Courtney Bentz

About Courtney

Born and raised in Montana, Courtney Bentz is an aspiring diplomat with a passion for languages and cultural exchange. She earned a B.A. in Russian and a Certificate in Global Studies from the University of Montana in 2020. After graduating, Courtney served two years as an AmeriCorps VISTA at the International Rescue Committee. There, she created a still-operating financial coaching program for refugees in partnership with a local credit union, as well as repaired and distributed laptops to recently resettled families during COVID-19.

While in college, she got her first taste of international travel after receiving a Gilman Scholarship to study in Kyrgyzstan. This experience drove her to seek additional opportunities to engage with Slavic languages and cultures through two Critical Language Scholarships for Russian, and two supplementary awards for Ukrainian. Courtney later returned to Kyrgyzstan on a Fulbright, teaching college-level English to students and professors in the city of Osh while co-hosting talking clubs and learning to play the komuz lute on the side. Shortly after returning to Montana, she embarked on a brief exchange to South Korea as one of an eight-person Congressional delegation to explore American-Korean relations, and the impact of the Russian-Ukrainian Conflict on South Korea and East Asia broadly.

Currently, Courtney works as a Program Coordinator for her alma mater’s TRIO Office, promoting scholarship opportunities and organizing academic workshops for low-income, first-generation, and disabled college students. Ultimately, she hopes to promote educational access and nourish diplomatic relations via soft diplomacy exchange programs through the Department of State.

A mechanic’s daughter, Courtney inherited her father’s proclivity for tools, and she enjoys fiddling with consoles and computers in her free time. Her other hobbies include making coffee, thumbing through stacks of used vinyls, and petting street cats around the world.