Current MPA Students

Born and raised in Bogart, Georgia, Ayah graduated summa cum laude with first honors from the University of Georgia, where she earned degrees in international affairs and economics, a minor in Arabic, and a global studies certificate. Following graduation, Ayah joined the Treasury Department, where she served as an economic research analyst and special advisor supporting the work of the Office of International Affairs. Ayah is passionate about economic development, governance, and human rights - at the local, state, and international level - and has previously served as legislative director for Georgia Representative Spencer Frye, a democracy program intern with the Carter Center, and a measurement program assistant with the International Rescue Committee. She has also conducted extensive academic research and policy analysis focused on macroeconomic policy and the intersection of international political economy and human rights. Over the summer, Ayah interned with the Gender and Economic Inclusion team at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, supporting work on strategy, partnerships, and impact. She helped develop a data-driven diagnostic tool and standard operating procedures to strengthen gender additionality interventions across Bank investments, drafted donor reports, and contributed to work analyzing how AI is impacting technical assistance. At Princeton, Ayah hopes to explore evidence-based policies that support economic development while maximizing respect for human rights. 

Emily grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and studied finance and Hispanic studies at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. During college she studied abroad in Santiago de Compostela and Sevilla, Spain, and interned at J.P. Morgan in New York. After graduating, she spent three months volunteering with an educational nonprofit in rural Peru before working for five years as an Investment Specialist at J.P. Morgan’s Multi-Asset Solutions team in New York, where she advised institutional clients including endowments, foundations, and asset managers across North America. In 2024, Emily returned to Peru to serve as a Community Economic Development volunteer with the Peace Corps. As a Peace Corps volunteer she taught entrepreneurship and financial literacy classes in local high schools, and taught workshops on women’s economic empowerment to groups of local women. She also led a weekly girl’s empowerment club and implemented a Peace Corps small project grant that supplied technical training and supplies for a group of local women to start a sustainable guinea pig business. Emily is interested in policies that promote intergenerational economic mobility in the United States. At SPIA, she hopes to explore strategies for inclusive economic development, with a particular interest in rural America and the Rust Belt.

Aiyana is from Saint Paul, Minnesota, and attended Brown University. At Brown, she became interested in a variety of environmental issues, mainly related to environmental justice and natural resource management. She wanted to understand the human and environmental health impacts of current agricultural systems, and to come up with ways to balance food and water demands with the lived realities of rural communities. During her undergraduate studies, she researched how the cultural norms in rural Wisconsin hindered the adaptation of effective water conservation measures. After graduating with a B.A. in environmental studies, Aiyana got a job at the Bureau of Reclamation, a federal water and power management agency. There, she has spent the last few years working on the WaterSMART grants program, designing and administering funding opportunities that aid in environmental and water conservation efforts in the Western U.S. Outside of work, she enjoys traveling, trying new cafes, and creating art. Upon graduating from Princeton, she plans to enter the international NGO space, looking into global trends in agriculture and food before heading back to the U.S. to work on building equitable and climate resilient agricultural policy.

YeJin was born and raised in South Korea, where she traveled back to visit family and friends during the summer. She immigrated to California in the middle of tenth grade. She graduated from UC Berkeley with a B.A. in economics and completed a senior honors thesis with Professor Hilary Hoynes on the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate’s effect on coverage and racial/ethnic disparities, and assisted Professor Stefano DellaVigna as a research apprentice. Through roles with the Berkeley Center on Comparative Equality and Anti-Discrimination Law and ACLU, she explored ways to advance equity. After college, at the Federal Reserve Board’s Microeconomic Surveys section, she contributed to the Survey of Consumer Finances, coauthored research on race and survey data quality, and worked on projects about wealth gaps and family finances. Afterward, she worked as an assistant analyst at the Congressional Budget Office’s Labor, Education, and Income Security unit, where she analyzed data, modernized a legal status model, and developed policy products. She is interested in public economics and domestic social policy, and in using data to reduce inequality for low income and marginalized communities. After Princeton, she envisions herself returning to D.C. and working as a policy analyst in the public sector.

Jack hails from Northport, New York, and is a MPA/J.D. candidate at Princeton SPIA and Harvard Law School. Through the Scholars in the Nation’s Service Initiative (SINSI) Graduate Program, Jack worked as a negotiator for the U.S. Mission to the U.N., an adviser to the United States Director at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and a desk officer for India policy with the U.S. State Department. More recently, he has interned with the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston where he worked on payments law. Outside of the classroom, Jack enjoys camping and biking.