Alumni Profiles

Heather Berkman

MPIA '06

Heather Berkman is an analyst at Eurasia Group, a global political risk research and consulting firm based in New York City, where she focuses on political, economic, and social developments in Colombia, Central America, and the Caribbean. She travels extensively through the region speaking with government officials, economists, and political analysts, reading the local newspapers, and analyzing the information to predict what policy decisions governments may take and what their impact might be.

Most of the clients Heather advises are financial clients, corporations, and energy and mining companies. She has been quoted in the Los Angeles Times, Bloomberg, Reuters, Time.com, CNN.com, and is a contributor to Foreign Policy's "The Call" column. She has appeared on ABC World News Tonight, Fox News, and the Canadian Business News Network to talk about issues ranging from the 2009 coup in Honduras to Colombia's booming oil and mining sectors.

Prior to the Eurasia Group, Heather worked in the research department of the Inter-American Development Bank, where she focused on research related to political institutions, social exclusion, and violence and crime in the region.

Heather learned extremely valuable skills at IR/PS, including the ability to examine political institutions and the policymaking process, assess political economy decisions that manifest themselves through monetary and fiscal policy, and deepened her understanding of Latin American politics and economic development issues. She believes IR/PS honed her analytical, quantitative methods, and presentation skills, all of which, she says, "are essential to understand complex political and economic decisions, predict their impacts, and present them well to our clients."

Prior to IR/PS, Heather studied international relations and Spanish at the University of Pennsylvania. She graduated from IR/PS with a career focus in public policy and a Latin America regional specialization.