Tuesday, October 6, 2020
Conversations with Flagship Alumni Alyssa Haerle '2012: Implications of Recent Russian Influence for Careers Involving Russian
On Tuesday, October 6, the UCLA Russian Flagship program hosted a discussion in the "Conversations with Flagship Alumni" series with Alyssa Haerle '2012 following a talk by Fiona Hill at the Burkle International Center on Russian influence.
Topics initially addressed include the role of Russian as a potential leader in pandemic treatment, recent elections in Russia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, and the personalization of leadership in recent world politics. Alyssa then shifted the focus to educational and professional opportunities involving Russian.
She pointed out that the skills that she learned by studying Russian at a high level are also applicable in jobs not relating directly to Russian. For example, the intercultural skills emphasized in the Flagship program are transferable to other multicultural contexts. A student participant also noted that access to Russian news sources can offer varying perspectives, including access to a view of events that can be more accurate.
Alyssa mentioned possibilities for employment in economic and political think tanks, such as the World Bank and the World Economic Forum, as well as international refugee organizations. New opportunities may also emerge as the role of international organizations, such as WHO, is being reconsidered. Although at the moment U.S.-Russia relations are at a low-point, "subnational diplomacy" is an area where collaboration can continue. An example is climate change, an area in which California and Los Angeles have taken a leading role.
Alyssa suggested that students think about national security and vulnerability in terms of "critical infrastructure," which encompasses a broader range of domains than many people realize: not only, for example, the American political parties, but also essential networks like the electric grid in American cities and its critical role in enabling people to vote. Rapid digitization has introduced both new vulnerabilities and opportunities for collaboration, such as working with colleagues from the Russophonic world on the "digitization of education".
She spoke about her experience as a student in the Master's program at Stanford (CREEES), which enabled her to take courses, do research, and meet professors who are experts in a variety of fields. She recommended that students consider the Stanford U.S. Russian Forum (SURF), which enables American and Russian students to collaborate on a specific research topic (Flagship student Rowan Baker '2020 is an alumna of the program).
She also suggested that students interesting in research look at recent publications, including checking what topics are being researched and the methods used to conduct this research. Students can use their undergraduate education to start learning the skills that they need to conduct this type of research. Finally, she emphasized the value of using the networks available to you: UCLA and other Alumni organizations, other UC students, students in UCLA Russian Flagship and other Russian Flagship programs, and so on.
Thank you very much, Alyssa, for hosting this discussion!
Some suggestions of podcasts from Alyssa:
BBC Пятый этаж podcasts:
https://www.bbc.com/russian/multimedia/2014/09/000001_live_radio
Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) podcasts: https://cepa.org/analysis/power-vertical/
NPR Rough Translation podcasts: https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510324/rough-translation
Podcasts by Michael McFaul, former U.S. ambassador to Russia: https://michaelmcfaul.com/podcasts
Alyssa Haerle is a UCLA Russian Flagship alumna ('2012) who completed her overseas Flagship program in Saint Petersburg, Russia. She is a Boren Scholarship recipient and completed an internship at Saint Petersburg National Research University of Information Technologies, Mechanics, and Optics (ITMO), one of Russia's leading programming and entrepreneurial universities. She continued her studies at Stanford's CREEES program, receiving the FLAS Fellowship and completing her Master's thesis on Russian tech and entrepreneurship policy. Following Stanford, she created a nonprofit and continued her tech policy research at the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator. She currently handles government relations for a transportation startup with a base in Los Angeles.