Michael Roberts

The University of Texas at Austin is one of the largest public universities in the United States and is the largest institution of The University of Texas System. Founded in 1883, the university has grown from a single building, eight teachers, two departments and 221 students to a 350-acre main campus with 17 colleges and schools, about 24,000 faculty and staff, and more than 50,000 students.

Columbia University is one of the world's most important centers of research and at the same time a distinctive and distinguished learning environment for undergraduates and graduate students in many scholarly and professional fields. The University recognizes the importance of its location in New York City and seeks to link its research and teaching to the vast resources of a great metropolis. It seeks to attract a diverse and international faculty and student body, to support research and teaching on global issues, and to create academic relationships with many countries and regions. It expects all areas of the university to advance knowledge and learning at the highest level and to convey the products of its efforts to the world.

The School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) at Columbia University is widely considered to be one of the most prestigious graduate international affairs schools in the world. Located on Columbia's Morningside Heights campus in the Borough of Manhattan, in New York City, the school has 16,427 alumni in more than 150 countries. SIPA's alumni base includes several former heads of state, business and finance leaders, prominent journalists, diplomats, senior government administrators, and elected representatives in the United States and abroad. Half of SIPA’s nearly 1,200 students are international, coming from over 100 countries. Columbia | SIPA has more than 70 full-time faculty and more than 200 adjunct faculty, scholars, and practitioners who have distinguished themselves in research and leadership in the policy world. They include some of the world's leading scholars on international relations, democratization, elections, demography, and social policy. A former mayor of New York City, the current chair of the NASDAQ, and a former director of the U.S. Census are among the senior practitioners who help shape the research agenda and curriculum of SIPA.