Laura Artandi
Trebuchet Academy Fellow
Laura is a fellow at The Trebuchet Academy and a rising senior at Stanford pursuing a BA in international relations, with specializations in international security and comparative international governance, as well as a minor in human rights. Her coursework spans international law, democratic development, nuclear nonproliferation, and just war theory. She is currently in the process of writing her honors thesis, which will center on democratic erosion in Eastern Europe.
Laura grew up in the Bay Area, which she has yet to leave. As a child, Laura gravitated toward activities that put her in collaboration with others, and culminated in a captive audience, for example, theater, student government, and mock trial, for which she has been nationally recognized. She is also a German citizen, a middle child, and a classically trained pianist. She loves completing The New York Times crossword puzzles, and playing Jet Punk’s Name the Countries game (she can now name them all). That instinct for collaborative, public-facing work carries into her love of policy research and journalism: she has a particular fondness for academic research, editing, and page design, and is especially excited about the prospect of building a journal through the Academy.
For her summer research project, Laura is investigating the impact of USAID withdrawals in the Greater Horn of Africa, examining how the retreat of American development aid is reshaping governance, stability, and humanitarian outcomes across the region. Throughout her higher educational journey, Laura has taken advantage of research opportunities to pursue subjects where she wanted to expand her expertise. She wrote an article for a foreign correspondence class in the spring of 2025 about the impact of aid removal from South Sudan, but wants to learn more about the Greater Horn Region, and the longer-term implications of USAID withdrawal. She does not yet have an individual project mentor, working instead directly under Sherman Teichman, who serves as general mentor to the fellowship as a whole. Laura joined the Trebuchet Academy halfway through the summer. She was drawn to Sherman’s incredible expertise and vast knowledge, along with the group of fellows. Everyone came together from such different academic backgrounds and the passion they express for their respective research topics is palpable.
Research
Topic: USAID and the Greater Horn of Africa
Proposal: My research project is exploring what happens to a region when the aid that it has relied on for decades suddenly disappears. I am especially interested in how withdrawal shapes not just humanitarian outcomes, but broader competition for soft power influence that fills the vacuum left behind. My guiding question is: How can African countries that relied on USAID for years move forward in a world where that money is no longer an option, and who is positioning to shape what comes next? As case studies, I plan to examine Kenya, Somalia, and Sudan. All geographically neighbors that relied heavily on USAID, but with drastically different histories and primary issues. I will also draw on Ethiopia and Djibouti as secondary cases when examining whether China and other powers see this withdrawal as an opening. My main priority is to trace the throughline connecting three questions: what has been the tangible impact, who is stepping in to fill that space, and what genuine paths forward exist for governments that can no longer count on that money returning.
Mentors: Sherman Teichman
