August 2025 Student Spotlight
Kately Arriaga is a Summer Scholar Fellow at the United Nations Association of New York and a Marxe MIA candidate
Can you tell us what you’ve been doing in Mexico City for the UN?
I am happy to have been offered a fellowship for the United Nations Development Programme regional office in Mexico. The UNDP works closely with Mexico’s federal government to create programs that alleviate social inequality, promote effective governance and democracy, and create accessibility opportunities for the public to participate in the economy. I was placed in the Effective Governance and Democracy Unit. My team is responsible for focusing on Sustainable Development Goal 16: “Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions.” My work consisted of drafting analyses from conducting research on Mexico’s policies and more technical projects associated with SharePoint and Bridge software. I have learned more about Mexico as a country through my research, gained experience with software used by the U.N., and developed program management expertise in my field. Because my office working language is Spanish, I also took this opportunity to practice both in and outside of work to qualify for the U.N. annual language placement exam.
My internship at the U.N. Headquarters with the UNFPA was extremely rewarding. I learned so much about the organization by working in the Human Resources department. I was on the talent acquisition team, where I managed the UNFPA internship program. This allowed me to work with managers from various departments and countries, network with other interns by hosting the weekly international interns’ roundtable meeting and co-host the JPO orientation. My internship also fell during the 79th U.N. General Assembly, where I volunteered with the Media Accreditation Liaison Unit (MALU) to liaise with international media. Watching President Biden speak in person was nothing short of amazing. The UN has an incredibly high standard for performance from its interns, so it challenged me to increase my time management, quality of work, and communication skills. I was thankful to have an internship that gave me a lot of responsibility and opportunities to work on various projects. This wasn’t just a way to build my resume, but to see if the UN is truly the right fit for me. As an organization that deals with global crises and political issues, it can be emotionally, intellectually, and physically tiring. Despite how I felt, I would always feel inspired and excited to come back the next day. After my office orientation, it didn’t feel like I didn’t belong, but rather, that I had finally come home. I know this is the line of work I’m meant to do, and I hope I can be part of this organization for many years to come.
What was your experience like in the Master of International Affairs program? Do you have any favorite professors?
Like many graduate students, I was challenged not just academically, but also in balancing my social life, health, jobs, internship, fellowship, and volunteer work. My professors not only challenged me to grow intellectually but were also compassionate people who genuinely wanted their students to succeed. Currently, I have a favorite class and a favorite professor, but they’re from different courses. My favorite class has been PAF9420: Global Communication, taught by Professor Sarah Bishop. As someone who has worked in the U.N., it is important that I am culturally aware and able to communicate with people across all nationalities, religions, languages, and additional layered identities. This class not only introduced me to different perspectives but also helped me to convey my ideas in a way that was concise and impactful.
My favorite professor has been Professor George Mitchell. I have had the most classes with him since he teaches the electives for my concentration, international NGOs. I was grateful for his patience, availability during office hours, constructive feedback, and passion for his subject. Difficult classes are much easier to digest when you have an enthusiastic expert.
Lastly, the Marxe Career Center and Writing Center helped me so much in excelling academically and obtaining my U.N. internship. I would recommend this program to anyone looking to work in public or international affairs, with the emphasis that students take the initiative to utilize every resource this program has to offer.
You did a research assistantship with Professor He. Can you talk about that experience and the research findings?
I interviewed for this graduate assistantship on July 26, 2023, and to my disbelief, was offered the position on August 2, before the start of my first semester. Upon my arrival in New York, I met Professor He and my research partner, Nico Antonucci. Professor He’s research projects focus on energy systems, energy, and climate change. Climate change negatively affects energy systems in the form of power outages. For disadvantaged communities, this can have serious consequences for those with health issues. The goal of our research was to identify the disadvantaged communities in New York City to show the disproportionate effects that power outages have on them. My portion of the research was mainly focused on drafting the literature review by finding and analyzing all current published articles on this topic. My work prepared me to write a literature review in other class essays and my future capstone. I was also tasked with creating visual models with R using the data Nico collected. Although I had previous exposure to the software, it was incredibly difficult to re-learn this programming language on my own. This gap in knowledge and experience is what inspired me to pursue the Certificate in Quantitative Methods for Policy and Equity Analysis alongside my master’s. To our surprise, our findings revealed Queens was the most negatively affected by these power outages, according to the data we collected from Con Edison.
