Middle East Security Research Intern
Expertise: Middle Eastern Politics, Islamic Law and Governance, South Asian History, and Feminist Theory
Riza Kumar is a recent graduate of UCLA, where she majored in Political Science and Gender Studies. Before joining ASP, she interned with the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism where she coded the consequences and outcomes of both small and large scale terrorist activity from 2014 to 2015. Prior to her time at START, she also held internships at Aunt Lute Books and the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco where she developed literary and multimedia arts programs that encouraged the social and political visibility of girls of color. This fall, she will be pursuing a master’s degree in International Relations at the University of Chicago.
As an advocate for educational equity, Riza is often found volunteering with 826DC—a non-profit organization that supports under-resourced students with their creative and expository writing skills.