MIP Feature Friday: Isabelle Foster
Isabelle was an undergraduate student at Stanford who applied for the Ford Dorsey Master’s in International Policy (MIP) co-terminal program in her junior year. The co-term allowed her to take classes towards her master’s degree in her senior year. Isabelle, who is now technically a second-year master’s student, will graduate from MIP in June.
As an undergraduate student majoring in Public Policy and minoring in Economics, Isabelle Foster was able to build a practical skill set of both quantitative and qualitative capabilities, supplemented by classes that helped develop economic analysis skills. However, public policy is traditionally more domestic-focused — Isabelle was attracted to the MIP program because it would allow her to explore her interests in international topics.
“I really liked that the MIP program would allow me to take a lot of classes in areas that I hadn’t really explored, including a lot of the International Relations theoretical perspectives,” she recounted. “And the MIP program definitely had the flexibility and the ability to help me do that.”
Research focus on Paraguay and economic development
Isabelle’s concentration at MIP right now is Governance and Development — the specialization’s developmental framework builds heavily on her undergraduate studies in international development. Specifically, she has focused on Paraguay in Latin America, traveling, researching, and working in the country and learning about the development of its entrepreneurial ecosystem.
“I’ve been looking at the public-private partnerships that can help increase business opportunities and economic development as a means of broader development for the country at large.”
Her research interest in Paraguay sparked in her junior year at Stanford. She got connected with a student from the Graduate School of Business (GSB) interested in the region, and had also been taking a class on looking at ways to use technology to alleviate global poverty. Since then, the project has just been growing during her time at MIP.
“I’m doing an independent study this quarter focused on ethical finance in Paraguay and how that ties in with development,” she said. “It’s been very valuable to have this opportunity to take a directed reading class through MIP that ties in my research interest in a specific country.”
Taking classes in the MIP program
Isabelle is currently taking a class that approaches issues of development and poverty alleviation from a high fundamental level that exposes students to justice, philosophy, and human rights. She also highlighted a course taught by Ertharin Cousin, on the challenges of humanitarian response during conflict. Professor Cousin is a leading figure in the global fight to end hunger who served as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture (FAO) before taking on the role of executive director of the World Food Programme.
“A lot of the work that I have done in my research and in the past has been very grounded in practicality, so having this pairing of ‘how do we deliver aid to the places that need it right away,’ and another class about how we can think theoretically about poverty alleviation is really valuable,” she added.
The MIP program’s faculty are drawn from across Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) and other disciplines, including professors and lecturers from the departments of Computer Science, Earth System Science, Economics, and Communications, as well as the schools of Law, Business, and Medicine. They also vary in their experiences with both the world of academia and in the world of government and practice.
“When I was studying abroad in Vienna in the fall, there were so many times in class where the students or professors would mention, for example, ‘Francis Fukuyama, a professor at Stanford.’ I remember thinking, ‘but I’ve taken courses with them, or I know them,’” she said. “It was really amazing to see that these are the leading minds that people in universities around the world are talking about. And we get to take classes with them, and have personal office hours and conversations with them one-on-one.”
Isabelle was also awarded funding to attend an entrepreneurship conference in Helsinki, where she was able to learn more about economic development around the world and apply it to her research in Paraguay.
Studying in the heart of Silicon Valley
As an undergraduate, Isabelle was accepted into the Stanford in Washington (SIW) program and completed a full-time consulting internship with the World Bank. Now, she and several teammates are working directly with the World Bank as a part of their practicum project, a six-month long effort integrating research and policy that utilizes skills developed across disciplines.
According to Isabelle, a key part of the interdisciplinary nature of the MIP program stems from its location on Stanford in the heart of Silicon Valley.
“A lot of the big policy decisions happening in the world now are being driven by policy, and we sometimes see policy be reactive to what tech companies are doing,” she noticed. “There’s something to be said about just being in Silicon Valley and at school that has the technical capacity to address these issues.”
