Samantha Kiernan is a first-year J.D. candidate at Yale Law School passionate about international affairs and the geopolitics of international development. Before coming to Yale, Samantha was a Schwarzman Scholar at Tsinghua University. At Tsinghua, she earned her master’s in global affairs and was named a 2022-23 Tsinghua University Outstanding Graduate Student. Samantha earned her bachelor’s in international relations at Brown University, focusing on Chinese foreign policy. Samantha worked at the Council on Foreign Relations, where she researched domestic and international responses to COVID-19, China’s global health governance, and the intersection of geopolitics and health. She also served as a consultant at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees. Her research has been published in Foreign Affairs, the Lancet, Nikkei Asia, Nature, and others. Samantha speaks English, Chinese, and Spanish.