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August 2007
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INTERNATIONAL NEWS |
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London-Based Alum Works as Consultant, Teacher, Photographer, and More
Alexander Knapp, SIS/BA ’95 moved to London in January 2007 simply because, to him, it’s “the new Constantinople.” As a consultant and part-time teacher who tackles assignments ranging from post-conflict reconstruction with humanitarian organizations such as the United Nations, to photographing all of the people and places he sees in his travels, Knapp certainly seems to benefit from the convenience of an international hub like London. “Since graduating, all roads seemed to lead to it, and eventually I arrived here after a lot of wandering the planet,” says Knapp. “It’s massively international, has centers of gravity in politics, business, finance, and culture all at once.” So, what’s an average day like for Knapp, who is now in the beginning stages of a authoring a book titled Bezerkistan: Complexity and Development in International Relations? A random day in early August included the following: sorting and rendering photos from a show he had photographed the previous evening, building the Web site for media access, and delivering the images to a theatre by 10 a.m.; coaching a team of analysts at a client’s office on the use of linear tools and thinking to better map risk in emerging markets; grabbling a sandwich on the go while heading to organize a seminar regarding the Dayton Peace Accords at the London School of Economics; and finally heading to cooking school, where he closed the day with a “knife skills” course. Exhausted yet? Hailing from Meadville, Pa., Knapp first traveled abroad as an exchange student prior to attending AU. His fascination with international issues began as early as his days studying foreign languages in middle school, then at AU, he recalls. “I’ve always been interested in international ‘stuff’ and I've been fortunate to have had many mentors and inspirations along the way. Probably the most significant ones are Carol Saunders, my French professor at AU, and her husband Hal, who was a former Assistant Secretary of State. They've both been real touchstones for me my entire career.” Knapp notes that he is especially proud of not only surviving “Introduction to Quantitative Information Analysis” here at AU (he laughs), but of his work in Liberia immediately following the end of a civil war. “I ran into a student there who’d been in one of my classes and had gotten herself an internship. When I mentioned that West Africa was a long way to go just to get a letter of recommendation, she laughed and told me pointedly, ‘You’re the one who told us that a desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world’. She turned out well, I’m proud of that one.” Knapp hosts his own Web site, where you can visit to read more about his worldly travels, view his photography, and more. -David Ferraris |
When was the last time you pondered a topic such as complex system theory and how it applies to real world examples? Or imagined yourself as one of the first outsiders to enter a post-conflict region in order to establish a stable base of operations for medium-and long-term teams? Most of us have probably not, but at least one AU alumnus is living abroad and filling each day with a variety of tasks that make no two days identical.