A Global Education

Austin Lafferty
MA ’19
International Political Economy
First Year: SAIS Europe

Austin decided to apply to Johns Hopkins SAIS in order to make a career change toward a role that dealt with understanding and navigating bigger picture decision-making. The school offered the opportunity to not only spend a year studying at the SAIS Europe campus in Bologna, Italy, but also build the economic foundation necessary to understand how material and political interests interact more broadly.

Prior to graduate school, Austin spent three years working in China, first as a public-school teacher with Teach For China in Yunnan province, then as a copywriter and account manager with PwC’s Experience Centre in Hong Kong where he advised clients on brand and digital marketing projects across the Asia-Pacific region.

Austin also worked with the German Marshall Fund in Brussels, Belgium, where he was able to gain firsthand experience at the heart of the European Union. As a student in Washington, DC he focused on issues of Chinese economic development and foreign policy.

After recently graduating from the school, Austin began working for an international security and emerging markets special risks firm in Southeast Asia and will soon move to Singapore for another opportunity in the same field.