Nandeeni Patel is a second-year MPP student focused on international security and defense strategies in the Indo-Pacific region. Nandeeni interned at Defense Bridge Asia (DBA), a defense consultancy firm operating in South and Southeast Asia, working on outlining the defense procurement processes for Bangladesh, Thailand, and the Philippines. Her work deepened her interest in defense procurement and contract management amid evolving defense priorities, a theme she's now exploring in her master’s thesis.

Before coming to Yale, she was a Fulbright research student in Sri Lanka, studying Indian and Chinese competition on the island nation. Her Fulbright research was an extension of her honors thesis, “The Sri Lanka-China-India Triangle: A Regional Power Transition.” As a Fulbright grantee, Nandeeni served as a guest research scholar at the Bandaranaike Center for International Studies (BCIS), lecturing international relations students on issues like nuclear proliferation while engaging in cross-cultural diplomacy with the U.S. embassy in Sri Lanka and the BCIS. 

She received her B.A. from Claremont McKenna College (CMC) in philosophy, politics, and economics (PPE). At CMC, Nandeeni focused her academic work on Indian politics and foreign policy. After Yale, Nandeeni is looking for opportunities in defense procurement and contracting. She speaks Gujarati, Hindi, German, and conversational Sinhala.