GVPT Alumna’s Daily Work is Helping Solve World Challenges, Literally
It’s really no surprise that Elifnaz Caliskan devoted her studies, and her career so far, to learning about world issues and doing her part to try to solve them.
Born in Turkey, Caliskan, a 2018 graduate of the Department of Government and Politics, moved around often growing up, across three different continents. In fact, she changed high schools three different times across three different cities before settling in Maryland and ultimately deciding to attend UMD.
“I didn’t necessarily know about [attending] UMD, but I always knew that I wanted to study something like international relations,” she said.
BSOS didn’t offer an international relations program during Caliskan’s early days at UMD, but it wasn’t long before they created one.
“I went to Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education, Katherine Russell, and said ‘Hey, why don’t we have a major for international relations?’” she recalled. “Dr. Russell, and BSOS overall, really listened to student voices like mine, and were willing to involve me in the process to advocate for this new program. I'll forever be grateful for her empowerment of an undergraduate student in the way she did.”
Soon after Caliskan received her B.A. in Government and Politics—with a concentration in international relations and a minor in international development and conflict management—she also completed her masters in public policy through the BA/MPP program offered between BSOS and the School of Public Policy.
Through this and her other activities at UMD, Caliskan jokes that she’s been “involved with almost every department of Maryland.”
At one point, she was a part of the Honors College’s Global Communities program, now called Honors Global Challenges and Solutions; she worked with the global and federal fellows program; she lectured in the geography department about GEOG130 after serving as a teaching assistant (TA); she served as a GVPT student ambassador; and she worked as a TA and researcher in the Center for International Development and Conflict Management (CIDCM). She was even a student speaker at GVPT and the Environmental Science & Policy program’s combined commencement ceremony in 2018.
Today, Caliskan is proud to say that she’s in a career perfectly aligned with her degree. She currently works with Pragma—an international development consulting firm—as a senior project manager focused on enabling economic growth in the world. She’s worked on projects concerning numerous countries in the Middle East, West Africa and, currently, Eurasia.
Caliskan collaborates with Pragma’s partners and clients, which include central banks, the private sector, producers, manufacturers, and business associations, to create and implement technical assistance programs and trainings in various parts of the world.
“I liaise between them on a day to day basis. This can mean submitting a technical proposal, developing the project or implementing that project, and making sure our field offices are operating fully,” she said, adding that she is also responsible for compliance and reporting to the donor on how their funds are being implemented.
As an example of the kind of work that Caliskan helps execute, she recently worked with a Pragma client on a project that examined policies in the Central Bank of Yemen, the country's private sector, and the country’s farmers and fisheries to ensure that economic activities would withstand post-war instability. For example, her work with the fisherfolk will hopefully benefit the widows who fish for a living in the Gulf of Aden, ensuring that they are able to not only make a livable wage, but trade globally.
Through her work and through her childhood experiences—which, she says, put her in both a minority and majority depending on where she lived—Caliskan values viewing the world from a different perspective that takes into account the importance of data-driven policy making, human capital investment and humanitarian aid, and people building bridges to take action.
“Not everyone in the world will agree on everything. Money won’t flow forever and there will be political ups and downs. But you always have to communicate. You have to liaise, you have to cooperate to have a chance at being the solution,” she said.
This article was written by Sofia Appolonio, JOUR '26
Published on Fri, Mar 21, 2025 - 11:02AM