Ashray Narayan holds a B.A. in Economics and International Relations from the University of Southern California. Prior to joining the inaugural cohort of the USC M.A. in Global Security Studies Program, Ash was the Program Manager with the Stanford Cyber Policy Center, where he developed and managed the center’s research program. He also has been an intern in the Bureau of Economic and Commercial Business Affairs with the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C. In addition, he has extensive experience in restaurant operations and international trade.
In the M.A. GSEC program, Ash plans to focus on issues of food security. In particular, he is interested in exploring the connection between food security and democracy, such as how governments can support food and agricultural value chains without compromising free-market principles or undoing the minimum support prices that small famers rely upon to survive.
He believes that given the current state of hyper-connectedness in the global economy, acquiring strong knowledge of human security and the ripple effects of economic policies will prove to be vital, particularly when the time comes to apply theoretical approaches to policy areas such as food and resource scarcity.
