Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States
My name is Jacob Herzig, and I'm a first year masters student studying at the University of Michigan at the Ford School and Center for Russian East European and Eurasian Studies, where I major in Public Policy and International and Regional studies. I have a bachelors in International Relations and minors in History and European Studies from Michigan State University. While a student, I have participated in competitive and non competitive Model UN teams and volunteered as an intelligence analyst for the JMC Human Rights Data Science Lab. At the Human Rights Lab, we work as volunteers for the ICC, NGOs, and governmental agencies. Through my academic career, I have also been a world traveler, having spent significant time in the Caribbean, Central America, South America, Canada, Europe, and Oceania. While travelling, I made connections with people from every corner of the globe and learned about the culture and history of each place I visited through in-depth immersion and study. As a college student at MSU, I spent half a month in Italy, a month in Belgium, and four months in Hungary, and while there, I traveled to many neighboring countries.
I work to help undergraduate and graduate foreign exchange students who come to study at Michigan State acclimate to Midwestern and American culture and environment. I also work to help them succeed and grow while studying at MSU by organizing free events for them to experience and learn more about American holidays, such as Halloween and Thanksgiving. I was responsible for creating, organizing, and leading an experiential learning event, where I successfully guided a large group through the Michigan Capitol Building and downtown Lansing.
Through utilizing open source intelligence, satellite imagery, and utilizing online resources we help investigate violations of international humanitarian law and sanctions imposed against human right abusers as well as provide objective analysis of information for organizations such as the United Nations and the International Criminal Court and its various tribunals.
I am leading a small group of five junior staffers to create and run a DISEC Committee for high school and a UNESCO committee for middle school students, while following parliamentary procedure. The two topics of the DISEC committee are the illicit trafficking of people, goods, weapons, substances, and cultural and historical items by organized criminal networks, and the fall of the Afghan government and the regional security threat this created. We created a background guide for students and held debates on these topics to deepen understanding and cooperation. We also simultaneously wrote another committee for the middle schoolers, focused on the preservation of World Heritage sites by UNESCO.