Mara was a student in the IGL’s EPIIC program from 2010 – 2011 which focused on South Asia: Conflict, Culture, Complexity and Change. The experience was one of the most formative of her time at Tufts. During the program, she led a team research trip to the National Security Archives in Washington DC to analyse US declassified documents from the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan to draw historical comparisons and lessons as President Obama announced his troop surge.

After graduation, Mara spent time interning for a member of parliament in the United Kingdom, working for the Amy Biehl Foundation Foundation in the Nyanga township of Cape Town, and teaching English to Buddhist monks in Laos.

Upon her return to the US, she worked in research and communications for a multi-strategy hedge fund in New York, where she focused on geopolitical risk for the commodities and portfolio protection teams.

She left to study for her MBA in global business from NYU, spending the summer between her first and second year at MassChallenge, the global non-profit accelerator, in Mexico City.

Following NYU, Mara spent three years managing the communications, impact and investor reporting for Small Enterprise Assistance Funds, an impact investing fund manager supporting SMEs in frontier and emerging markets.

She currently lives in London, where she works for Brunswick Group as a strategic advisor to clients ranging from social housing companies to large renewable energy companies. During the interview process for her current role, she stumbled upon a fellow EPIIC alum at the organization and reached out to her. The fellow alum replied within minutes, offering to jump on a call and commenting that their connection was “kismet” – a true testament to the power of Sherman and the IGL to bring people together.