Profile - Rebecca Resnik

Ms Rebecca Resnik (2017)
Scholar-elect
United States
MPhil Public Policy
St John's College

Biography

In the wake of the attacks of 9/11, I became committed to the idea of government service. For more than ten years, I have served the United States in the Department of Defense and as a Foreign Service Officer at the Department of State. After graduating from Georgetown University with a degree in international politics and security studies, I began my career in the world of intelligence, concentrating on counter-terrorism and combating proliferation. In 2010, I transitioned from a job of building walls to a job of building bridges, joining the U.S. diplomatic corps with a focus on public diplomacy. I served as the Press Attaché and Spokesperson at the U.S. Embassy in Algeria, where I designed programs to counter violent extremism. Following my tour in Algiers, I was posted at the U.S. Embassy in Austria, where I served as Vice Consul and led immigrant and non-immigrant visa operations. I then transferred back to Washington, where I currently serve as the Public Diplomacy Coordinator for Mainland Southeast Asia, developing outreach programs that promote U.S. Government priorities in the region. I am pursuing a Master’s in Public Policy at Cambridge so that, along with my practical experience, I have the academic grounding and the tools to shape the policies that I have spent the last decade carrying out. I am grateful to the Gates Cambridge Trust for this opportunity and I look forward to connecting with like-minded scholars who are dedicated to improving the lives of others.