Nellie Petlick graduated from Saint Mary’s College in 2016 with a double major in history and theater. After graduation, she served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in a small town in south-central Ukraine, where she co-taught English to middle and high school students with her Ukrainian counterparts and worked with them to increase use of communicative methods in the classroom. She also worked on youth development projects, including co-founding a summer camp that taught teenagers from around the country the fundamentals of theatrical art, as well as working on smaller projects to educate youth about gender equality, diversity and acceptance, and HIV/AIDS. After Peace Corps, she remained in Ukraine to work with EducationUSA, the State Department network that promotes U.S. higher education abroad. Working closely with the Public Affairs section at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, she traveled around the country making students and young professionals aware of opportunities to study in the U.S., advised students on the college admissions process, and worked with Ukrainian higher education institutions to develop their student mobility and internationalization strategies. At Jackson she is focusing on U.S. foreign policy: topically on public diplomacy, and regionally on Eastern Europe and Eurasia.