Dr. Sabina Henneberg, PhD in African Studies | Fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy

In this episode, we discuss how Sabina’s work experience in North Africa inspired her to pursue her PhD in African Studies after having completed her master’s degree at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), the different factors that influenced how she approached making decisions about her career, and her advice about the importance of connecting with peers during graduate school.

Hosted by Lois Dankwa

To connect with Sabina and to learn more about her story, visit her page on the PHutures #100AlumniVoices Project website.

Transcript

Lois Dankwa

Hi! I'm co-host, Lois Dankwa, and this is the 100 alumni voices podcast, stories that inspire, where we explore the personal and professional journeys of a diverse group of 100 doctoral alumni from Johns Hopkins University. Today we are joined by Sabina Henneberg, PhD in International Relations and current fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Hi Sabina.

Sabina Henneberg

Hi.

Lois Dankwa

How are you today?

Sabina Henneberg

Fine thanks! How are you?

Lois Dankwa

I'm good. I'm I'm excited to dive in, earn a little bit about your story, and just yeah, dive in. So, to start I'd love for you to just share with us what made you want to pursue a PhD in international relations, and really just hear a little bit about your graduate work.

Sabina Henneberg

Sure. Before I decided to pursue a PhD, I pursued a masters from Hopkins also at the School for Advance International Studies (SAIS), and I didn't really know what I wanted to do after that. But I ended up working in North Africa, and ended up working there during a period of you know, significant upheaval known as the Arab Spring. So, those events really sparked my interest in kind of thinking about them from a research perspective, and I had gone to the region and was really just intrigued by the region. So, I went back to SAIS, and I talked to the African studies program there, because for various reasons, that program made the most sense for me to become a doctoral candidate. And that's where I ended up doing my doctor at work.

Lois Dankwa

That's pretty cool. So, it's—I love how for you it starts from just initial learning what you are doing. And you realize you just wanted to dive in more.

Sabina Henneberg

Even though I was based here in DC, to do the implementation of development projects, US Government funded development projects. And I was learning so much from doing that. And I was also sort of feeling like there wasn't a lot of research involved in that work. And there wasn't a lot of asking questions when one was doing the implementing. I really wanted to be asking more questions, you know, especially because the events of the so called Arab Spring caught so many people off guard. This is such a new, interesting thing to research. So, for all those reasons, yeah, I ended up going back to school.

Lois Dankwa

That's exciting. And as someone that's interested in implementation and also recognizing the value of research when you are implementing something, I certainly understand the draw for that. So, I'm certainly curious to hear more then, about what your doctoral work looks like. Like you were carrying— and this happens for a lot of us where you're carrying ahead knowledge and interest and questions that you have from your past. But how did that really manifest in your doctoral studies and how you thought about why you were pursuing a PhD and what you were going to be doing in it?

Sabina Henneberg

I guess I kinda feel like going back to graduate school, even though it was to study the same region that I had already been working in, was really an opportunity to come at the region with fresh eyes, because as I mentioned, I was bringing a whole new set of questions. I guess I also, yeah, that was very interesting. You know, I also ended up working in North Africa, in the first place, with the International Development Company, because I studied French in school and French is used a lot in North Africa. But I never studied Arabic, and you know, people who have worked on the Middle East know that Arabic is challenging, for one reason, because it's so varied across the region. There are so many dialects in North Africa, and it has some of the most obscure dialects. But what I learned is that even just the process of studying Arabic, even if I didn't really use it to communicate that much, it helped me kind of give me some insight into the way people think in the region. Yeah, in North Africa part of the reason that the dialects are so specific is because there's influence of yeah, there's influence of French from the colonial period. There's influence of the like the Berber languages what people say. So, just that insight which some mentors also, well one mentor in particular pointed out to me was, you know, just that insight of all these different influences and languages that go on in people's lives all the time gives you insight into like the way things work kind of. So I got—I had none of that when I was there before doing the the doctoral work.

Lois Dankwa

Right, and that's that's kind of the cool thing about doctoral study, right? It, it opens your eyes like you were saying the reason you started your PhD was you wanted to have fresh eyes to the same thing that you're used to, but also it really opens your eyes to new perspectives and ways to look at the same thing.

Sabina Henneberg

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And then I had also done the masters in international relations, which I think you know, gave me a good foundation. But I you know a Masters Degree doesn't give you the same chance to go deep into the literature and the theory about you know questions of democratization and the aspects of political science I was looking at. So, that was something new, too.

Lois Dankwa

That's amazing. So, I'm curious then, what made you drawn to where you are now working on policy work? I focus me personally as someone that does health services research and policy, I understand the appeal, but I'd love to hear from you what made going in the policy direction make sense to you and was it anything in your doctoral program that pushed you in that direction or something later? Yeah.

Sabina Henneberg

Well, I think like you know, like everyone, the direction I took was a combination of decisions and just events or things that happened to me. You know things I didn't plan. So you know, probably the fact that I was in DC was a big influence, but I didn't necessarily like set out to do policy work. In fact, I tried to join the Government on a few occasions, because that's you know, you probably know there are many government jobs, but the process is very long, and bureaucratic to get them. And so one of the ways that makes it easier to get those jobs is through these various fellowships that are usually directed at students. And once you're not a student anymore, you're not eligible. So anyway, I never ended up with one of those student fellowships like the Presidential Management fellowship, that’s a really common one, I think. So, I didn't do policy work, even though I sort of explored it, until this current position. I also hadn't necessarily thought that I would go into academia. But through the like small chances I had to do some teaching and just thinking about or just learning more about what academia involved, I was pretty attracted to that, and I explored that too. But anyway, things came together in various ways. I got a postdoc after I finished the graduate degree, but not immediately, so I got some experiences doing different kinds of jobs and then postdoc, after the postdoc I got an industry job. And then came the pandemic like pretty soon after that, and that hasn't—I don't really know how much that's changed Academia, but it's sort of closed the door at least for me at that point. And then, yeah, eventually I ended up in this job, which is my first, very, very policy focused Job. So, I'm learning a lot about policy, but I like it.

Lois Dankwa

It's interesting. It's interesting to hear kind of your journey where it's you've considered all, not all, but a lot of different ways you could use your degree. And I think that that's something that so often people in emerging doctoral folks, whether they're PhDs, DrPHs, or whatever, they're grappling with how to pick what sector to be working in. And I'm curious, I mean, I know you said it was a combination of factors like what made sense at the time for you and things you weren't in control of, but do you have advice on how one is able to narrow it down? And what things were able to help you? 

Sabina Henneberg

I mean what you know, one thing about my experience is that it was pretty like haphazard and disjointed. It was not—there was not a clear trajectory after I finished my PhD. And I didn't really expect that, and I don't know how it is in other fields, and some of my colleagues, you know, had a much more sort of linear trajectory, but I jumped around a lot. I was, like I said, very fortunate to have another year of funding basically after I graduated in the postdoc. But and so I was drawn back in here for that reason. But it didn't guarantee an academic job. And and you know, I think one of the reasons which I think is true for a lot of people in a lot of fields, one of the reasons I ended up deciding not to go into academia is because I, because of personal reasons. I didn't want to move, you know, to any random place. So, I focused my search on the places that everybody wants to be, you know, mostly around here in DC. And that's very competitive, you know. And then, as I mentioned, with the with the pandemic, I think for you know, a couple of years nobody in higher education knew how things are going to be reshaped. So yeah, so so something that was very clear for me, a determining factor for me was location and family, and not wanting—not being willing to move just anywhere. But there were other things that yeah happened to me that helped make the decision

Lois Dankwa

Yeah, I understand that. And I'm I guess I'm curious also, if there was any role that mentors, or some of your peers like things you might have learned from them that helped really as you thought about what would make sense for you, recognizing all of the factors that were already going to be influencing your decision? Like was there any standout advice that you received from a mentor or an advisor, or anything like that?

Sabina Henneberg

Well, I guess one thing I should have pointed out, you know, in the previous sort of description of the factors of the factors that shaped the trajectory is that, and I think a lot of today's doctoral students and all of my colleagues who are still dealing with this, so the generation before us, you know our advisors, I think we're mostly male, you know, mostly, and not in minorities, and they—academia was sort of a different beast, I think. And so, they probably didn't think that much about what would happen after they finished their PhD. They would get a teaching job, and that's what happened I think, to some of the advisors who influenced me the most. So, it's much, you know, as important as they were for my experience, they didn't really understand that I was facing a different, you know, a different world, kind of in terms of the job prospects, but that's not to say that they weren't encouraging and helpful. One of the pieces of advice that I remember from one of my advisors was actually really about encouraging me you know, when I was in like you, in the throes of trying to finish the dissertation was just, he said, just finish it because it's your driver's license, and after that you can figure out what you want to do, and so you don't have to make this, you know this particular dissertation perfect. You can use it to then pursue, you know, figure out what's out there, and pursue that. So, I always think about that. Yeah. And I mean, I guess I'm also grateful to the advisors who helped me get teaching opportunities and helped me learn about yeah, how hard it is to teach, even though I really enjoyed that experience too. So, those are some of the things that come to mind

Lois Dankwa

Yeah, that's I'm really glad that you mentioned that. There can be so many moments when an advisor or a mentor is really helpful, and can understand parts of well, they can understand parts of what make you want to pursue something different than them, but they may not know or have the words to be able to suggest something so and that's for a number of reasons, but it's I think something that a lot of people can identify with in terms of going, okay, yeah, I have a supportive advising community, but they're not the ones with the answers. And I curious then like then how do you find opportunities if the people that you're supposed to be asking for information from don't really get it in terms of what you're looking for?

Sabina Henneberg

Yeah, that's a really important point. That reminds me of a really good piece of advice I got from a mentor. She said, spend time, you know, organizing panels at conferences, building relationships with your peers, not, you know not the advisors you think of as the superiors. Don't focus on them because they're gonna retire. And it's gonna be your peers who are the ones, you know, doing the research that you're interested in and leading, you know, leading the field. So, yeah, that was an inspiration to to do some things like organizing panels and just build—I mean, that was such a critical part of my PhD experience was the relationship with relationships with my peers. And if you know, I think that's kind of how I ended up in the current role, this is because I was focused on getting to know the other people those other sort of North Africanists in DC, and yeah eventually, led me to this institute where I work now.

Lois Dankwa

That's amazing. And I I love that you really put put a mark, an important note on the the value of connecting with our peers, and realizing that they and we are experts in our own rights. And it's not always about gunning to talk to the most important person in the room, in quotes, but rather we are all most important people in different ways, and we're all coming up. So why not build community and strengthen those bonds that way instead of always striving for the person who doesn't really have capacity to know you so fully, necessarily.

Sabina Henneberg

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Lois Dankwa

That's such a good point. So, I just have a couple of other questions for you. So, I I'm curious what specific career advice you would have for someone that's interested in your field or someone who's trajectory might look similar to yours, where they know that they don't necessarily want to be in academia, but then there's a lot of different options, and they also know they might hop, but they're a little bit anxious about what that hopping would look like?

Sabina Henneberg

Well, one thing that I would say that a lot people of said to me is, you know, just be patient and persistent. Yeah, I don't think I have the greatest sort of pulse on the job market right now, but I have some sense, and I think especially for master students, but for PhD students too, it's just yeah, it's just competitive yeah, maybe especially in DC. You know, and then with me, I'm glad that I tried to keep publishing and that was some advice too, you know, sort of whether or not you want to go into academia. If you want to go into academia, you have to keep up your publication record. But but even if you don't, it's kind of a way to just get your name out there, and you kind of you never know what it might lead to down the road, when you, you know, when you keep writing and publishing. So those that's what I would say.

Lois Dankwa

That's helpful. Those are important notes. So, as my last question, I'm really curious what inspires you right now?

Sabina Henneberg

Well, probably I would say the same thing that has always inspired me, which is basically, you know, people who would be described as human rights defenders or people who are fighting for fighting to improve their societies and their countries. I mean that was you know, maybe it's overly romanticized, but that was what happened basically during the Arab spring that I said, you know, attracted me to return to graduate school. And it's still happening in all kinds of ways. Even if people are very disillusioned with what happened in the Middle East and North Africa in 2011. In those events, it's there were very brave people before then who were willing to go to jail or risk their lives for real change, and there still are, and of course, not only in the Middle East and North Africa, but that's yeah, that's the region I focus on, so those are the human rights defenders I always have in the front of my mind, but they could be anywhere. And yeah, for me, it's really inspirational.

Lois Dankwa

Yeah, I understand that being inspired by your work, but also the people you see that are really getting down and on their knees and doing the thing.

Sabina Henneberg

Yeah.

Lois Dankwa

Yeah, I get that. Oh, well, it's been so wonderful to hear your story. And just learn a little bit about what your experience kind of pursuing your PhD but then also existing after having received and achieved that has looked like. So I want to just thank you so much for taking time to chat today.

Sabina Henneberg

Thank you. Yeah. It's my pleasure.