Project: A New Path for Haiti: An Examination of Haiti-US Diplomatic Relations and the Potential of the Montana Accord

Adviser: Ambassador James ("Jimmy") Story, Senior State Department Fellow, ISD; U.S. Ambassador for the Venezuela Affairs Unit at the U.S. Embassy in Bogotá (2019-2023)

Raised in a single-parent household in Puerto Rico (PR), Amanda is a passionate advocate for the protection of low-income communities and the inclusion of minority groups in politics. At 17, Amanda designed a bill for the placement of auditive street lights at intersections throughout PR. During the same year, she spoke on the floor of the Puerto Rican Senate in support of LGBTQ+ rights. In 2019, she served as the refugee representation bilingual intern at Human Rights First, working as an interpreter to assist immigrants in building their cases for asylum. Between 2018 and 2022, Amanda mentored first-generation students and tutored low-income students in literacy and mathematics. She further volunteered for AmeriCorps VISTA to help halt the spread of COVID-19 in PR by designing educational material on the virus and organizing testing and vaccination events. In 2022, she served as a youth delegate for the United Nations’ U.S. Youth Consultation for UN Climate Strategy, where she discussed natural disaster preparedness concerns for PR and the southern United States. She holds a bachelor’s degree in politics, a minor in Islamic world studies, and a certificate in intelligence from the Catholic University of America.

Amanda is pursuing a Master of Science in Foreign Service at Georgetown University, with a concentration in international development and a certificate in refugees, migration, and humanitarian emergencies. Throughout her first year in the program, Amanda took the initiative of leading Georgetown’s Decolonizing International Affairs Club. During the summer, she accepted an internship at the Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA) at the U.S. Department of Commerce. Through this internship, she met with individual stakeholders, venture capital firms, U.S. government officials, and operators of MBDA’s business centers to improve the competitiveness of minority business enterprises in the United States and abroad. After completing her degree, Amanda hopes to work with the Puerto Rican government to strengthen the island's economic resilience in the wake of natural disasters.