Daniella Hernandez
Class of 2026
Daniella obtained her B.A. in political science with an emphasis on global politics from California State University, Long Beach, in 2020. During her undergraduate years, her passion for international relations flourished. She took what she learned from her courses and applied it to her time in Model United Nations, where she researched topics ranging from nuclear proliferation to advancing economic parity for rural women. She was selected to speak in the United Nations (UN) General Assembly headquarters, becoming the first in her university’s Model UN history to do so. Her speech focused on the UN's Sustainable Development Goals and their importance in a sustainable future.
Shortly after graduating, she interned for the Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., where she worked on various projects related to Mexico’s security and rule of law, economics and gender-based violence. In spring 2021 she became a program associate at a nonprofit, where she worked on programs that increased transparency in local and national governments, bolstered the capabilities of youth leaders to help them better advocate for their interests to elected officials, and increased cooperation and capacity building between Congressmembers in Peru and Colombia.
Since December 2022, Daniella has been a senior program associate for the Latin America and Caribbean division at Chemonics International, where she currently works on two projects focusing on violence prevention and addressing the human rights crisis in the Mexico. Her favorite aspect of working in international development is meeting the people who have benefited from the projects.
It is her desire to analyze and discover the root causes of issues that first drew Daniella to international relations and development. During her field experience, Daniella noticed an interesting trend: While global policy always has local reactions, she found that local reactions can just as easily have global reactions — but global reactions are the most recognized.
In Daniella’s free time, she enjoys traveling and spending time with her family and dog.