The international area centers and programs that make up SGS have influenced the career decisions of thousands of students. Our alumni are truly global. They live throughout the world, have built careers around a diverse range of interests, and value many aspects of their global education since leaving Stanford.
Stanford provided many of them with the skills needed to be policy makers, diplomats, entrepreneurs, journalists, politicians, researchers, teachers, scholars, and global leaders. These paths may diverge, but the experience our students have gained has led them to be responsible citizens and active participants in an increasingly complex and interconnected world. Below they reflect on their professional experience as global citizens:
Zachary Witlin, MA ’12
Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies
"Since finishing my master’s with CREEES, I spent the better part of two years working in Moscow, first in education, and then in the private sector. I am now a political risk consultant for Eurasia Group, a position that depends heavily on my professional, academic, and personal knowledge and experience in the area."
Dolly Kikon, PhD ’13
Center for South Asia
"As an anthropologist who studies South Asia, I see area studies not as a geographically bounded domain of knowledge, but an intersection that enables theoretical questions and intellectual dialogues to connect with pressing issues such as human rights, justice, and equality."
Sarah Abrevaya Stein, PhD ’99
Taube Center for Jewish Studies
"Stanford is one of the rare universities where Jewish Studies is a subset of International Studies, which reflects its commitment to understanding and teaching Jewish history and culture as a thread in a global tapestry. This approach has continued to inform my own teaching and research as a scholar at UCLA."
Walter Thompson-Hernandez, MA ’14
Center for Latin American Studies
"LAS focused my academic interests by creating a strong foundation for my research on immigration and race relations in the U.S. and throughout Latin America, which I use today as a researcher at the University of Southern California Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration (CSII)."
