Tackling Challenges Facing Women Worldwide

Shri Venkataramanan
MA ’19
International Law and Organizations

Throughout high school and college, Shri participated in quite a few debate tournaments and Model United Nations conferences which sparked her interest in government foreign policy formulation. After graduating from college with a degree in economics, Shri was looking to attend a graduate program that combined economics and international relations in equal measure and Johns Hopkins SAIS fit the bill perfectly. The location of the school in Washington was an added bonus.

Prior to attending graduate school, Shri spent time in India volunteering with a nongovernmental organization where she encouraged women to utilize micro-finance schemes to set up small businesses. Her work on women’s empowerment in this area however, was on a very micro level and she was keen on extending her experience through graduate school to have the opportunity to interact with global women leaders to understand better ways to address gender relations.

Shri currently serves as the Vice President of Marketing for the school’s student-run Global Women in Leadership (GWL), which aims to equip students with the tools and knowledge they need to excel in their careers and tackle challenges facing women worldwide. She will be helping to organize GWL’s annual conference on March 29.

After graduating, Shri intends on working in the U.S. government in fields related to civilian security and conflict prevention to tackle the core problems behind refugee outflows and forced migration.

Women’s History Month Fun Fact: Shri says there are several women in history who she is inspired by. Picking just one of them is definitely a challenge. Recently, she has been extremely inspired by Malala Yousafzai because she is a testament to how there is no such thing as being too young to induce change.