Rabia Ali was born and raised in Lahore, Pakistan, and graduated from Princeton University in 2004. During her senior year, she served as a fellow on the Religious Life Council, and represented the Council at the World Parliament of Religions in Barcelona in 2004. Subsequently, she worked for a year as a research assistant at the Center for Health & Wellbeing at Princeton University and then moved to South Africa to work at a demographic surveillance site in rural KwaZulu-Natal. She joined the MPA program at the WWS with a focus on international development. After completing her first year at WWS, she took a year out to work with the Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative in Cambodia, and spent the year working with the Cambodian government on strengthening health capacity and services, specifically those relating to nutrition and HIV/AIDS. Rabia is interested in the role that religious identity plays in sociopolitical development of communities at the domestic level within countries, as well as in shaping international relations at the state level in the global political arena.
Efe M. Balikcioglu is a junior in the Philosophy Department concentrating on political philosophy. In addition, he is doing certificates in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs as well as Near Eastern Studies; therefore, his area of interest and study lies mostly where politics, religion, and philosophy intersect. Being Turkish himself, he is interested in the political and religious aspects of the Middle Eastern culture. He is particularly fascinated by Judaic (Kabbala) and Islamic (Sufism) philosophies as well as the development of current trends in the Western philosophy. He has recently taken courses on German Idealism and the Continental political thought; and has further developed a keen interest in the Frankfurt School and the French Post-Structuralism. He has published four books of poetry in Turkish; and numerous articles on art, literature, and philosophy in Turkish and American literary journals like Adam Sanat, Cehd, Heves, Jacket, Kitap-lık, Mahfil, Sanat Dünyamız, Talisman, Varlık, and Yasakmeyve. Together with the noted American poet Sidney Wade, he is currently working on the English translations of Melih Cevdet Anday’s poems.
Jaquilyn Waddell Boie is a Doctoral student in the Princeton Department of Politics with specializations in International Relations and Methods. Prior to attending Princeton, Jaquilyn completed a Master's of Public Policy with concentrations in Policy Analysis, International Minority Rights, and Human Rights at the University of Minnesota. While completing her Master's, Jaquilyn served as an Upper Midwest Human Rights Fellow with HOPE International, a non-denominational Christian microfinance INGO, at its Eastern European Regional Headquarters in Ukraine. Jaquilyn's research interests lie in minority repression and, more specifically, the roles various aspects of minority identities, including religious and faith identities, play in instances of repression.
Nicole Brunda is currently a second year Master’s student at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. After spending the entirety of her primary and secondary education in Catholic school, she received her B.A. from Swarthmore College with a major in Economics and a minor in Peace and Conflict Studies, for which she focused on better understanding the influences of religion and religious institutions in both instigating and mediating against religious conflict. She spent the 2007-2008 academic year as a Boren National Security Fellow in Lucknow, India, where she worked with an organization researching the potential for microfinance in eliminating rural poverty and also had the opportunity to engage with a variety of religious perspectives in one of India’s most historically multicultural cities.
Asher D. Hildebrand is a second-year Master’s in Public Affairs candidate at the Woodrow Wilson School concentrating in international relations, with a regional focus on the Middle East and a topical focus on conflict prevention and resolution. Prior to coming to Princeton, he spent several years as a legislative aide in the U.S. Congress, and he recently returned from a summer in Beirut, Lebanon, working for an election assistance organization. Asher was raised in Asheville, North Carolina, and has a longstanding interest in the intersection between faith and public affairs.
Katharina A. Ivanyi is a third year Ph.D. student in the Near Eastern Studies Department, working mostly on Islamic intellectual history of the early modern period. Originally from Austria, she came to Princeton via Oxford, where she did her B.A. in Arabic and Hebrew, as well as an M.Phil. in Modern Middle Eastern Studies.
Deepa Iyer is a senior in the Woodrow Wilson School/Finance departments from Las Vegas, Nevada. Her research interests include development economics, international migration, and ethnic conflict, especially in South Asia. She is currently engaged in writing her thesis on remittance usage and the process of financial deepening in Kerala, India. On campus, she loves being an RCA, a fellow of the Religious Life Council and PIIRS, and was a president of the Princeton Hindu Satsangam.
Alicia Juskewycz is a Ph.D. candidate in sociology. She studies social understandings of the categorical domain of religion, particularly how cultural conceptualizations of religion (mapping varied uses of a phrase in the mass media; identifying the assumptions about religion people use in everyday thinking) are related to formal political events and sociodemographic trends (new diplomacy related to religious human rights; the role of unequal global powers in constructing the changing assumptions associated with religion). Alicia’s current research examines the idea of “religious freedom” as a culturally situated concept, product, and diplomatic export within the US context and implications for varied geographies, religious groups, and human rights considerations. Her interest in these ideas was first piqued by being raised and educated in a culturally separatist neo-Hindu group in rural Iowa, and she is also interested in working to better link understandings of marginal and extreme belief-focused groups to general thinking about religion and politics.
Rohan Mukherjee is a second-year student focusing on international development in the MPA program of the Woodrow Wilson School. He returns to the school after a middle year out in his home city of New Delhi, where he worked in a public policy think tank on a wide variety of issues including low-income urban housing, higher education policy and Indian foreign policy. In the past he has worked with indigenous communities in eastern India, with the Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative in Lesotho and for the National Knowledge Commission, an advisory body to the Prime Minister of India. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from the University of Oxford. His academic interests are in international affairs and the political economy of development, particularly the impact of institutions and ideologies on policy outcomes.
Daniel Nikbakht is a student at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. His academic interests include diplomacy, development, and Near Eastern studies. Daniel has travelled to multiple countries in the Middle East and speaks Farsi fluently. As an undergraduate associate of the Liechtenstein Institute on Self Determination, Daniel has helped organize multiple international private colloquiums, including those in Brussels, Vienna, and Bonn. In addition to his interest in crisis diplomacy, he is dedicated to improving livelihoods in Afghanistan. Daniel founded "Princeton Development Group," a team of students who engage in research and dialogue on development issues. Currently, his work is on enterprise growth in Afghanistan. Previously, he served as a research assistant on East Asian affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School, and worked in television news at News 12 Long Island. Daniel attends meetings at the International Relations Council, and was a former Assistant Director of Special Programs at Princeton Model Congress.
Jan Thomas Otte takes MPA courses in negotiation, crisis diplomacy, and ethics at Woodrow Wilson School. In the “Program on Religion, Diplomacy, and International Relations” the post-grad scholar’s main goal is to analyze international strategies, point out solutions to conflicts, and reduce complexity. Previously, Jan Thomas Otte has been studying theology at the elite university of Heidelberg, Germany. He has earned degrees in business administration and psychology. Through international programs Jan Thomas Otte has lived in the Middle East, Jerusalem, and the Vatican over a period of several months. Since 2000 Jan Thomas Otte works as a freelance journalist focusing on economical and religious issues. He has been a scholar of the Konrad Adenauer-Foundation’s journalist academy. His articles are published in Germany’s most popular magazines and newspapers. The Princetonian scholar has been nominated for Europe’s most renowned journalist award “CIVIS” (sponsored by the European Union Parliament). For an article on business ethics Otte has been nominated for the “Wings of Excellence” award at St. Gallen University, Switzerland. Currently, Jan Thomas Otte writes a book on “Faith and Finance. How to survive on Wall Street with Christian Values.”
Daniel V. Polk is a first-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Anthropology at Princeton. In 2008 he graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in history at the University of California, Riverside. His past research has focused on the effect of religious beliefs on human rights advocacy along the U.S./Mexico border. His current research interests include transnational trade law in Latin America, the role of religious ideologies in commerce and international relations, and ethnographic approaches to the study of law.
Ed Shin is a second-year Master in Public Affairs candidate focusing on international relations at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. He taught English and served on the leadership team of Educational Services International in Urumqi and Beijing and worked on HIV/AIDS prevention and anti-trafficking education programs in Cambodia for World Education. This past summer, he worked on Japan issues in the Asian and Pacific Security Affairs section of the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Ed is an avid fan of the Boston Red Sox and the Georgetown Hoyas.
Lachlyn Soper is a student of Public Affairs in the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University. She has worked for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees in Jerusalem and Damascus, and has lived in several countries throughout the Islamic world. Her academic interests include the ascendant role of Gulf states in regional diplomacy, as well as reeducation programs for returned Guantanamo detainees. She speaks Arabic, Indonesian, Japanese, and some Farsi.
Alan Verskin is a Ph.D. student in Near Eastern Studies. Prior to coming
to Princeton, he completed an M.A. at the Divinity School of the
University of Chicago. His dissertation deals with the response of the
nineteenth century Moroccan jurists to European political control and influence in North Africa.
Rabia Ali was born and raised in Lahore, Pakistan, and graduated from Princeton University in 2004. During her senior year, she served as a fellow on the Religious Life Council, and represented the Council at the World Parliament of Religions in Barcelona in 2004. Subsequently, she worked for a year as a research assistant at the Center for Health & Wellbeing at Princeton University and then moved to South Africa to work at a demographic surveillance site in rural KwaZulu-Natal. She joined the MPA program at the WWS with a focus on international development. After completing her first year at WWS, she took a year out to work with the Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative in Cambodia, and spent the year working with the Cambodian government on strengthening health capacity and services, specifically those relating to nutrition and HIV/AIDS. Rabia is interested in the role that religious identity plays in sociopolitical development of communities at the domestic level within countries, as well as in shaping international relations at the state level in the global political arena. 
Efe M. Balikcioglu is a junior in the Philosophy Department concentrating on political philosophy. In addition, he is doing certificates in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs as well as Near Eastern Studies; therefore, his area of interest and study lies mostly where politics, religion, and philosophy intersect. Being Turkish himself, he is interested in the political and religious aspects of the Middle Eastern culture. He is particularly fascinated by Judaic (Kabbala) and Islamic (Sufism) philosophies as well as the development of current trends in the Western philosophy. He has recently taken courses on German Idealism and the Continental political thought; and has further developed a keen interest in the Frankfurt School and the French Post-Structuralism. He has published four books of poetry in Turkish; and numerous articles on art, literature, and philosophy in Turkish and American literary journals like Adam Sanat, Cehd, Heves, Jacket, Kitap-lık, Mahfil, Sanat Dünyamız, Talisman, Varlık, and Yasakmeyve. Together with the noted American poet Sidney Wade, he is currently working on the English translations of Melih Cevdet Anday’s poems.
Jaquilyn Waddell Boie is a Doctoral student in the Princeton Department of Politics with specializations in International Relations and Methods. Prior to attending Princeton, Jaquilyn completed a Master's of Public Policy with concentrations in Policy Analysis, International Minority Rights, and Human Rights at the University of Minnesota. While completing her Master's, Jaquilyn served as an Upper Midwest Human Rights Fellow with HOPE International, a non-denominational Christian microfinance INGO, at its Eastern European Regional Headquarters in Ukraine. Jaquilyn's research interests lie in minority repression and, more specifically, the roles various aspects of minority identities, including religious and faith identities, play in instances of repression.
Nicole Brunda is currently a second year Master’s student at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. After spending the entirety of her primary and secondary education in Catholic school, she received her B.A. from Swarthmore College with a major in Economics and a minor in Peace and Conflict Studies, for which she focused on better understanding the influences of religion and religious institutions in both instigating and mediating against religious conflict. She spent the 2007-2008 academic year as a Boren National Security Fellow in Lucknow, India, where she worked with an organization researching the potential for microfinance in eliminating rural poverty and also had the opportunity to engage with a variety of religious perspectives in one of India’s most historically multicultural cities.
Asher D. Hildebrand is a second-year Master’s in Public Affairs candidate at the Woodrow Wilson School concentrating in international relations, with a regional focus on the Middle East and a topical focus on conflict prevention and resolution. Prior to coming to Princeton, he spent several years as a legislative aide in the U.S. Congress, and he recently returned from a summer in Beirut, Lebanon, working for an election assistance organization. Asher was raised in Asheville, North Carolina, and has a longstanding interest in the intersection between faith and public affairs.
Katharina A. Ivanyi is a third year Ph.D. student in the Near Eastern Studies Department, working mostly on Islamic intellectual history of the early modern period. Originally from Austria, she came to Princeton via Oxford, where she did her B.A. in Arabic and Hebrew, as well as an M.Phil. in Modern Middle Eastern Studies.
Deepa Iyer is a senior in the Woodrow Wilson School/Finance departments from Las Vegas, Nevada. Her research interests include development economics, international migration, and ethnic conflict, especially in South Asia. She is currently engaged in writing her thesis on remittance usage and the process of financial deepening in Kerala, India. On campus, she loves being an RCA, a fellow of the Religious Life Council and PIIRS, and was a president of the Princeton Hindu Satsangam.
Alicia Juskewycz is a Ph.D. candidate in sociology. She studies social understandings of the categorical domain of religion, particularly how cultural conceptualizations of religion (mapping varied uses of a phrase in the mass media; identifying the assumptions about religion people use in everyday thinking) are related to formal political events and sociodemographic trends (new diplomacy related to religious human rights; the role of unequal global powers in constructing the changing assumptions associated with religion). Alicia’s current research examines the idea of “religious freedom” as a culturally situated concept, product, and diplomatic export within the US context and implications for varied geographies, religious groups, and human rights considerations. Her interest in these ideas was first piqued by being raised and educated in a culturally separatist neo-Hindu group in rural Iowa, and she is also interested in working to better link understandings of marginal and extreme belief-focused groups to general thinking about religion and politics.
Rohan Mukherjee is a second-year student focusing on international development in the MPA program of the Woodrow Wilson School. He returns to the school after a middle year out in his home city of New Delhi, where he worked in a public policy think tank on a wide variety of issues including low-income urban housing, higher education policy and Indian foreign policy. In the past he has worked with indigenous communities in eastern India, with the Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative in Lesotho and for the National Knowledge Commission, an advisory body to the Prime Minister of India. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from the University of Oxford. His academic interests are in international affairs and the political economy of development, particularly the impact of institutions and ideologies on policy outcomes.
Daniel Nikbakht is a student at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. His academic interests include diplomacy, development, and Near Eastern studies. Daniel has travelled to multiple countries in the Middle East and speaks Farsi fluently. As an undergraduate associate of the Liechtenstein Institute on Self Determination, Daniel has helped organize multiple international private colloquiums, including those in Brussels, Vienna, and Bonn. In addition to his interest in crisis diplomacy, he is dedicated to improving livelihoods in Afghanistan. Daniel founded "Princeton Development Group," a team of students who engage in research and dialogue on development issues. Currently, his work is on enterprise growth in Afghanistan. Previously, he served as a research assistant on East Asian affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School, and worked in television news at News 12 Long Island. Daniel attends meetings at the International Relations Council, and was a former Assistant Director of Special Programs at Princeton Model Congress.
Jan Thomas Otte takes MPA courses in negotiation, crisis diplomacy, and ethics at Woodrow Wilson School. In the “Program on Religion, Diplomacy, and International Relations” the post-grad scholar’s main goal is to analyze international strategies, point out solutions to conflicts, and reduce complexity. Previously, Jan Thomas Otte has been studying theology at the elite university of Heidelberg, Germany. He has earned degrees in business administration and psychology. Through international programs Jan Thomas Otte has lived in the Middle East, Jerusalem, and the Vatican over a period of several months. Since 2000 Jan Thomas Otte works as a freelance journalist focusing on economical and religious issues. He has been a scholar of the Konrad Adenauer-Foundation’s journalist academy. His articles are published in Germany’s most popular magazines and newspapers. The Princetonian scholar has been nominated for Europe’s most renowned journalist award “CIVIS” (sponsored by the European Union Parliament). For an article on business ethics Otte has been nominated for the “Wings of Excellence” award at St. Gallen University, Switzerland. Currently, Jan Thomas Otte writes a book on “Faith and Finance. How to survive on Wall Street with Christian Values.”
Daniel V. Polk is a first-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Anthropology at Princeton. In 2008 he graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in history at the University of California, Riverside. His past research has focused on the effect of religious beliefs on human rights advocacy along the U.S./Mexico border. His current research interests include transnational trade law in Latin America, the role of religious ideologies in commerce and international relations, and ethnographic approaches to the study of law.
Ed Shin is a second-year Master in Public Affairs candidate focusing on international relations at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. He taught English and served on the leadership team of Educational Services International in Urumqi and Beijing and worked on HIV/AIDS prevention and anti-trafficking education programs in Cambodia for World Education. This past summer, he worked on Japan issues in the Asian and Pacific Security Affairs section of the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Ed is an avid fan of the Boston Red Sox and the Georgetown Hoyas.
Lachlyn Soper is a student of Public Affairs in the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University. She has worked for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees in Jerusalem and Damascus, and has lived in several countries throughout the Islamic world. Her academic interests include the ascendant role of Gulf states in regional diplomacy, as well as reeducation programs for returned Guantanamo detainees. She speaks Arabic, Indonesian, Japanese, and some Farsi.
Alan Verskin is a Ph.D. student in Near Eastern Studies. Prior to coming
to Princeton, he completed an M.A. at the Divinity School of the
University of Chicago. His dissertation deals with the response of the
nineteenth century Moroccan jurists to European political control and influence in North Africa. 