Leonardo Pell graduated from the George Washington University in May 2026 with a BA in International Affairs, with minors in Political Science and International Business and concentrations in Conflict Resolution and Europe/Eurasia. His interest in the region took shape both in Washington and abroad: he spent a semester in Freiburg, Germany studying EU politics, law, and economics, with field visits to the European Parliament, the European Commission, the Bundestag, and Carnegie Europe. He also completed a short-term research program in Geneva, where he conducted interviews on multilateralism with officials from the IMF, the World Bank, Interpeace, UNESCO, and the UN. Alongside his coursework, he built a background on Capitol Hill, interning for the office of Representative Aaron Bean, the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the House Oversight Committee, and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. He spent nearly two years as an administrative assistant at GW’s Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies, which first introduced him to the academic side of the field.
Leonardo is fluent in Russian and is working on his German. At Georgetown he is a CERES Graduate Communications Fellow, supporting the center’s newsletter and programming, and he is concurrently interning at Continental Strategy. His academic interests include foreign policy, legislative affairs, and the post-Soviet space, among other areas. He chose MAERES for its regional depth and its language training, and for the chance to pair rigorous area studies with Washington’s policy community rather than choosing between the two. He hopes to graduate in 2028 with the language ability and regional expertise to work on Russia and European security policy, whether in government, on the Hill, or at a research institution. Outside of class, he is glad to talk with anyone interested in the region, and he is always looking for a good excuse to travel back to Europe.