Building a Sustainable Future
Samantha Power
Master of Arts ’17
Energy, Resources and Environment (ERE)
When Samantha was working in Singapore, many of her colleagues in the business world engaged in the most interesting work were Johns Hopkins SAIS graduates. As she discussed international relations programs more with people in her network, she found that Johns Hopkins SAIS was the best fit for her.
Samantha concentrates in ERE with a focus on climate change and Southeast Asia Studies – specifically Myanmar and Indonesia as these two nations have serious environmental challenges which will be significantly affected by climate change. By choosing both concentrations, she has reached a deeper understanding of the challenges faced by developing countries in adapting to climate change while pursuing development in the 21st century. Samantha has particularly enjoyed learning about the scientific side of this challenge in her ERE classes and the political economy aspect in her Southeast Asia classes. She has combined this knowledge to write interesting papers about how developing nations should pursue sustainable development and build climate resilience.
Samantha rounded out her learning experiences in the classroom with study treks to Indonesia to improve her language ability and to deepen cultural fluency as well as to Israel and Palestine to study peace negotiations and the future of Israel-Palestine relations.
This summer, Samantha will be interning at the Energy and Environment Office at the U.S. Treasury Department where she will be researching climate finance. She is looking forward to contributing her ideas on how money in Global Climate Funds should be best utilized as well as studying mechanisms to fund forest conservation.