Highlights: Raised in Arkansas, Michael attended college in Washington, D.C., at American University. Fascinated by the intersection of religion and politics, he studied International Relations, minored in Religion and Arabic, and concentrated in the Middle East and South Asia. Michael studied Arabic in Jordan and later tried to study in Varanasi, India, but was unfortunately unable to travel. Michael is expectedly excited to finally go to India through the AIF Clinton Fellowship after years of waiting. The year following his graduation, Michael worked an odd sequence of positions as an intern at a think tank on the Middle East, as a Segway tour guide, and then as an assistant at a lobbying firm. This past year, he served through AmeriCorps VISTA in Camden, New Jersey, where he did monitoring and evaluation for a homicide prevention initiative. Hoping to assist poverty alleviation and conflict resolution programs across South Asia and the Middle East throughout his career, he's excited to expand his evaluation knowledge through the Goat Trust's microfinance programs as an AIF Clinton Fellow.