Anastasia Crowley

Class of 2026
Major in Public Policy, Minor in African & African American Studies, Certificate in Markets and Management

My name is Anastasia Crowley and I’m from Durham, NC. Through volunteering for Amnesty USA and Oxfam Great Britain, I grew passionate about international development. I have worked to advance marginalized population’s access to capital at the individual level through internships with the US Small Business Administration in Washington, DC and Women’s Microfinance Initiative in Buyobo, Uganda. Ultimately, I would like to work at the systemic level, changing the policy frameworks which maintain global inequality. To this end, I am completing an honors thesis investigating how power asymmetry in preferential trade agreements affects the degree to which their dispute settlement mechanisms are adversarial and hope to attend law school a few years after graduation. On campus, I am a Patman Fellow through the Hart Leadership Program, research assistant and teaching assistant in the Sanford School of Public Policy, analyst for the public sector consulting group American Futures Institute, lead print editor for Duke Undergraduate Law Review, and member of StreetMedicine dance group.

Favorite Class: Conflict Analysis in Africa. As someone interested primarily in economic development, this class with Dr. Stephen Smith pushed me to see a different angle of the issue and understand how development, conflict, colonialism, climate change, demographic shift, and more are all intimately connected in the Global South.