Mahshad Badii (’20) is a Bay Area native pursuing a double major in Political Science and Near Eastern Studies. She is a two-year Phi Beta Kappa member, a Cal-in-Sacramento alumna, and a 2020 FLAS Scholar in Arabic. She is passionate about U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and North Africa, atrocity prevention, and international human rights law.
On campus, Mahshad has served as President, External Vice President, and Financial Vice President of Delta Phi Epsilon, Berkeley’s premier professional foreign service fraternity. During her tenure, she led a chapter of 80 members through heated policy debates, hosted war-time correspondents and Obama appointees in chapter-wide events, and actively recruited students of color, who are typically underrepresented in foreign policy careers, for membership. She has conducted policy research with Berkeley APEC Study Center, Berkeley Human Rights Investigations Lab, and the Berkeley Haas MBA Program.
Off campus, she has pursued peace and conflict work in the West Bank, Oman, and the UAE. During a semester abroad in Jordan, she worked as a policy analyst for Amman-based non-profit Visions Center for Strategic and Development Studies. There, she authored successful USDOS and UNWomen grant proposals, which allotted the center over $1million to develop projects expanding financial accessibility for women entrepreneurs. Mahshad has also pursued policy work with the U.S. Institute of Peace, the American Task Force for Lebanon, and UC Hastings’ Center for Gender and Refugee Studies. She holds a lifetime aspiration of serving as a diplomat in the Middle East.
Mahshad is deeply honored and humbled to be a 2020 recipient of the Muir Leadership Award and is excited to continue working in policy research after graduation.