Syracuse Senior Wins Elite Foreign Affairs Fellowship

Rachelly Buzzi, a senior at Syracuse University, has been named a 2022 Thomas R. Pickering Graduate Foreign Affairs Fellow. She is one of only 45 recipients chosen from hundreds of applicants from across the nation.

Funded by the U.S. Department of State and administered by the Washington Center, the Pickering Fellowship awards recipients two years of financial support, mentoring and professional development to prepare them for a career in the Foreign Service. Fellows complete internships at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C., and overseas at a U.S. embassy.

“As the first person in my family to attend grad school, I am excited to embark on the unique opportunities that the Pickering Fellowship provides.”

“It is an honor to have been selected as a Pickering Fellow,” Rachelly says. “As the first person in my family to attend grad school, I am excited to expand my knowledge of international relations and to embark on the unique opportunities that the Pickering Fellowship provides.”

Rachelly is an international relations major in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs and the College of Arts and Sciences, with a regional concentration in Latin America and the Caribbean and a topic concentration in intercultural communication.

This past semester, she participated in Syracuse’s Maxwell-in-Washington Program, taking classes at the Center for Strategic and International Studies on international policy and global humanitarian and security issues. She was also an intern at the U.S. Department of State’s Foreign Service Institute.

Last summer, as a 2021 Public Policy International Affairs (PPIA) Fellow, Rachelly took classes at Carnegie Mellon University on topics including policy applications, data analytics, statistics, and economics.

Beyond academic commitments at Syracuse, Rachelly has been involved with community programs including at the local La Casita Cultural Center where her Posse mentor, Teresita Paniagua, is the director.

“Posse gave me the resources and connections I needed.”

“Being a Posse Scholar has literally changed my life,” Rachelly says. “Posse gave me the resources and connections I needed. It helped me become more outgoing and vulnerable and I have grown into myself and met the best people. It is the root of so many things I am doing.”

As a Pickering Fellow, Rachelly will now pursue a master’s degree in international affairs and a career in the Foreign Service.

“It has been a dream of mine for years to become a Foreign Service Officer,” she says. “I am really excited to meet my Pickering cohort as we work to collectively contribute to increased diversity within the Foreign Service.”