L Weinberg/Goldman Sachs & Co. Visiting Professor and a visiting lecturer at the Princeton School of Public and…
Democracy and Inequality in India: Political Economy of a Troubled Giant book cover
News December 02, 2025
India, ‘a Troubled Giant,’ the Subject of New Faculty Book
Home to nearly 1.5 billion people, India is the world’s largest democracy – for now. According to the Journal of Democracy, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “government has engaged in what is, by some accounts, a wholesale dismantling of democratic institutions, norms, and practices.”“At a time when autocrats are increasingly assertive, the cause of democracy can ill afford a loss of India’s magnitude,” the publication notes.In a new book, Princeton School of Public and International Affairs faculty member Atul Kohli and the University of Toronto’s Kanta Murali, a 2012 Ph.D. graduate of Princeton, point to a root cause of India’s democratic backsliding:…
Melissa Parnagian (front, center) with NHL Player Inclusion Coalition. Photo Credit: Melissa Parnagian
News November 24, 2025
Melissa Parnagian ’17 Helps NHL Players Elevate the Causes They Care About
Michael Eyssimont tried hard to ignore the symptoms.As a college student, the future forward in the National Hockey League couldn’t maintain his weight or energy levels. Despite being a young and active hockey player, he needed to catch his breath after walking up a set of stairs. After months of denial, his coaches finally convinced him to go to a hospital, where he was diagnosed with Crohn's disease, a chronic inflammatory bowel condition.Earlier this year, Melissa Parnagian ’17, the NHL’s senior manager for player programs and culture initiatives, recognized the potential of Eyssimont’s story to help others. With his condition under control and his…
Ranen Miao, MPA ’26
News November 20, 2025
#PolicyProfile: Ranen Miao, MPA ’26
“I’ve always had many different interests, but civil rights and economic justice are my core passions. I hope to build systems that treat every person with dignity, including closing the racial wealth gap, ensuring gender equality, and protecting LGBTQIA+ rights. I feel a personal connection to these issues, and I view them as fundamental problems we must address to realize the promise of the American Dream and opportunity for all people. In college, I tried to learn from every corner of the public sector, including through 13 internships about reproductive freedom, environmental justice, voting rights, and federal policymaking on the Hill. I interned…
SPIA accolades header
News November 20, 2025
SPIAccolades — November 2025
Layna Mosley, a professor of politics and international affairs, has spent the past two months flexing her scholarly muscles. In October, Mosley presented “Sovereign Debt Transparency: The Oversight Role of Parliamentarians” at an International Monetary Fund event. Her presentation focused on the politics surrounding debt transparency, what her research finds in terms of how the electoral cycle matters for debt transparency, and how investors (sometimes) reward governments that are more transparent.The Peter G. Peterson Foundation also invited Mosley to…
Rethinking the 1990s book cover
News November 18, 2025
New Book Takes a Fresh Look at the Nineties and Its Impacts Today
With the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, the reunification of Germany a year later, and the collapse of the Soviet Union a year after that, the 1990s were shaping up as a hopeful time for the West. Liberal democracy appeared to be ascendent, free trade was championed, and the catastrophic tragedies of two world wars and the Cold War were things of the past.That optimism now looks misplaced. Three decades later, global conflicts – one of them involving Russia’s invasion of a former Soviet Socialist Republic – continue, economic nationalism is on the rise, and ideological extremism grips numerous countries.So what happened?A newly published…
Michelle Feist, Seyron Foo, Kathy Roth-Douquet
News November 13, 2025
Industry Insiders: Princeton SPIA Alumni in Philanthropy
For more than 90 years, alumni from the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs have had meaningful careers in a multitude of industries, perhaps none more so than the federal government. But as government cuts reduce opportunities for a new group of civil servants, Princeton SPIA alumni have stepped up to offer everything from advice to job references for their fellow Tigers.Three alumni with prominent careers in philanthropy — Kathy Roth-Douquet MPA ’91, CEO, Blue Star Families; Michelle Feist MPA ’97, senior program officer, Gates Foundation; and Seyron Foo MPA ’14, chief engagement and intergovernmental relations officer, Los Angeles…
Bryan Manoo, Pascaline Dupas with healthcare workers, India
News November 13, 2025
Good Policy Begins with Understanding People Where They Are.
When I first received the opportunity to spend my summer in India as a visiting Research Assistant at J-PAL South Asia, I was both excited and hesitant. This would be my first time visiting India, a country I had always wanted to experience because of its cultural diversity and my ancestral ties. I knew it would be a chance to grow both personally and professionally, but at the time I did not know how transformative the experience would be.After a 16-hour flight, I landed in Udaipur, Rajasthan. The very next day, I was in the field, with another research assistant, walking in the high temperatures of the region. We first went to a nearby public health…
computers
Awards & Recognition November 11, 2025
Program on Science and Global Security Secures $500K Grant to Probe Emerging Tech and Nuclear Risk
In an era marked by rapid technological innovation and intensifying competition over global dominance, the Program on Science and Global Security (SGS) at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs has received a $500,000 grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York to investigate how the pursuit and deployment of emerging technologies for military advantage may reshape nuclear war risks and how global diplomacy could address the related security challenges.The two-year grant will support SGS’s efforts to provide independent, science-based analysis of technologies such as artificial intelligence, quantum engineering, and space-based…