Current Students

Isabelle is from Fulton, Maryland, and graduated from Brown University with a B.A. in Public Policy. Her experiences in Southeast Asian American student organizing at Brown fostered her interest in higher education policy and led her to Asian and Pacific Islander American (APIA) Scholars. At APIA Scholars, she led advocacy campaigns focused on Minority-Serving Institutions and conducted research on the educational experiences of Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander students. After Princeton, she hopes to work in government with a focus on promoting college affordability and student success at public colleges and universities. In her free time, Isabelle is an amateur adult figure skater, a competitive jump roper, and an enthusiastic foodie.

Sarah is from Belmont, Massachusetts, and has spent most of her life living in the Boston area. Before coming to Princeton SPIA, she studied as a Mitchell Scholar at Trinity College Dublin (Belfast campus), where she earned an MPhil (with Distinction) in Conflict Resolution and Reconciliation. Her MPhil dissertation, which won the top award in her program, examined the interplay between the information environment and the social environment, with a particular focus on misinformation and polarization in the U.S. This topic was inspired in part by her work as a project manager on health misinformation for the U.S. Surgeon General, for which she analyzed and synthesized findings from a large-scale initiative to understand the impacts of COVID-related misinformation. Prior to this, she spent several years working in local government in Somerville, Massachusetts – first as a mayoral campaign manager, and then as a communications staffer in the mayor's office. During the pandemic, she assisted with emergency response efforts both for Somerville and the broader region – including as the mayor's point person for galvanizing a regional coalition of mayors and scientific experts to coordinate public health measures. Sarah plans to use her time at Princeton to better understand potential policy frameworks for tackling the problems caused by misinformation, extremism, and polarization.

Maya was raised in the Chicagoland area and Mumbai, India. She attended Harvard College and graduated with a joint concentration in History of Science and French, and a minor in Chemistry. She is passionate about education and worked as a peer tutor and with local low-income middle schoolers during college. After graduating, she worked as a language assistant in France and the French Caribbean for two years, teaching French students English, and American and Indian history. Maya is interested in education, socioeconomic inequality, and sustainable energy, and is especially passionate about expanding access to education as a mode of social change. She is a 2025 Rangel Fellow and will work as a Foreign Service Officer at the U.S. Department of State after her studies at SPIA.

Shamik's experiences with healthcare across the United States led him to explore both medicine and health policy. At the University of Colorado, Denver, he studied biology and political science while working with Children's Hospital Colorado to build hands-on, unique educational experiences for patients. Having completed his third year of medical school at Yale, he’s exploring the many policy determinants of health at Princeton SPIA, ranging from housing policy to pharmaceutical price transparency. Shamik joined the Urban Institute's Health Policy team for the summer, where he helped the team actively fight against H.R.1's (The Big Beautiful Bill) cuts to healthcare programs, helped prepare state officials on how to respond to the cuts once passed, and led a paper on a novel health insurer fee states could levy to generate much-needed revenue. He ultimately hopes to use these experiences and lessons to better advocate for patients both in the hospital and on Capitol Hill.

Annie is from Glen Ellyn, Illinois, and graduated from Georgetown University with a B.A. in Economics. After graduating in 2022, she worked in government relations and policy consulting, focusing on global health and trade policy across Latin America and the Asia-Pacific. Through public-private partnerships in regional economic fora, Annie led projects aimed at advancing women’s economic empowerment, particularly access to sexual and reproductive health services and the recognition of unpaid caregiving in health systems. After Princeton, she hopes to pursue a career in global health diplomacy, advancing policies that promote health equity and strengthen health systems. In her free time, Annie enjoys grounding activities like sudoku and yoga, as well as getting lost in a good short story.