News & Stories

All News Research Newsmakers SPIA Reacts Community Profiles
Students walking near fountain at Scudder Plaza
News September 12, 2025
Princeton SPIA Continues Run of Accomplished Incoming Classes
After exceptionally high numbers of applications to its three graduate programs, including record highs for the Master in Public Policy and Ph.D. programs, the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs has welcomed 85 new grad students for the 2025-26 academic year.The new cohort comprises eight doctoral students, 20 MPP students, and 57 Master in Public Affairs students. They reflect impressive geographic diversity, coming from 20 U.S. states and 27 countries, including dual citizens, as well as academic diversity, with 73 undergraduate institutions and 57 majors represented. Twenty-one of the students come to Princeton SPIA with prior…
group of students
News September 09, 2025
Undergraduate Students Conduct Death Penalty Research for U.N. in Landmark Geneva Course
A longstanding and distinctive feature of the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs’ undergraduate program is the Policy Task Force, an experiential junior-year requirement that lets students work directly on a timely public policy issue and propose their recommendations to government officials and policy advocates.This summer, the School trialed an intensive, six-week Task Force in Geneva, Switzerland, the world’s hub for human rights. The eight undergraduate students who participated not only researched and wrote about the chosen policy topic — use of the death penalty in the United States — but they did so on behalf of the United…
SPIAction Newsletter
News September 05, 2025
SPIAction Newsletter — September 2025
Dear Princeton SPIA community,As we begin a new academic year, the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs continues to support our students and alumni in this time of transition. Effective policymaking requires vision and adaptability, and the School has put these skills to good use to assist our most important stakeholders. With agility and resilience, we are meeting the moment, more determined than ever to support those determined to be in service to the nation and humanity.Our efforts include welcoming to campus speakers from a wide variety of fields, exposing students to the numerous paths to public service that are available to them…
Kate Grant, Martin Eakes, Nick Grono
News September 05, 2025
Industry Insiders: Princeton SPIA Alumni in Non-Governmental Organizations
For more than 90 years, alumni from the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs (Princeton SPIA) 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 non-governmental organizations — Martin Eakes MPA-JD ’80, CEO of Self-Help/Center for Responsible Lending; Kate Grant MPA ’94, CEO of the Fistula Foundation; and Nicholas Grono MPP ’03, president and CEO of The…
student walking across Scudder Plaza and Robertson Hall
News September 04, 2025
New Fall Courses Reflect Changing Public Service Landscape
The start of the school year often means changes abound: New students are learning to navigate campus, recently hired faculty members are settling into their offices, and courses are being taught for the first time.This fall, as the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs responds to the profound changes disrupting traditional paths of public service in the United States and elsewhere, two new undergraduate courses signal one way the School is meeting the moment and helping students find ways to serve.The first, SPI 415, explores contemporary issues in philanthropy. Taught by Aly Kassam-Remtulla, vice provost for international affairs and…
SPIA accolades header
News August 28, 2025
SPIAccolades — August 2025
The United Nations Secretary-General announced that Sébastien Philippe of the Program on Science and Global Security has been appointed as one of the members of the UN Independent Scientific Panel on Effects of Nuclear War.The panel was established by a December 2024 General Assembly resolution, “Nuclear War Effects and Scientific Research.” The resolution mandated the U.N. Secretary-General to appoint an independent 21-member scientific panel on the effects of nuclear war to examine “the physical effects and societal consequences of a nuclear war on a local, regional and planetary scale.”"I am deeply honored to have been appointed by the UN…
outline of Washington DC monuments and buildings in orange and beige
News August 26, 2025
Despite Challenges, 100% of Princeton SPIA’s MPA Cohort Secures Summer Internships
Summer trips to Japan, Thailand, and the United Kingdom sound like the perfect getaway for weary college students. But for Master in Public Affairs candidates from the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs (Princeton SPIA), these trips were business-first.Between the first and second years of study, all MPA students must complete an approved summer internship to test-drive the professional skills and knowledge they’ve learned in the classroom in a real-world situation.“Each internship or fellowship is connected to the student’s concentration and career goals but also designed to provide flexibility for creating a unique, graduate-level…
group of students
News August 20, 2025
JSI at 40: Alumni Reflect on Expanding Pathways to Policy Leadership
Earlier this summer, the 40th Princeton cohort of the Public Policy and International Affairs Junior Summer Institute (JSI) watched their peers deliver final presentations in a Robertson Hall classroom. The bonds the 19 rising seniors had forged during their seven weeks together – all while studying microeconomics, statistics, public policy research, and domestic and international policy – were on full display.They praised one another for their presentations and asked probing questions that demonstrated deep interest in the policy matters being discussed – from rare mineral extraction to the tradeoffs between innovation and inequality.“I loved seeing…
Tali Mendelberg
News August 19, 2025
Increasing Voter Turnout Among College-Aged Students
Princeton SPIA’s Research Record series highlights the vast scholarly achievements of our faculty members, whose expertise extends beyond the classroom and into everyday life.If you’d like your work considered for future editions of Research Record, click here and select “research project.”
Simon Jager
News August 12, 2025
A First Look at the Value of Consultants
Princeton SPIA’s Research Record series highlights the vast scholarly achievements of our faculty members, whose expertise extends beyond the classroom and into everyday life.If you’d like your work considered for future editions of Research Record, click here and select “research project.”
SPIAction Newsletter
News August 06, 2025
SPIAction Newsletter — August 2025
Dear Princeton SPIA community,As the country and the world continue to change with incredible speed and in profound ways, the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs (Princeton SPIA) remains committed to training and supporting policymakers prepared to offer solutions to its most pressing issues.This year’s incoming graduate students are already on campus for summer programming to build community and prepare them for the fall semester. In just a few short weeks, the School’s returning MPA2s will arrive, as will our undergraduate students, ready to tackle their junior papers and senior theses along with their classes.I’m proud that all of…
Group photo courtesy of Staughton Lewis.
News August 05, 2025
From Tokyo to Taipei: Shaping Policy in a Shifting Asia
Since 2022, graduate students from Princeton University and the University of Tokyo have met annually at the latter institution to present and discuss their research. The fourth annual workshop, examining the role of alliances in the turbulent world of U.S.-China competition, took place in early June and marked the conclusion of a year’s worth of Princeton SPIA programming and research with a special focus on Asia.“Princeton University, and our own School of Public and International Affairs, has a mission of preparing our students to be citizens of the world and global problem solvers,” said workshop organizer G. John Ikenberry, the Albert G. Milbank…
Lexi Madsen
News July 31, 2025
Exit Interview: Abortion Rights After the ‘Dobbs’ Decision
Exit Interview is an audio series produced by the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs. Co-hosts David Mayorga, associate dean of public affairs and communications, and Ambreen Ali, senior communications and media strategist, speak with graduating students who won prizes for their senior theses, which are the culmination of a year’s worth of research, interviews, and analysis on a policy topic.Lexi Madsen won the School of Public and International Affairs Thesis Prize, awarded to the seniors who write the best thesis on racial justice, for her work on what happened to abortion rights after the Supreme Court eliminated the…
Capital building with US flag
News July 30, 2025
Princeton SPIA Drives Bipartisan Effort to Inspire Congress to Reclaim Its Mandated Powers
From Harry Truman sending armed forces to Korea without a congressional declaration of war to Donald Trump diverting congressionally appropriated military funding to construct barricades along the southern border to Joe Biden unilaterally forgiving student-loan debts, presidents have spent the last three quarters of a century encroaching upon Congress’s congressionally mandated powers – often with Congress’s approval.Mickey Edwards, a former member of the U.S. House and currently a John L. Weinberg, Goldman Sachs & Co. Visiting Professor and visiting lecturer in public and international affairs at the Princeton School of Public and International…
SPIA accolades header
News July 30, 2025
SPIAccolades — July 2025
Zaid Al-Ali Zaid Al-Ali, a visiting research scholar, published “The Arab Region 15 Years After the Uprising: Regression, Conflict, and Residual Hope” in Constitutional Studies. In the piece, he notes that “the anticipated democratic reforms” in the wake of the Arab Spring “have largely failed to materialize.”Focusing on constitutional reform processes in Tunisia and Syria, Al-Ali notes that the former “has regressed into authoritarianism,” while the latter “has only recently witnessed major changes to its constitutional framework after fifteen years of brutal conflict.” He argues that those debating reforms erred on the challenges the region…