Aryana Petrosky
2017 John Jay Fellow
Hometown: Gardnerville, Nevada
College: Azusa Pacific University
Degree: B.A. Political Science
Earning a degree in political science from Azusa Pacific University in the spring of 2017, Aryana Petrosky spent good portion of her collegiate career traveling. First, she was on the outskirts of Yosemite National Park involved with a great books intensive semester where students live, eat, backpack, rock climb, worship, and study together in a holistic Christian community. The following semester found Aryana studying in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. In the summer of 2016, Aryana was a development and events intern through the Koch Internship Program at Atlas Network in Washington, D.C. Back in California, she also interned at the Claremont Institute, providing written summaries of amicus curiae briefs submitted by the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence and assisting the operation of the summer fellowship programs.
During her time at Azusa she became an executive council member with the American Enterprise Institute’s Executive Council program and Chair of Pi Sigma Alpha, the national political science honor society.
Aryana is excited to use her time at the John Jay to wrestle with how Christians should bring the Kingdom of Heaven to earth, especially how the Kingdom should inform today’s politics and policy. She plans to continue her education in political philosophy, focusing on the concept of a “Poet in Politics.” After an independent study on Dante’s The Divine Comedy and on the medieval historian and poet Christine de Pizan, she has become interested in how the poet, as historian, prophet, community unifier, and truth seeker, delivers creativity and accountability to government structures.
When Aryana is not reading, she is backpacking in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, rock climbing, stargazing, or writing poetry.