Mikaela is the Assistant Director of Global Engagement at Arcadia University. Her primary focus is facilitating the creation and logistics of short-term faculty-led trips, such as Preview and Global Field Studies. With an MSc in International Relations and Refugee Studies from AAU Copenhagen, Mikaela’s academic background spans societal, cultural and political aspects of global mobility and displacement. In 2015, her fascination with the Scandinavian welfare model brought her to Sweden, where she continued to explore themes of displacement and belonging through an exchange program at Gothenburg University. Since then, Mikaela’s research has focused on female migrant entrepreneurs in the beauty industry, Scandinavia’s persistent struggle to balance migration politics and welfare state ideals, and externalisation of asylum claims as an emerging trend. Her professional interests are represented across the fields of international education, project management and evaluation, research design and consulting within the global development and humanitarian sector. Recent professional endeavors include a series of partnership reviews for the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and drafting application proposals for EU/ERASMUS+ social impact projects. After nearly a decade of living in the Öresund region between Sweden and Denmark, Mikaela has returned to the US to inspire the next generation of students and world travelers.