Alexander Basescu

Alexander Basescu is a fourth year student at the University of Edinburgh, having completed his third year abroad at the University of Pennsylvania, pursuing an MA (Hons) Politics course. Hoping to enroll in a PhD program, his main areas of study are in International Political Economy and Comparative Politics. Fluent in English and Spanish, he grew up between New York and California before attending university in Scotland, studying abroad in his home country to better understand American politics. Also an active yogi and cellist, at Penn he served in multiple branches of the International Affairs Association, was a Glee Club singer, and was the Programming Director of the Queer Students’ Association, while researching inequality and collective risk dilemmas in public policy through research funded by the Andrea Mitchell Center for Democracy. He was previously elected as International and Multicultural Activities Representative for the University of Edinburgh Students’ Association and as Director of Outreach for the Edinburgh Political Union. Now, he is the Vice President of the Edinburgh Political Union, an intern for the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, and the Central and Eastern Europe Project Lead for the TTCSP. He previously led the intern team for a successful Democratic candidate in California, going on to become founder and Vice President of Democrats Overseas at the University of Edinburgh and Senior International Correspondent for the Penn Dems in 2019. Some of his most memorable university experiences include helping to organize ILMUNC 36, leading his university’s extracurricular grant allocation team, organizing weekly panel discussions, completing a research internship exploring the regressive nature of higher educational funding policies, and writing his dissertation on the global landscape of LGBT human rights legalization.