Adia Armstrong
Class of 2025
Adia Armstrong, a proud child of Trinidad and Tobago immigrants, was raised in the suburbs of Montreal and Toronto, Canada. She later moved to Boston for her undergraduate studies at Boston University (BU), graduating Cum Laude with a degree in International Relations and minors in History and French. Throughout her time at BU, Adia's passion for international development and humanitarian assistance flourished through diverse study abroad and research experiences. Notably, in her junior year, she studied security and migration issues in Morocco and served as an English Teaching Assistant for asylum-seekers and refugees. In her senior year, Adia conducted research at the American University of Beirut, focusing on improving living conditions for Syrian refugees in Lebanon through humanitarian engineering interventions. She further enriched her education through additional abroad programs in Israel/Palestine, Cuba, and France.
Post-graduation, Adia served as an Associate Program Officer on the Africa team at the Center for International Private Enterprise, where she contributed to project portfolios related to democratic governance, peacebuilding, digital economy, women’s economic empowerment, and security/economic policy development across West Africa, the G5 Sahel, Kenya, and Ethiopia. As a 2023 Payne Fellow, she aspires to join the USAID Foreign Service after completing the GHD program.
Adia's interests extend beyond her professional pursuits. During her leisure time, she enjoys participating in and watching sports (especially soccer!), globetrotting, indulging in culinary experiments, and passionately singing along at concerts.
Why GHD?
I wanted a program that had three key features: 1) located in Washington, DC, providing immersion in the "heart of the action" for the development field; 2) a curriculum focused on enhancing my quantitative analysis skills; and 3) learning from professors who are active practitioners, ensuring that course content is immediately applicable to real-world scenarios.