American University Campus

Milena is a sophomore in the School of International Service at AU, majoring in International Studies and minoring in Spanish. Milena is really passionate about everything politics/IR related, and cannot wait to engage with this year’s Olson Scholars cohort as a community of writers and thinkers. Her general project theme deals with ethno-religious identities in the Balkans, particularly in the context of regional conflicts in the 90s. Milena is fluent in Serbian (as her parents are both immigrants from former the Yugoslav nations of Serbia and Montenegro), so she is looking forward to engaging with some research sources written in the Serbo-Croatian language. Outside of Olson Scholars, Milena is involved with American University’s International Relations Society, particularly with the Model UN side of things. She is a member of AU’s competitive Model United Nations team, and she is currently serving as Director of Communications for the sixth annual Washington International Relations Conference (WIRC), a Model UN training conference for high school delegates. When she’s not swamped with readings for her IR classes, Milena is probably searching for the best mint chocolate chip ice cream in DC and dealing with her incessant case of the hiccups.