Berry alumna tapped for State Department fellowship

Amanda Ashley will gain practical experience both at a State Department bureau in Washington, D.C. and at an embassy abroad.
Amanda Ashley will gain practical experience both at a State Department bureau in Washington, D.C. and at an embassy abroad. | File photo
Recent Berry College graduate Amanda Sophia Ashley was selected as one of 19 Pickering Fellows, a prestigious program funded by the U.S. Department of State that prepares graduate students for careers with the State Department Foreign Service.
 
The fellowship is administered through the Washington Center for Internships and Academic Seminars and participants are selected through a national competition.
 
“I am thankful for the opportunities I have had and grateful to everyone at Berry and elsewhere that has helped shape me into the determined person that I am,” Ashley said. “I see this fellowship and career with the Department of State as a way for me to make a meaningful difference in the world through foreign policy.”

Ashley will complete two summer internships while earning her graduate degree in global studies at the University of North Carolina. She will gain practical experience both at a State Department bureau in Washington, D.C. and at an embassy abroad, and when she graduates she will put that experience to work as a commissioned Foreign Service Officer working at embassies around the world.