Ashley Sherry UG '09

Foreign Policy, US Department of State in Istanbul

[Anthropology] helped me to hone the perspectives and skillsets that have shaped the researcher I am today and prepared me for a successful career focused on foreign policy

Ashley E. Sherry is employed by the US Department of State and is currently posted in Istanbul, Turkey, where she relies on the ethnographic, qualitative, and quantitative research skills acquired in her anthropology studies to explore foreign policy issues. Ashley is simultaneously pursuing her PhD in anthropology at UMass Amherst with a focus on how political decision-makers and civil society members experience and influence education policy in Mexico and she posits that ethnographic studies of such policy processes are most fruitful through the lens of violence. Her background in anthropology has provided her with a unique and sophisticated skillset to approach some of the most vexing research questions from a US policy perspective. She received her B.A. in anthropology and Spanish from UMass Amherst in 2009 and an M.A. in anthropology from the University of New Mexico in 2011.

"Thinking back to my first course as an undergraduate student in the UMass Anthropology Department, I am grateful to the faculty and students who encouraged me to pursue an anthropology degree, [which] helped me to hone the perspectives and skillsets that have shaped the researcher I am today, and prepared me for a successful career focused on foreign policy."

[Interview edited on 2021]