Diplomacy Lab

Thank you for visiting Miami's Diplomacy Lab. Operating in its current form since 2021, the Lab facilitates a unique experiential learning model where faculty and students get hands-on experience tackling real-world issues facing U.S. diplomats at embassies and consulates around the world. Through applied research, our faculty and students get to have a direct impact on the formation and implementation of U.S. foreign policy.

The Department of State regularly invites students from universities across the country to Washington, D.C., to showcase months of Diplomacy Lab research conducted in partnership with their embassy and consular counterparts. For Miami students, the Diplomacy Lab Fair represents more than the culmination of an academic project. It is an opportunity to put their ideas in front of policymakers, engage with professionals working on global issues, and begin imagining where their education can take them. 

Presenting their research requires students to do more than demonstrate what they learned. They must learn how to communicate complex ideas clearly, answer questions from professionals, defend their findings, and adapt their message for audiences outside the university. 

This trip to our nation’s capital is also a gateway to Washington’s professional world. 

Dr. Arceneaux has further expanded on the Fair experience by creating opportunities for students to explore Washington beyond the presentation itself. During recent Diplomacy Lab trips, students have visited embassies, the White House, Congress, think tanks, national security organizations, and other institutions shaping international policy. They have met diplomats, policymakers, military officials, researchers, and Miami alumni working in Washington. 

These experiences can change students’ understanding of what a career in international affairs actually looks like. Many students arrive in Washington familiar with careers in government or diplomacy but leave having discovered an entire professional ecosystem of think tanks, advocacy organizations, international nonprofits, congressional offices, defense organizations, and other institutions they may never have encountered in the classroom. 

For students, the result is a powerful combination: research experience, professional skills, career exploration, and relationships with people already doing the work they hope to pursue. 

The Diplomacy Lab Fair demonstrates what experiential education can accomplish when students are allowed to take their work beyond campus. At Miami, the Diplomacy Lab journey does not end when students submit their research. It continues in Washington, where they present their ideas, meet the people shaping global affairs, discover new career possibilities, and begin building the professional networks that can help turn those possibilities into reality.