Hi! I’m Abhik! I grew up in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., in Ellicott City, Maryland. After graduating from high school, where I was a Maryland State Champion in Policy Debate, I attended college at the University of California, Berkeley. At Berkeley, I studied the Political Economy of East Asia and took several years of Korean. While in college, I served in a variety of leadership roles, including Captain of the Berkeley Policy Debate Team, Senior World Editor of the Berkeley Political Review, President of the Bay Area Urban Debate League Bears, and Senior Advisor to the Berkeley Chapter of Project Rishi. While at Berkeley, I also interned in the Office of Policy of the U.S. Agency for International Development, where I discovered my passion for combating global poverty.

After graduating, I lived in South Korea on a U.S. Fulbright Grant, where I conducted research on Seoul's startup ecosystem and taught conversational English. While in Korea, I also served as a Staff Editor for Infusion, Fulbright Korea's literary magazine. Upon returning to D.C., I worked at the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition, where I routinely met with counterparts at the U.S. State Department and the Department of Defense, among others. I have experience writing for a variety of notable audiences, with my work in international development and diplomacy cited in The Washington Post, The New York Times, Foreign Policy Magazine, and the Congressional Research Service. My satirical work has also been featured in McSweeney's Internet Tendency.

Currently, I am a Doctoral Candidate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where I study Development Economics within the Department of Public Policy. At Chapel Hill, I have taught coursework at all levels, including doctoral classes in longitudinal data analysis and microeconomics, master’s courses in public finance and the politics of public policy, as well as undergraduate classes in cost-benefit analysis, research design, causal inference, domestic labor economics, and the ethical considerations undergirding modern policy debates.

At Kay Tutoring, I tutor high school and college-level Economics, International Relations, Social Studies, Extracurricular Hook Coaching, College List Building, and College Essay Writing. Students I have worked with have matriculated at Top 20 programs at both the undergraduate and graduate level, including the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University’s Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, Brown University, Duke University School of Law, Dartmouth College, Weill Cornell Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, Carnegie Mellon University, Northwestern University’s School of Engineering, the University of Notre Dame, Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, Washington University in St. Louis, UCLA, and the University of California, Berkeley (Go Bears!).