Water scarcity, or lack of safe drinking water, is one of today’s leading problems, affecting more than a billion people across the globe. This statistic is not lost on Iti Maloney ’15, a Syracuse University senior who recently participated in the 55th annual

Naval Academy Foreign Affairs Conference

(NAFAC) in Annapolis, Md. The theme of the conference was “Sustainability and Sovereignty: Global Security in a Resource-Strained World.”

Born and raised in South India, Maloney knows, firsthand, how growing populations can strain natural resources. Currently, only two Indian cities have a continuous water supply, while an estimated 60 percent of Indians lack access to improved sanitation facilities.

“I was interested in attending [NAFAC] this year because the theme focused on the future of natural resources and conflict,” says Maloney, a dual major in international relations (IR) and policy studies in the

Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs

and the

College of Arts and Sciences.

Mary Lovely, an economics professor who chairs the IR program at the University, says students such as Maloney attend NAFAC, in part, to share ideas with colleagues and experts from across the country.

“Our delegates participated in panels on food and water security, energy security, and resource conflict,” says Lovely, adding that NAFAC is the nation’s largest undergraduate foreign affairs conference. “It was an intense experience, as each delegate had to submit a paper in preparation for a roundtable discussion.”

After graduating from an Indian boarding school, Maloney relocated to Washington, D.C., which she has since called home. Still, Maloney maintains close ties to South India, as evidenced by her minor in South Asian studies at the University.

“Syracuse’s South Asian studies program is one of the main reasons I’m here,” Maloney says. “It’s enabled me to focus on South Asia, as part of my international relations major, and to study Hindi, which is not offered at a lot of other colleges or universities.”

To say Maloney is an engaged student is to flirt with understatement. When she isn’t studying or attending class, she may be found conducting research for the Central New York Community Foundation, through Maxwell’s Community Benchmarks Program; interning at the World Wildlife Fund and the U.S. Department of State, both in Washington DC; or studying in India, through the South Asian Center.

In her spare time, Maloney volunteers in the Samaritan Center’s soup kitchen and the after-school program of the Preston Taylor Ministries’ Wilson Center.

With most of her undergraduate training in the rearview mirror, Maloney looks forward to spending the next year traveling and volunteering, before returning to the University to enroll in Maxwell’s top-ranked Master’s of Public Administration program.

“I’m excited about graduation but even more so about what comes after it,” she says.