About YPFP
YPFP. Fostering the Next Generation of America’s Foreign Policy Leadership
Our Mission
Young Professionals in Foreign Policy is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization committed to fostering the next generation of America's foreign policy leadership. We dedicate ourselves to honest, informed, thoughtful discussion of international affairs, to the professional advancement, intellectual development, and personal growth of our members, to camaraderie within our community, and to public service.
Our Vision
The nation’s brightest young people – informed, engaged and involved in foreign policy – forming an enduring community based on common goals, mutual interests, and shared values, to develop the leadership, knowledge, skills, and relationships needed to manage international affairs and guide American foreign policy into the future.
Our Expansion
Young Professionals in Foreign Policy began as a small discussion group of friends meeting occasionally to talk about foreign policy and discuss our career choices. Roughly two years later, YPFP is a vibrant organization expanding in size, scope, and depth at an astonishing pace.
Membership
In April 2007, YPFP accepted its eight-hundredth members, and we receive new applications every day. Our members are the best and brightest young men and women entering the field of foreign policy. They are employed by the leading public and private foreign policy institutions, and represent remarkable political, cultural, and intellectual diversity. They are indeed the next generation of America’s foreign policy leadership.
Events
YPFP hosts numerous events every month, some times as often as three in one week; and the increase in frequency has been paired with an increase in quality. Our guests include high-ranking government officials, Nobel prize-winning scholars, foreign ambassadors, experienced professionals, and business and non-profit leaders. We offer our members a rare opportunity for private, frank, small-group interaction with leaders in the field. Afterwards, we host happy hours that give our members a chance to meet other people with similar interests and goals and develop a deep and broad professional network.
We have several distinct types of meetings: the Policy Discussion Series, the Tools of the Trade Series, YPFP Middle East, the Global Development Series, and the YPFP Dinner Series. This Spring we will launch two more: the Civil Military Dialogue, and YPFP Asia. We look forward to launching new series in the future to provide you with even more focused, in-depth discussions and more opportunities to join multiple communities centered around increasingly specific topics and regions.
London
We are very pleased to announce that YPFP launched a chapter in London, which has grown at an unprecedented pace. In a few short months, YPFP London has acquired a listserv of hundreds of young professionals and students, and is developing relationships with leading British think tanks, societies, and universities. The chapter holds monthly discussions just like the Washington chapter, as well as an annual lecture.
Service
In addition to the event programming, we launched a service project last year, YPFP in the Classroom. This effort partners with Teach for America Fellows to help educate inner city youth about international affairs. This effort is expanding dramatically this year to reach out to more students in more classrooms across Washington.
Website
We also launched our own blog this year, ten contributors posting regularly, and members commenting about a wide variety of topics in international affairs ranging from the gravely serious to the surprising or humorous. Check it out at www.ypfp.org/blog.
Since this website was launched about a year ago, it has attracted over 120,000 hits from six continents. Our website features a clearinghouse of free events across town, job postings, and original and reproduced articles written by our members. Any of our members can contribute to these pages.
Resources
To meet the growing organizational demands of this rapid expansion, YPFP now has over thirty volunteers working on different aspects of managing our growth, planning events, contributing to this website, and recruiting new members. To achieve these goals, we will launch a Capital Campaign in 2007 to match our potential with the resources needed to fulfill it.
Thank you for visiting our website and for your interest in YPFP. I hope you will apply for membership and join our community. Please do not hesitate to contact me at Joshua.Marcuse@ypfp.org if you have any questions or suggestions.
Sincerely,
Joshua J. Marcuse
President, YPFP
YPFP’s Leadership
Joshua J. Marcuse President & CEO
Sean Oh Treasurer & Vice-President, Finance
Joel T. Meyer Founder and Advisor to the Board of Directors
Jeff Friedman Vice-President, Programming
Alex Petersen Vice-President, London
Rob Pierson Vice-President, Technology
Sonia Tarantolo Vice-President, Membership & Outreach
Mara Tchalakov Vice-President, Service & Chair, YPFP in the Classroom
Laura Conniff Chair, YPFP Asia
Noah Kanter Chair, Civil-Military Dialogue & Chair, 2007 Annual Conference
Akanksha Hazari Chair, YPFP Middle East
Jenny Tolan Chair, Global Development Series
Ginger Turner Chair, Global Development Series
Michelle Brunner Coordinator, Finance & Deputy Treasurer
John Burgeson Coordinator, Membership & Outreach
Meaghan Casey Coordinator, YPFP in the Classroom, Partnerships
Devin Finn Coordinator, Special Projects
Arielle Goren Coordinator, YPFP in the Classroom, Curriculum
Derek Grossman Coordinator, Programming
Amy Norris Coordinator, YPFP in the Classroom, Recruitment
Katherine Tobin Coordinator, Service Projects
Nathan Puffer Adviser
Michael Sellman Chair, Financial Group
YPFP in the Classroom Teacher Corps
Joshua J. Marcuse
President & CEO
Josh is a consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton, where he supports clients in the Department of Defense. Previously, he was a Research Associate at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, DC, where he worked on national security, defense, transatlantic relations, and international trade. Josh has interned at the Institute for National Strategic Studies and the U.S. Senate. He is an associate of the Truman National Security Project and the Council on Emerging National Security Affairs. Josh graduated from Dartmouth College and is the Vice-President of the Dartmouth Club of Washington. His honors thesis, The Arsenal of Democracy in the Age of Terror: Evaluating the Effectiveness of Military Assistance as a Counterterrorism Strategy, received the Chase Peace Prize. Josh is from New York City.
Sean Oh
Treasurer & Vice-President, Finance
Sean is a Legislative Assistant for Congresswoman Sue Kelly. He handles foreign policy as well as other legislative issues. Previously, he was an Associate at the political communications firm, Chlopak, Leonard & Schecter. He graduated from Dartmouth College, where he founded www.collegevoter.org.
Joel T. Meyer
Founder and Advisor to the Board of Directors
Joel founded YPFP in October 2004 and served as its first president until April 2005. He is now a juris doctor candidate at the American University Washington College of Law where he serves on the Editorial Board of the Administrative Law Review, which published his comment, Supervising the Pentagon: Covert Action and Traditional Military Activities in the War on Terror, in June 2007. He will join the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld as an associate beginning in Fall 2008. Prior to attending law school, Joel directed grassroots development projects with poor, urban communities in Kampala, Uganda after working at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, DC. He is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University. His analyses have been published in the South China Morning Post, the Asia Times, and the Taipei Times, and he is a contributor to the Power and Interest News Report.
Jeff Friedman
Vice-President, Programming
Jeff is a Research Associate for Defense Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. Previously, he was a consultant for the World Bank designing anti-corruption legislation, and a research analyst at the Olin Center for Strategic Studies studying security sector reform in post-conflict reconstruction. He graduated from Harvard University in 2005.
Alexandros Petersen
Vice-President, Global Operations
Alexandros Petersen is an Adjunct Fellow with the CSIS Russia and Eurasia Program. He is also Policy Adviser with ISS Group in Brussels, Associate Scholar at the Center for European Policy Analysis in Washington. Previously, he served as Program Director of the Caspian Europe Center in Brussels, Senior ACD Researcher at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, Deputy Director of the Henry Jackson Society, as well as founder and Vice President in charge of YPFP's London branch. In 2006, he was a Visiting Scholar at the Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies. He has also provided research for the U.S. National Petroleum Council's Geopolitics and Policy Task Group and research support for the Council on Foreign Relations Task Force on Russian-American Relations.
Petersen regularly provides analysis for publications such as The Economist, Wall Street Journal, International Herald Tribune, Boston Globe, Moscow Times, Kyiv Post, Turkish Daily News, and Georgia Today, among many others. He is also a frequent contributor to journals such as Europe's World, Insight Turkey, and the Journal of International Security Affairs. He received a B.A. in War Studies with first class honors from King's College London and an M.Sc. in International Relations from the London School of Economics.
Rob Pierson
Vice-President, Technology
Rob is a Congressional Aide for a Congressman from the Silicon Valley. Prior to beginning his job in the House of Representatives, Rob was an intern for Senator Chuck Schumer. Before coming to DC he spent a year in Israel doing the Otzma fellowship. While in Israel, he taught English to Bedouins and started a youth group for refugees from the South Lebanese Army. He graduated from Reed College after becoming Editor-in-Chief of the Reed College Quest.
Sonia Tarantolo
Vice-President, Membership & Outreach
Sonia works for the U.S. Department of State in the Operations Center, the Department's 24-hour crisis management hub and nerve center. She graduated with honors from Dartmouth College in 2004 with a double major in International Relations and Romance Languages. She completed two lengthy independent research papers for her respective majors, and was awarded the Harvey Prize for outstanding work in French and Italian language, literature, and civilization.
Mara Tchalakov
Vice-President, Service & Chair, YPFP in the Classroom
Mara is an international policy analyst with the President's Council of Economic Advisers at the White House. She works with a small team of economists and academics to advise the White House and Cabinet-level agencies on international economic policy issues. Mara focused on international economic policy, foreign affairs and international law at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University where she wrote her undergraduate thesis on the legal challenges of international sovereign debt reform.
Laura Conniff
Chair, YPFP Asia
Laura is a Research Assistant for Foreign and Defense Policy at the American Enterprise Institute, where she focuses on East Asian policy issues. She graduated from Columbia University.
Noah Kanter
Chair, Civil-Military Dialogue & Chair, 2007 Annual Conference
Noah works for Arete Associates on a range of defense issues. Previously, he was a captain in the U.S. Army, where he served in Iraq. He majored in Chemistry at Cornell University.
Akanksha Hazari
Chair, YPFP Middle East
Akanksha Hazari is currently an energy consultant with Booz and Company Inc., with a specialization in renewable energy. Prior to joining Booz&Co, Ms. Hazari was Project Manager of the Middle East Strategy Group (MESG) at the Aspen Institute, where she managed and developed MESG's economic projects in Gaza and the West Bank. She was part of the team that developed and launched the Aspen Middle East Investment Initiative in Ramallah, and also the Aspen US-Iran Dialogue Initiative. Ms. Hazari has spoken and participated in numerous leadership summits and conferences on topics related to Middle East, economic development and conflict resolution. Hazari graduated from Princeton University with a B.A. in International Relations & Diplomacy and Near East Studies. She is a former professional squash player, ranked No.1 in HK, and among the top 20 junior players in the world. Hazari speaks French, Arabic, Urdu, Hindi, Marahti, and is currently learning Farsi and Mandarin.
Jenny Tolan
Chair, Global Development Series
Jenny Tolan is a development associate at the Global Fund for Children (GFC). She works on corporate and foundation relations as well as with GFC's Global Media Ventures program. Prior to joining GFC, Jenny worked at Partners for Democratic Change, an organization devoted to building sustainable local capacity and conflict management worldwide. Jenny has spent time in South Africa, volunteering with the Masoyi Home Based Care Project and conducting research on women and AIDS vulnerability. Her research has been published in the Stanford Undergraduate Research Journal and the Roosevelt Review, a publication of the nation's first student think tank. Jenny graduated from Stanford University with a bachelor's degree in international relations and a minor in Spanish language and speaks Spanish.
Ginger Turner
Chair, Global Development Series
Ginger Turner is a Junior Professional Associate in the Office of the Chief Economist at the World Bank. She works primarily as a research assistant for Alan Gelb, the Director of Development Policy, on issues of aid effectiveness and private sector development in Africa. Before coming to the World Bank, she helped start a joint venture to manufacture low-cost lighting for the poor in India, which has been featured recently in Time, the Economist, and on NPR, and she continues to manage a development enterprise for low-cost lighting in South Africa. She has also published two books on American history topics. Ginger holds a B.A. in Economics and an M.S. in Management Science & Engineering from Stanford University, and will pursue a D.Phil. in Economics in fall 2007 at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar.
Michelle Brunner
Coordinator, Finance & Deputy Treasurer
Michelle is a paralegal at Venable LLP where she works in the corporate law group. She is a 2006 graduate of Syracuse University and majored in Public Relations and Policy Studies. Michelle spent a semester in Washington D.C. through the Maxwell School of Public Affairs and Citizenship and worked at Alliance For Justice, a national association of legal advocacy organizations, where she worked in the communications department monitoring federal judicial selections and court opinions.
John Burgeson
Coordinator, Membership & Outreach
John is currently a Research Assistant in the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He primarily supports Beyond Goldwater-Nichols, an effort to reform the U.S. military and national security apparatus to meet 21st century challenges. Prior to joining the International Security Program, John completed an internship with the International Action Commissions program at CSIS. John graduated from Colorado College with a B.A. in International Political Economy. His honors thesis, “Institution Building, Privatization, and Ethnicity: The Political Economy of the Kosovo Crisis”, surveyed the complexities of international transitional administration in a civil war environment.
Meaghan Casey
School Partnerships Coordinator, YPFP in the Classroom
Meaghan currently works for Kissinger McLarty Associates helping clients with European and North African political and business issues. She additionally works in freelance economic consulting for NDP Consulting Group, LLC. Meaghan worked for the Department of Commerce’s International Trade Administration on East European and Russian issues and served in the U.S. Mission to the EU in Brussels, assisting American businesses with trade and U.S.-EU relations. Meaghan graduated from The George Washington University with a Bachelor of Arts and double majored in history and international affairs.
Devin Finn
Coordinator, Special Projects
Devin is a consultant for the International Budget Project, a budget research and advocacy NGO and the international arm of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. As a freelance reporter, Devin is currently writing on immigration, politics and Latin America. For two years prior to her work at IBP, she served as the Reporter for and Assistant Editor of the Latin America Advisor newsletters, a series of daily and weekly publications of the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington think tank focused on hemispheric affairs and policy. A 2004 graduate of Duke University, during college Devin traveled in Mexico and Central America doing development work, studied in Spain, and taught English as a second language. Last year Duke University published her senior political science thesis on state security responses to insurgency in Peru and Colombia as a working paper. She is looking forward to graduate school in Fall 2007 in migration policy or peace and conflict studies. Devin is a certified yoga instructor.
Arielle Goren
Curriculum Coordinator, YPFP in the Classroom
Arielle is a 2005 graduate of Johns Hopkins University, where she majored in International Studies as well as studied abroad at St. Andrews in Scotland and the University of Havana, Cuba. As a teenager, she volunteered with an NGO in Croatia, running a summer camp for refugee children from the former Yugoslavia. Currently, she works as a Legislative Aide to Senator Schumer on the Senate Judiciary Committee and frequently meets with student groups to teach them about the legislative process.
Derek Grossman
Coordinator, Programming
Derek works for the Department of Defense.
Amy Norris
Recruitment Coordinator, YPFP in the Classroom
Amy works in the House of Representatives for Congressman Christopher Smith. Prior to her work in Congress, Amy conducted independent research in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt focusing on "Perceptions of Middle Eastern Youth" after her graduation from American University in 2005. While a student at American University, Amy worked for the Center for the Study of the Presidency on the Center’s “Communicating America” project that sought to enhance dialogue between the United States and the Middle East. After her work with the Center, Amy served as a research assistant at International Security Information Services-Europe while finishing her studies of the European Union and European integration at American University’s satellite campus in Brussels, Belgium.
Katherine Tobin
Coordinator, Service Projects
Katie is a Senior Consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton, where she focuses on homeland security and Middle East issues. Prior to joining Booz Allen, she interned in the political section of the U.S. embassy in Vienna, Austria, and Foreign Commercial Service section of the U.S. consulate in Munich, Germany. Katie studied international affairs and foreign languages at Lewis & Clark College (BA, '03) and international security at George Washington University (MA, '05). She has lived in five states and four foreign countries, but now calls Washington home.
Nathan Puffer
Adviser
Nathan works in Afghanistan as the country Commercial Manager for Global Strategies Group - a first tier risk management firm headquartered in London. Previously, he was the Program Coordinator and Research Assistant in the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. Before joining CSIS and completing his undergraduate degree at George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs, graduating magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, he served in the United States Marine Corps where he trained and served as a Russian Linguist in the military's signals intelligence field. His academic work and professional interests focus on the realities of political economy in Russia and other Eurasian countries – more specifically, the connection between economics and security in regional development. From 2005-2006, Nathan served as the Vice-President of Membership & Outreach.
Michael Sellman
Chair, Financial Group
Mike works in the Principal Investments division at Morgan Stanley in New York. He graduated from Cornell University.
More information about the technical details of www.YPFP.org is available here.
