Friday, January 25, 2019 | 11:45 a.m.-12:45  p.m.
455 Weiser Hall (500 Church Street, Ann Arbor)
Emily Biester
BA International Studies; BA Political Science; minor, French, University of Michigan '13
Immigration Services Officer, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services

Interested in the Peace Corps, teaching English abroad, federal immigration services, or a government agency career? Learn from PICS alumna Emily Biester (BA '13) through her abroad experiences and her work as a federal employee for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Please RSVP to attend by Monday, January 21, 2019.

Emily is from Oak Park, IL, and majored in Political Science and International Studies at the University of Michigan. During her senior year at the University of Michigan, she worked specifically with immigrant populations. At the Freedom House in Detroit, she assisted in the translation of legal documents from French into English for refugees and asylum seekers in the process of resettlement, primarily from Northern Africa and the Middle East. She then worked in an immigration law office, where she interacted directly with immigrants while concurrently conducting research on migration policy through her coursework at the University of Michigan.

Learning about the diverse backgrounds of the people her law office served was a transformative experience that led Emily to the Peace Corps, where she served in Madagascar for 26 months as an Education Volunteer. She taught English at the local public high school in Fort Dauphin, a large town on the southeastern coast of the island, while also engaging in community development projects targeted toward malaria prevention, gender equality, and teacher training. She joined the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) at the Seattle Field Office as an Immigration Services Officer – ISO1 in March 2016, and became an ISO2 in October 2017.