Fiona Bultonsheen is a first-year Master in Public Policy student at the Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs, interested in cyberwarfare, AI governance, and national security, with an emphasis on U.S.-Middle Eastern relations. At Jackson, she plans to investigate modern conflict, focusing on the destabilizing impact of media manipulation and AI-enhanced cyberterrorism.
For the last four years, Fiona has worked as a consultant with Capco, a financial services and technology consulting firm in Charlotte, North Carolina. There, she built trusted relationships with stakeholders at regional, national, and global tier-1 financial institutions and worked on projects ranging from housing finance to capital markets to, most recently, a cybersecurity engagement in cloud computing and data protection. Outside of work, she volunteered with resettled members of the Syrian community through Charlotte Refugee Support Services.
After Yale, Fiona hopes to join bridge-building policy conversations surrounding emerging technology standards and interstate cooperation in an increasingly polarized geopolitical climate, with a special interest in social media safety for youth and vulnerable populations, both domestically and in crisis zones in the EMEA region.
Born in Nagercoil, India, and raised in Pennsylvania, Fiona was awarded the U.S. State Department’s Critical Language Scholarship in 2018 and the National Security Initiative for Youth Scholarship in 2015 to study Arabic in Amman, Jordan, and Marrakesh, Morocco, respectively. She also had the opportunity to study at Institut Catholique de Toulouse in France. Fiona earned her bachelor's degree in economics with a minor in Arabic at Vanderbilt University.