Second-year student Bailey Fohr is working as a Cost Editor Associate with the Communications and Design team under the Global Health Supply Chain Initiative at Chemonics, an international development consulting firm.
Fohr works with the Chemonics team to bring in business opportunities. Many of those opportunities are done through proposals for funding opportunities from organizations like the United States Agency for International Development, the Department for International Development, and the Global Fund, among others.
“I’ve been drawn to Chemonics since I learned that I wanted to work in international development, which was around freshman year of undergrad,” Fohr said. “There were a couple of things about them that stood out to me, but I was most impressed by the number of different technical areas and regions they worked within successfully.”
Fohr noted that many international development companies have a limited number of specialties, but Chemonics thrives across the development spectrum.
“They place a lot of emphasis on innovation and entrepreneurship and are big proponents of developing local capacity on the ground, which for me was is a crucial piece of sustainable development,” Fohr said. “Their ability to adapt to the shifting trends of development work while keeping local perspectives and needs at the forefront of their work was a strong indicator for me that this would be a great company to work for.”
Last summer, Fohr completed her International Public Service Project with the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C. Fohr was the sole intern in the State Department’s Office of Caribbean Affairs, where her responsibilities included input to and management of the office’s U.S.-Caribbean 2020 strategy portfolios, attending Caribbean-American diaspora meetings and think tank and NGO briefings on the Caribbean region, supporting the Bureau’s policy objective to advance support for the crisis in Venezuela within the Caribbean region, and working with other government agencies to strengthen U.S.-Caribbean relations.
“My IPSP experience with the State Department has been hugely helpful,” Fohr said. “Not only did it place me in D.C., the hub for all things development, but it allowed me to obtain key in-depth experience with the exact government branch responsible for the majority of development funding. This experience has given me greater context for the work we are doing and a more thorough knowledge of how all of the different agencies and stakeholders interact, allowing me to better understand my role within it all.”
A native of Nashville, Tenn., Fohr graduated from Florida State University with a degree in international affairs and political science. Before enrolling at the Clinton School, she spent time as a marketing and evaluations intern with Awamaki, a Peruvian nonprofit.
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