Clements Student Professional Development Fund intern Caitlyn Yates at the National Security Commission in Mexico City

This summer, the Center funded seven students: four graduate students and three undergraduate students. Here’s Caitlyn Yates’ story:

Caitlyn just finished her first year at the LBJ School, working towards a Master’s degree in Global Policy Studies with a policy focus in Security, Intelligence, and Foreign Affairs. Since February she has been a Graduate Research Assistant with the Strauss Center’s Mexico Security Initiative. This summer she is interning at the National Security Commission in Mexico City, Mexico. This project is funded jointly by the United States and Mexican governments in an attempt to diagnose the full range of challenges that municipal police forces face in relation to organized criminal behavior and general insecurity. Here’s her story:

“So far this summer I have been analyzing police reform successes and failures from around the world as well as around Mexico City. I have learned a great deal about different policing models, federal level security cooperation in Mexico, and which police reforms have been successful in Mexico. My favorite part of the internship is learning more about the expertise of my colleagues and the most challenging part of the internship is working on security policy in Spanish.”