Audrey Stienon

About Audrey

(updated 6/2015) Audrey Stienon is a Belgian-American New Yorker who is fascinated with understanding the forces pulling the world closer politically, economically, and socially, as well as what impact this new interdependence and integration will have on various groups within countries. She received a BA in Politics and Economics from the CUNY Macaulay Honors College at Hunter College in May 2014. While continuing her yearly trips with her family to and around Europe, she studied and worked in China, Greece, Argentina, Russia, Ecuador, and Costa Rica. She also spent two years as the head delegate and teacher’s assistant to the Hunter College Model UN Team, during which she worked with students from around the world and broadened her perspective about global events. Before she graduated, she completed a thesis on how the preferences of domestic groups affect the institutional structure of regional trade agreements such as NAFTA.
Beyond this academic work, Audrey has long been involved in local awareness campaigns for Rett Syndrome, a severe developmental disorder that her younger sister has. Wanting to better understand how marginalized groups are impacted by global policy, she worked as an intern first at Women’s World Banking (WWB), a microfinance organization, and later at the International Disability Alliance (IDA), a UN-based disability-rights advocacy organization. To complete her public policy minor, she wrote a capstone paper analyzing the ways in which long-term care policies could be used to promote social integration for people with disabilities. This paper later won the Spitzer Capstone Prize, and was published online by the Hunter College Roosevelt House.
As a Luce Scholar, Audrey wanted to observe and learn about the complex challenges facing developing economies, and thus spent her year working in the Economics Department of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Jakarta, Indonesia. While there, she participated in projects looking at such topics as Indonesia’s policy preparations for the creation of the ASEAN Economic Community, the future of free trade zones in Indonesia, and the China’s role as an investor in Indonesia’s infrastructure. Audrey hopes to continue working in Jakarta following the end of her Luce placement, before returning to school to further study international economic policy.