Ben Ghatan is a senior in the School of Foreign Service, majoring in Regional and Comparative Studies with focuses on East Asia and the Pacific and minors in French and Chinese. His past year was spent interning at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, focused on advancing Asia policy in Congress, and studying International Politics at Sciences Po in Paris and Chinese at National Taiwan Normal University in Taipei. Prior to that he interned at Senator Booker’s Office in DC, investigating upcoming foreign, housing, and education policy. On campus, Ben spends his time as a Chair of Student Engagement on the SFS Academic Council and as a leader at Campus Outreach, a protestant ministry at Georgetown. Ben’s love for Jesus is foundational to everything he does, as Jesus’ sacrificial service has modeled for him what it looks like to defend those most marginalized and overlooked. His ISD project will explore how external government finance has shaped the diplomatic partnerships within the Pacific in order to anticipate a global shift towards seabed mining in the coming decade.