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Student Staff

Alex Avaneszadeh is a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy 2023 candidate at The Fletcher School, focusing on Public International Law and International Negotiation and Conflict Resolution. He received his B.A. in Political Science from California Lutheran University and has worked in international development and peacebuilding prior to joining Fletcher. Alex previously interned at the Eurasia Partnership Foundation in Yerevan, Armenia, and at Search for Common Ground in Washington, D.C. He later served as a Development Coordinator and New Business Associate for Africa at DAI, and was a geopolitical analyst at Foreign Brief, publishing forward-looking analyses on upcoming political events in the post-Soviet space. He focuses on the geopolitical, economic, and energy security dynamics of the South Caucasus, and he speaks English and Armenian.
Sarah Baughn is a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy 2024 candidate at The Fletcher School, focusing on Comparative and Regional Studies as well as International Negotiation and Conflict Resolution. Areas of expertise include post-Soviet state politics, nationalism and authoritarianism, and East Asia-United States relations. Prior to attending Fletcher, Sarah received a B.A. in International Studies and Philosophy from Oglethorpe University in Atlanta. Following graduation, Sarah became a JET Program participant in Suzu, Japan from 2019 through 2021. In 2022, Sarah worked as an interim SIFE teacher in Nashville, Tennessee before matriculating to Fletcher. Sarah is a Senior Print Editor for the Fletcher Forum of World Affairs and has language proficiency in English, Japanese, Russian, and Spanish.
Hannah Campeanu is a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy 2024 candidate, focusing on human security and global governance. She holds a bachelor’s degree in English with a minor in business from George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. Prior to her studies at Fletcher, she worked in editorial roles in academic book publishing for six years, including at Oxford University Press on history and religion and at Springer Nature on gastroenterology, nephrology, and hematology. Her areas of interest are in migration and food security, and she is involved with planning for Fletcher’s student-run Religion, Law, and Diplomacy Conference.
Padmini Das is an India-trained lawyer who has written on a wide range of public interest and private sector matters. She has a diverse professional experience that includes corporate law, public policy, and financial news media. She has worked with representatives at the state and federal levels of the Indian government on issues such as legislative research, pollution control, women's safety, and conflict resolution. She is currently pursuing an LLM in International Law at The Fletcher School. She is a Senior Editor in The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, and her areas of research are international governance and security.
Mustafa Gül is a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy candidate at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Mustafa focuses on political risk, international finance, Turkish foreign policy, and Middle Eastern politics. Prior to Fletcher, he worked as a tax analyst for Ernst & Young in Istanbul. Mustafa was born and raised in Turkiye. He studied Political Science and International Relations at Boğaziçi University, and was an exchange student at American University of Beirut. Mustafa currently works as a Research Assistant for the Fletcher Russia and Eurasia Program. He also works as a Teaching Assistant at Tufts University, department of history. Mustafa is fluent in Turkish and English, and he has reading and basic conversational skills in Arabic.
Pratyusha Joshi is a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy candidate focusing on comparative and regional studies and international business. She holds a bachelor’s degree in international relations with a concentration in governance and peace from Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, Japan. Before re-entering the academic world, Pratyusha worked with the Press and Culture department of the Republic of Korea Embassy in India, and later worked with Brookings Institution India Center in development and outreach. At Fletcher, she holds leadership position with the Working Group on Strategic Competition in the Indo-Pacific, De-colonizing International Relations conference, and the Japan Club. She is trilingual with fluency in English, Hindi and Japanese.
Neeraja Kulkarni is a Master of Global Affairs 2023 candidate at The Fletcher School, focusing on Environmental Policy and International Development. Prior to joining Fletcher, Neeraja extensively worked in the development sector in India. She worked as a researcher in Sikkim, India, having published a research paper about understanding organic farming systems in Sikkim. Later, Neeraja worked as a researcher in an energy provisioning NGO, SELCO Foundation, where she focused on renewable agri-solutions for poverty alleviation. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she worked with Quicksand (a design consultancy) on a number of projects, including creating a community-sensitization tool for medical practitioners to use while conducting biomedical HIV clinical trials with underserved transgender communities. She speaks Hindi, Marathi, and English.
Vishal Manve is a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy candidate focusing on environment, business, and communications at The Fletcher School. Previously, Vishal has reported on the Indian economy, politics, and disinformation campaigns for international news wire Agence France-Presse and has been a fellow with CIVICUS, Climate Tracker, Splice Newsroom and CPL. Vishal has been published across The Diplomat, Fair Observer, AFP, Yahoo News, The Daily Beast, Global Voices Online, Open Democracy, International Journalism Festival, and Indian Express. Vishal has been a summer fellow for the Columbia Journalism Lede Program and is interested in how technology can aid energy transitioning in developing economies and the intersection of journalism and technology on mapping climate misinformation campaigns. Twitter: VishalManve12.
Anshu Meghe is a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy 2023 candidate at The Fletcher School, specializing in International Security and Development studies. Prior to coming to Fletcher, he worked with the Government of Maharashtra in India in various capacities to implement multi-agency projects in rural livelihoods, financial inclusion, and women entrepreneurship. He is passionate about developing approaches for economic policy implementation in conflict-ridden communities that accommodate culture and diversity to bring them to the economic forefront.
Caroline Nowak is an undergraduate at Tufts University dual majoring in Russian and East European Studies and International Relations with a concentration in identity, as well as minoring in Religion. Caroline previously interned with the Polish American Congress researching energy security in Europe. On campus, she is a member of Women in International Relations and Hemispheres: Tufts University Journal of International Affairs. She is primarily interested in Russian history and foreign policy, conflict prevention, and migration in the post-Soviet world. Caroline studies Russian and is also fluent in Spanish.
Marianna Schantz is an undergraduate senior at Tufts University, double-majoring in International Relations and Russian and Eastern European Studies. She is interested in foreign policy, geopolitics in the post-Soviet region, civil-military relations, and learning new languages. She currently serves as this year's Civil-Military Relations Conference Director for ALLIES, President of the Tufts Club Tennis Team, an Editorialist for The Tufts Daily, and a member of the Chi Omega Sorority. Marianna has professional working proficiency in French and limited working proficiency in Russian, and she is passionate about incorporating different languages while researching. She hopes to work in Washington D.C. full-time following her graduation in May 2023.
Alex Thomas is a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy 2023 candidate at The Fletcher School who focuses on International Security and Global Governance. His area of expertise is in Russian Foreign Policy, Central Asian Politics, and U.S.-Russian relations. Prior to attending Fletcher, Alex received his B.A. in International Political Economy and Environmental Studies from the College of Idaho and served as an English Education Specialist for the Peace Corps in Kyrgyzstan. In this capacity, Alex oversaw the development and implementation of a regional English language curriculum and gained grant-writing experience with USAID. Upon the completion of his service, Alex worked as a grassroots organizer for the 2020 presidential election in Wisconsin and was appointed as the Assistant Secretary of the Idaho Senate for the 2021 legislative session. Alex is a Senior Web Editor for the Fletcher Forum of World Affairs and speaks English, Spanish, Kyrgyz, and intermediate Russian.