Major: International Relations
Minor: Human Rights
Hometown: Brooklyn, NY
Thesis Advisor: Jeremy Weinstein 

Tentative Thesis Title: Migration in the Digital Age: How the Internet and Social Media Have Transformed Migrant Networks

Future aspirations post-Stanford: After Stanford, I would like to work toward reforming the current US immigration system. Specifically, I could see myself doing this as an immigration lawyer or by working for the State Department under the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration.

A fun fact about yourself: I used to be a competitive rock climber between the ages of 8 and 18.

Major: Political Science
Minor: Notation in Cultural Rhetorics
Hometown: Seoul, South Korea
Thesis Advisor: Jim Fishkin

Tentative Thesis Title: Implementing Citizen Consultations in the Asia Pacific 

Future aspirations post-Stanford: In the long run, I want to work as a deliberative practitioner and innovate better ways for people to make decisions together. I’m less certain about the road I want to take to get there, but more school is one compelling option!

A fun fact about yourself: My twin brother is less than a minute older than me, but I had to refer to him by the Korean honorific for “older brother” growing up. I’m still bitter!

Major: Economics
Hometown: Allen, TX
Thesis Advisor: José Ignacio Cuesta

Tentative Thesis Title: Big Pharma Mergers and Their Effects on Medicare Drug Prices

Future aspirations post-Stanford: Taking a gap year after graduation to teach English abroad, then coming back to go to law school.

A fun fact about yourself: I’m an avid rock climber, and I’m working on my pilot’s license, even though I’m afraid of heights.

Major: Political Science
Minor: Native American Studies
Hometown: Kailua, Hawaiʻi
Thesis Advisor: Hakeem Jefferson

Tentative Thesis Title: Analyzing Food Insecurity in Hawaiʻi and Opportunities for Sustainable Development

Future aspirations post-Stanford: After completing my undergraduate studies, I plan to pursue a joint Juris Doctorate and Master in Public Policy degree. I strive to work as a federal policymaker and specialize in legislation strengthening Hawaiʻi’s economic resilience and sustainability, leveraging legislation to foster economic diversification and investment in food security. I’m passionate about serving my home state by crafting policy championing economic development and diversification, sustainability and climate resilience, and Native Hawaiian empowerment.

A fun fact about yourself: I’ve competed in outrigger canoe paddling and kayaking throughout my life, including paddling in a forty-one-mile canoe race between two islands in the Hawaiian chain (Molokaʻi to Oʻahu). I also ran a cupcake and cake business in high school!

Mary-Therese Heintzkill is the Program Manager for Frank Fukuyama's Leadership Academy for Development (LAD). Prior to Stanford, she worked in startups and small businesses, focusing on strategic operations, innovation, and process improvement to create, implement and iterate on process efficiencies for growing businesses. 

Mary-Therese earned both her Bachelor's and Master's degrees in music with a concentration in vocal performance from Western Michigan University and the University of South Carolina, respectively. Music has always been a vital part of her life, and she has spent the past two decades performing classical music professionally and voluntarily, most recently having dedicated 6 years with the Colorado Symphony Chorus as a member and auditioned soloist. 

Diego A. Zambrano’s primary research and teaching interests lie in the areas of civil procedure, transnational litigation, and judicial federalism. His work explores the civil litigation landscape: the institutions, norms, and incentives that influence litigant and judicial behavior. Professor Zambrano also has an interest in comparative constitutional law and legal developments related to Venezuela. He currently leads an innovative Stanford Policy Lab tracking “Global Judicial Reforms” and has served as an advisor to pro-democracy political parties in Venezuela. In 2021, Professor Zambrano received the Barbara Allen Babcock Award for Excellence in Teaching.

Professor Zambrano’s scholarship has appeared or is forthcoming at the Columbia Law Review, University of Chicago Law Review, Michigan Law Review, Northwestern University Law Review, Stanford Law Review, and Virginia Law Review, among other journals, and has been honored by the American Association of Law Schools (AALS) and the National Civil Justice Institute. Professor Zambrano will be a co-author of the leading casebook Civil Procedure: A Modern Approach (8th ed. 2024) (with Marcus, Pfander, and Redish). In addition, Professor Zambrano serves as the current chair of the Federal Courts Section of the AALS. He also writes about legal issues for broader public audiences, with his contributions appearing in the Wall Street Journal, BBC News, and Lawfare.

After graduating with honors from Harvard Law School in 2013, Professor Zambrano spent three years as an associate at Cleary Gottlieb in New York, focusing on transnational litigation and arbitration. Before joining Stanford Law School in 2018, Professor Zambrano was a Bigelow Teaching Fellow at the University of Chicago Law School.

Michele Gelfand is a Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and Professor of Psychology by Courtesy at Stanford University. Gelfand uses field, experimental, computational, and neuroscience methods to understand the evolution of culture — as well as its multilevel consequences for human groups. Her work has been cited over 20,000 times and has been featured in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Boston Globe, National Public Radio, Voice of America, Fox News, NBC News, ABC News, The Economist, De Standard, among other outlets.

Gelfand has published her work in many scientific outlets such as Science, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Psychological Science, Nature Scientific Reports, PLOS 1, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management Journal, Research in Organizational Behavior, Journal of Applied Psychology, Annual Review of Psychology, American Psychologist, Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, Current Opinion in Psychology, among others. She has received over 13 million dollars in research funding from the National Science Foundation, Department of Defense, and the FBI.

She is the author of Rule Makers, Rule Breakers: How Tight and Loose Cultures Wire the World (Scribner, 2018) and co-editor of the following books: Values, Political Action, and Change in the Middle East and the Arab Spring (Oxford University Press, 2017); The Handbook of Conflict and Conflict Management (Taylor & Francis, 2013); and The Handbook of Negotiation and Culture (2004, Stanford University Press). Additionally, she is the founding co-editor of the Advances in Culture and Psychology Annual Series and the Frontiers of Culture and Psychology series (Oxford University Press). She is the past President of the International Association for Conflict Management, past Division Chair of the Conflict Division of the Academy of Management, and past Treasurer of the International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology. She has received several awards and honors, such as being elected to the National Academy of Sciences (2021) and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2019), the 2017 Outstanding International Psychologist Award from the American Psychological Association, the 2016 Diener Award from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, and the Annaliese Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.

Valentin Bolotnyy is a Kleinheinz Fellow at the Hoover Institution, where he is a member of the State and Local Governance Initiative and the Working Group on Civics and American Citizenship.

His core research aims to generate and inform innovative policies that improve economic and health outcomes, especially for society’s most vulnerable populations. The research is often done in partnership with state and local agencies, including departments of transportation, human services, and public safety. His objective is to build a culture of collaboration across academia and America’s laboratories of democracy, so policymakers can deliver the best possible results for their constituents.

Bolotnyy’s ongoing work utilizes administrative data, quasi-experimental methods, and randomized controlled trials to study the effectiveness of involuntary hospitalization practices, deinstitutionalization, and ways to improve the lives of people who cycle through our hospitals, jails, and streets. Other work analyzes the effectiveness of prison education and workforce development programs.

Bolotnyy’s research affiliations include J-PAL North America, the Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), and the Deliberative Democracy Lab at Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL). He is a member of the Faculty Steering Committee of the Haas Center for Public Service and an advisor to the Stanford Democracy Hub. He serves as Vice Chair on the California Governor’s Council of Economic Advisors (GCEA).

Bolotnyy received a BA in economics and international relations, with honors and distinction, from Stanford University and a PhD in economics from Harvard University. His work has been recognized by the Padma Desai Prize, the Upjohn Institute Early Career Research Award, and major grants from Stanford Impact Labs and Arnold Ventures.

Major: Economics
Minor: Political Science; Modern Languages (Spanish & German)
Hometown: Scarsdale, NY
Thesis Advisor: Chonira Aturupane

Tentative Thesis Title: Comparing the Effect of Chinese and American Aid on Corruption in Latin America

Future aspirations post-Stanford: After graduation, my plan is to work in public sector consulting, preferably at the state and local level. After that, I'd like to go to graduate school to best leverage my skills in development economics, likely in or adjacent to the public sector. 

A fun fact about yourself: My first quarter as a CDDRL Honors student will be spent in Santiago, Chile, where I’ll be doing primary source research into Chilean politics and history.