Academics Meet Experience in Studying Latin America

Cailey Stevens
Master of Arts ’17
Latin American Studies

Growing up in the isolated island town of Kodiak, Alaska, Cailey never imagined that she would one day study Latin America. Her initially insular world was greatly expanded by spending a year in Japan, where she attended first grade and subsequent international travel with her family. Having caught the travel bug, during her junior year of high school, she moved to Madrid, Spain as a Rotary exchange student, where she learned Spanish by immersion.

At Wellesley College, Cailey continued to study Spanish and economics, and spent her junior year studying abroad in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Living, studying, and traveling in Argentina ignited her passion for Latin America as she learned about the rich and complex histories of Argentina and other Latin American countries, and made friends with people from all over the region.

After college, she spent two years working at the Federal Reserve in Washington, DC where she acquired an interest in domestic monetary policy. Following that experience, she was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship in Mexico City, where she studied Mexican energy reforms and renewable energy development. Cailey said that those experiences, in combination with her coursework at Johns Hopkins SAIS, have helped her expand her knowledge of macroeconomic and monetary policy in Latin America, as well as how different regional governments approach climate change adaptation and mitigation.

This summer, Cailey will be interning for the US State Department in Lima, Peru where she plans to complete her Latin American Studies capstone internship.