The U.S.-Asia Security Initiative at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center has selected two Stanford students for its inaugural summer internships in partnership with The Asia Foundation and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. The two students, Kar Mun Nicole Wong and Vivan Malkani, will intern at The Asia Foundation offices in Jakarta, Indonesia, or Washington, D.C., and pursue separate projects focused on international policy.

In Jakarta, Wong will help document a case study focused on Indonesia’s marginalized communities, and in the District of Columbia, Malkani will research topics such as the role of civil society in development and U.S. policy on countering violent extremism.

Brief bios of the selected students are listed below:

Interning at the Jakarta office

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Kar Mun Nicole Wong is a junior at Stanford from Singapore, majoring in international relations with a minor in art history. Her departmental specializations are international history and culture, and East and South Asia. She is currently writing an honors thesis on the relationship between China and the Middle East and its effects on China’s Muslim populations.

Much of Wong’s Stanford career has been dedicated to pursuing her interests in social organization and increasing inclusion of marginalized communities. As a freshman, Wong served as a research assistant for the Rural Education Action Program, a research organization dedicated to discovering the causes of, and solutions to, poverty in rural China. In 2016, Wong was also selected to serve as the Stanford delegate to the Vienna International Christian-Islamic Summer University, a program dedicated to religious inclusion through discourse between Christian and Muslim perspectives of students and academics from all over the world.

Through her internship with The Asia Foundation in Jakarta, Wong hopes to not only gain a better understanding of Indonesia and Southeast Asia as a whole, but also to continue her passion for social inclusion through her work with the Peduli program.

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Vivan Malkani is an undergraduate student at Stanford from the class of 2019. He is currently a sophomore, majoring in political science with a focus on political philosophy and data science. His other academic interests include earth systems, computer science and Mandarin Chinese.

Born and raised in Mumbai, India, Malkani attended the Cathedral and John Connon School for his high school education. He came to Stanford in 2015, undertaking the Structured Liberal Education program, a yearlong course of study that examines the evolution of Western philosophy, religion and political structures. This experience prompted him to pursue coursework in history and political science, including Chinese history and politics by learning Mandarin Chinese.

In the summer of 2016, Malkani was a research assistant at the Stanford Political Science Summer Research College, working for Professor Lisa Blaydes on her project on Middle Eastern state development. The project examined the role of different economic institutions in the political development of 13th-15th century Mamluk Egypt, examining cadastral records and building geospatial visualizations of the data.

Outside of the classroom, Malkani is an active member of Stanford in Government. He is also a writer for the Stanford Political Journal and member of the Ethics Bowl Society.