Volume 36 | 2024-2025

EDITORS-IN-CHIEF

Diana Chavez-Varela

Diana Chavez-Varela is a second-year Master in Public Affairs at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs. Diana recently completed an overseas fellowship in the Political Section of the U.S. Mission to the European Union in Brussels. Before Princeton, Diana conducted casework for refugees at the International Rescue Committee and led investigations into humanitarian crises as a manager at UC Berkeley’s Human Rights Center. She co-authored an AI and Child Rights report with UNICEF and presented her research to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet. Through a fully-funded educational scholarship, she engaged with policymakers in Oman, the UAE, and Jordan on conflict resolution. Following graduation, Diana co-founded the Global Community College Transfers organization to destigmatize educational pathways for community college students. As a full-time analyst at Deloitte, Diana provided strategic risk analysis to C-Suite executives of multinational organizations. Diana holds a B.A. in Political Economy from the University of California, Berkeley, and is a 2022 Thomas R. Pickering Foreign Affairs fellow. Her interests include language exchange, film photography, and making new recipes.

Ariel Munczek Edelman

Ariel is a born-and-raised New Yorker and a second-year MPA student focusing on urban and social policy. Their interest in public policy developed out of their undergraduate work on the political economy of drag performance. After graduating with High Honors in Sociology from Wesleyan University, Ariel provided research and technical assistance for a number of federal agencies, including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Food and Nutrition Service. Ariel then managed New York City's financial counseling programs at the city's Department of Consumer and Worker Protection. With the Democracy at Work Institute, they helped develop a technical assistance program for city governments that want to grow local worker cooperative ecosystems. They are particularly interested in policy work that expands affordable housing, solidarity economies, and alternatives to policing and prisons.

DEPUTY EDITORS-IN-CHIEF

Caroline Sager

Caroline is a first-year MPA student concentrating on international relations. Her last roles were in Baku, Azerbaijan, where she worked for American Councils as a Program Director and as a consultant for nongovernmental organizations focusing on democratic development in the region. Prior to this, she was a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant in Nicosia, Cyprus, where she taught English in Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities and volunteered with peace building and environmental initiatives. She is passionate about intersections of climate change, conflict, and migration policy. She holds a BA in Linguistics and a BS in International and Comparative Politics from Appalachian State University. Caroline loves language learning, photography, and trying new food.

Stefan Tobias

Stefan is a first-year MPA student at the School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA). Before coming to Princeton, he worked as a civil servant with the Government of India. In his most recent role with the government, he was a member of the Project Management Unit set up to implement a USD 100 million citizen-centric digital transformation program. At Princeton, Stefan hopes to deepen his interest in the development of capacity building mechanisms in public institutions through the design of evidence-based policies and the introduction of technology. He holds a BA in Economics from St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai.

MANAGING EDITOR

Jennifer Williams

Jennifer Williams most recently worked as the Special Assistant for Research to the President at the Council on Foreign Relations. There, she conducted research on foreign policy issues connected to the work of the then-President Richard Haass and served as lead researcher for his latest book, "The Bill of Obligations." With an honors degree in International Studies and a minor in International Economics from Vassar College, Jennifer focused her academic studies on global affairs and Middle East studies. After briefly exploring the legal field as a paralegal, Jennifer returned to her true passion, foreign policy, in 2020. Her expertise is bolstered by significant experiences abroad, including two U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholarships in Jordan and Morocco,  a year-long study abroad student in Egypt, and the Vassar Ann Cornelisen Graduate fellowship in Jordan. These endeavors not only honed her Arabic skills but also nuanced her understanding of regional dynamics. In her free time she loves to play and watch soccer, in particular her favorite team, Arsenal FC.

DEPUTY MANAGING EDITOR

Patrick McCabe

Patrick McCabe is an MPA student at Princeton SPIA pursuing his interests in humanitarian assistance and diplomacy. He most recently worked as a Program Associate in the Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA) at the U.S. Agency for International Development. At BHA, Patrick managed humanitarian assistance partnerships with NGOs and UN agencies while working on the Levant Response Management Team in D.C. and the Ukraine Disaster Assistance Response Team in Kyiv. Before working at USAID, Patrick completed a fellowship with the International Organization for Migration in northern Morocco. He speaks Spanish and Arabic and received a Boren Scholarship to study in Jordan. Patrick is a Truman Scholar and holds a BA in Political Science, Arabic, and International Peace Studies from the University of Notre Dame, where he conducted independent research and completed a thesis on Moroccan migration diplomacy. He enjoys hiking, language learning, and exploring new music.

DIGITAL EDITORS

Paco Gonzalez

Paco is an MPA student and Fulbright Scholar from Guadalajara, Mexico. At SPIA, he is pursuing his interests in urban development and climate policy in Latin America. Before coming to Princeton, Paco worked in Mexico City as a public policy analyst at Fundación IDEA, providing technical assistance to criminal justice institutions across the country. He holds a BA in Political Science from NYU Abu Dhabi. Paco enjoys learning languages, eating and talking about Mexican food and exploring new places.

Michelle Zhang

Michelle is a PhD student in Security Studies at Princeton University's School of Public and International Affairs. Her research interests focus primarily on the issues of limited resources and competition in the space sector and how those aspects affect the policies driving the operationalization and commercialization of space technologies. She is also interested in the intersections between space and cybersecurity. Prior to Princeton, she worked for the FBI in the New York Field Office after interning in the Cincinnati Field Office. Michelle holds a dual B.A. in English and Security & Intelligence with a minor in Japanese from The Ohio State University.

DEPUTY DIGITAL EDITOR

Mera Cronbaugh

Mera is a first-year MPA student focused on urban and social policy in the US. She is interested in advocating for public benefits expansion and social policies developed by the communities they will most impact. Before SPIA, Mera was a Senior Policy Associate at J-PAL North America where she supported U.S. state and local governments in evaluating their policies and programs. Her favorite project was working on an initiative encouraging community engagement in government-led evaluations. Mera has a BS in economics and Russian with a minor in consumer and family financial planning from The Ohio State University. She loves to cook, read poetry, and explore her faith by learning about theology. 

COMMUNICATIONS COORDINATOR

Sophia Kierstead

Sophia Kierstead is pursuing a Master’s in Public Affairs at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs. Before coming to Princeton, Sophia was a Research Associate for the Stimson Center’s South Asia Program and Managing Editor of South Asian Voices, an online policy platform for strategic analysis on South Asia’s security, political, and economic affairs. Among other roles, she served as the South & Central Asia Analyst for the U.S. Department of State’s Overseas Security Advisory Council as a security and crisis liaison to the U.S. private sector. Her previous work explored digital media and radicalization, producing research for the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Chicago Project on Security and Threats. Sophia received her B.A. in Political Science from the University of Chicago.