Since graduating from Oakcrest in 2015, Giorgina Agostini has embarked on an exciting journey to pursue her passion for public policy and advocacy. It’s a journey that has taken her everywhere from The College of William and Mary to Spain, and now to the halls of our nation’s Capitol, where she will be working on the Republican staff of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission,  a bipartisan caucus in the House of Representatives that is in charge of "promoting, defending and advocating for international human rights as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other relevant human rights instruments."

Giorgina can trace her interest in public policy back to her days as an Oakie.  Her classes challenged her intellectually and encouraged her to develop and pursue her passions. “At Oakcrest, I was the first exchange student to be sent to our sister school, Orvalle, in Madrid, Spain,” she recalls. “This exchange played a huge role in my interests and professional life today. I learned the importance of communicating and collaborating across differences, as well as the significance of learning languages and appreciating  different cultures.”  

Giorgina graduated from The College of William and Mary with a double major in Government and Global Studies,  with a concentration in Latin American Studies. She then earned a Master of Human Rights from the University of Navarra in Pamplona, Spain. At Navarra, she successfully wrote and defended a thesis on the human rights crisis in Venezuela, with a focus on the illegal denunciation of the American Convention on Human Rights, and the binding domestic and international obligations of the State to respect, protect, and guarantee human rights. 

Busy as she has been with her studies and a fellowship at The Property Rights Alliance (a project of Americans for Tax Reform), Giorgina has also found the time to write on issues of property ownership, free trade and taxation for Townhall, Americans for Tax Reform, and The European Conservative. While working at The Property Rights Alliance, Giorgina co-authored a case study titled “Government Responses to COVID-19 Drive a Pandemic in Illicit Trade.”

Having completed her studies, Giorgina is excited to begin a new chapter in Washington, DC. She recently received the Women & Public Policy Fellowship from the Women’s Congressional Policy Institute and will begin working with Representative Chris Smith (NJ-04), Co-Chair of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission in the coming weeks. It is a natural next step for an Oakie who learned during her time here that women have enormous potential to lead, serve, and make the world a better place as trustees of humanity. 

“I was taught the significance of being an active citizen and giving back to our local community….” Giorgina says of her time at Oakcrest. “With small class sizes, one-on-one mentoring, and daily Mass, I learned my strengths and weaknesses, how to incorporate virtues into daily life, and, most importantly, how I can maximize my talents and knowledge to pursue the greater good. I was inspired… and was encouraged to be a female protagonist.”

Read Giorgina’s article for The European Conservative here.