As graduation approaches, many seniors begin thinking about what comes next. For School of Public Policy senior Camila Manrique, that meant looking for one final opportunity to challenge the ideas about U.S. foreign policy she had spent years debating in the classroom.
This spring, Manrique was selected for the Marcellus Policy Fellowship, a nationally competitive program run by the John Quincy Adams Society that brings together a small group of students and early-career professionals to examine U.S. grand strategy and produce a substantive policy analysis, memo and op-ed addressing pressing U.S. foreign policy challenges. “I was initially nervous about how few fellows the John Quincy Adams Society selects for each cohort, so I felt extremely honored to be chosen as part of it,” said Manrique.
Throughout her undergraduate career, Manrique said her coursework led her to think more closely about the history of U.S. engagement abroad and the difficult tradeoffs that shape foreign policy decisions. Studying those questions pushed her to think critically about how the country balances strategic interests with responsible uses of power and what global leadership should look like in a changing international landscape.
During her sophomore year, Manrique enrolled in “PLCY288J: America Abroad: Debating US Foreign Policy Yesterday and Today” with Associate Professor Josh Shifrinson, a course she said strongly influenced how she engages with foreign policy debates today. “Taking Professor Shifrinson’s course on Debating U.S. Foreign Policy was particularly formative in preparing me for a program like the Marcellus Policy Fellowship,” Manrique said. “The course required us to critically examine competing schools of international relations — from realism, restraint to primacy.”
As part of the program, Manrique plans to focus her research on Western Hemisphere policy, analyzing the administration’s strategy outlined in the 2025 National Security Strategy’s “Trump Corollary” and its implications for future U.S.–Latin America relations.
“The Marcellus Policy Fellowship is one of our most selective programs. We only take the best fellows, and we have to turn away many strong candidates every year,” said John Allen Gay, executive director of the John Quincy Adams Society. “Marcellus alumni have found success in many areas of public service, where they join alumni of our other programs, from campus chapters to midcareer fellowships.”
Manrique’s selection comes as the School continues expanding opportunities in international policy through the new Global and Foreign Policy major and the Foreign Policy, Strategy and Statecraft Program. She worked with faculty during the development of the major, helping bring student perspectives into the curriculum as it was being designed. She said the program offers students an opportunity to engage more deeply with global conflicts and policy debates while applying theoretical concepts to real-world analysis.
With graduation on the horizon, the fellowship offers Manrique an opportunity to continue exploring the foreign policy questions that helped define her undergraduate experience while preparing for the next stage of her work in the field.
