Deloitte Fellowship in Emergency Preparedness demands a fellow who excels in strategic planning, has a demonstrated ability to coordinate available resources, and can communicate effectively with persons of diverse backgrounds and cultures. My areas of research while obtaining my M.A. In International Communication at American University have focused on structural adjustment programs to improve the economic and social condition of women in developing East Asian nations and the institutional role of the United Nations to address gender inequities in rural women in Nepal. Both are examples of how my background has honed my ability to analyze how structural reform and international institutional support and planning can address social ills and community needs. This research has been an extension of my earlier internship with the UN Development Program and Mainstreaming Gender Equity Program in Kathmandu, Nepal. There I conducted surveys and engaged in quantitative analysis of the program's commitment to promoting gender parity, bottom-up planning and public-private partnerships

My most recent work experience on the Advocacy Project as a Development Intern has further enabled me to work effectively with international agencies. I coordinated the project's summer field internship program for graduate students seeking to work overseas as well as helped build database of non-governmental organizations (NGO)s that worked on issues of human rights and advocacy. I have also honed my legal expertise at the Law Offices of Lewis and Associates/Lewis Settlement Group in my work on loan processing.

My experience in research and coordination with international agencies and my detailed and methodological capacity, which has been sharpened through practical experience in quantitative and qualitative fact-finding and reviewing painstaking legal documentation, makes my preparation ideal for the Fellowship. The background I hope to receive in strategic planning, and specifically Emergency Planning, will be of invaluable aid to the work I hope to pursue after graduation in the international development sector. Emergency Planning is an area of critical knowledge I hope to add to my resume in addressing social inequities in East Asia, and it is an area of particular concern in Asia, given the natural and industrial disasters that have afflicted the region.