Julian Gewirtz, IGP Senior Research Scholar, on the likelihood of America pouring attention into the Middle East is to China’s advantage: “We only have so many aircraft carriers, we only have so much presidential time and attention.”

Richard Nephew, senior research scholar at the School of International and Public Affairs, writes: "The best chances for a deal will come with a successor regime in Tehran."

Timothy Naftali, senior research scholar at the School of International and Public Affairs, stated that Trump’s ambitions toward Cuba reminded him of December 2001: "In the wake of 9/11, the country’s willingness to tolerate threat was low, and its ambitions to make the world a safer place were high.”

The overarching themes of this year’s conference were (1) innovation and automation in banking, (2) banking supervision, and (3) digitalization and banking.

Columbia IGP Carnegie Distinguished Fellow Amos Hochstein discussed the US-Iran nuclear talks on Bloomberg Television: “The moment that we’re in is very serious, as the president said, because I think that we’re rolling towards a war that I’m not even sure the president wants to do."

Stuart Gottlieb, Adjunct Professor of International and Public Affairs, argues that this is America’s third “unipolar moment” since 1945, offering Washington another opportunity to help fashion a world that safeguards America’s interests and values, along with stabilizing leadership.

Timothy Naftali, senior research scholar at the School of International and Public Affairs, says Trump's State of the Union "is an opportunity to reset the president's agenda or to reaffirm it."

Inspired to pursue diplomacy growing up in the Bronx in a Ghanaian family, Khalil Ibrahim chose SIPA for its academic rigor, global perspective, and proximity to home.

Alejandra Valdivia MPA ’26 came to SIPA to gain the policy, finance, and regulatory expertise needed to expand clean energy access for underserved communities across Latin America — building on her hands-on experience developing microgrid projects in the Peruvian Amazon.

Seeking work that merged his interests of international politics, finance, and US–China trade relations, Liam Lau MPA ’26 enrolled at SIPA. The School’s academic rigor and location in New York City made it an ideal place to pursue that goal.