Administrative Coordinator
Valerie Aronhalt is from Lima, Peru. She is majoring in International Relations and pursuing her Master’s in Public Policy.
For the Fall 2025 semester, she is an intern at the ACLU Jails Team. She helps file grievances on behalf of incarcerated individuals and monitors the ACLU’s settlement compliance. Her past internship experiences include interning at the City of Los Angeles Human + Civil Rights Department as a Policy Fellow, interning at Sony Pictures Entertainment as part of the Investigative Services team, and working abroad in Tokyo at TBM Japan, a sustainability and waste management startup.
She spent the summer of 2025 working at the U.S. Embassy in Indonesia within the Economics Section of the U.S. Mission to ASEAN. She monitored regional economic trends, supported high-level meetings with the ASEAN Secretary-General and other Ambassadors, wrote reports for Washington policymakers, and supported public diplomacy initiatives.
Valerie is part of the 10th cohort of the U.S. Foreign Service Internship Program at the U.S. Department of State. She spent the summer of 2024 in Washington, D.C. working in the Bureau of International Security and Non-Proliferation, within the office of Conventional Arms Threat Reduction. She reviewed export control license requests for emerging technology and AI chips. She also received memo and cable writing training at the National Foreign Affairs Training Center. She received the Schaeffer Fellow in Government Service award to support her time in DC.
On campus, Valerie is the Director of Finance for the USC Helenes, a service organization dedicated to giving back to the USC and South Central communities. She is part of Agents of Change, the nation’s first undergraduate civil rights clinic, and a Research Assistant at the USC Center for Advanced Genocide Studies. She served as the Vice President of USC’s Foreign Service Society. She raised over $10k for international humanitarian crises and planned career symposiums and the first-ever Foreign Service Career Week.
Outside of her academic and career endeavors, Valerie enjoys new matcha spots in Los Angeles, thrifting, and going on runs.