Michelle Manos

Born and raised in New Jersey, Michelle moved to Los Angeles in 2008, where she spent six years as a marketing, advertising, and business consultant. In addition, she holds an undergraduate degree in Political Science from California State University, Long Beach, she was on the university’s award-winning Moot Court and Model United Nations teams, and served as a research assistant to two distinguished professors, and is one of the founding members of California for Progress.

Her studies focus on topics like international development policy, intergovernmental organizations, and regional integration as they apply to the southern African region. Michelle’s interest in developing regions focused on southern Africa after she spent three weeks in South Africa in 2014. She returned to the region the following year and spent a month studying Portuguese in Mozambique. Her senior thesis examined the strategies employed by South Africa’s neighboring nations to attempt to bring about the end of apartheid, and the reorganization of the Frontline States into the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in the post-apartheid era.

Michelle aims to work at the intergovernmental level, helping neighboring nations negotiate their interests and responsibilities when it comes to cross-border issues like resource management, economic migration, and international organization.