An Expansive Washington College Community

From discovering her interests to learning how she could use them to make a difference, from getting her first internship to her first job to her graduate degree, Isabella Sansanelli ’21 can point to specific Washington College connections that made each of those moments possible.  

Professor Martín Ponti brought Sansanelli into the Hispanic Studies major, pointing out that her goal of taking a Spanish class every semester just for the language skills could easily be built into a foundation for the major. 

The more she studied the language—her Argentinian grandfather’s native tongue—the more Sansanelli loved it, and in her junior year, Ponti’s colleague Elena Deanda-Camacho suggested Sansanelli had achieved enough fluency to intern at Mid-Shore Pro Bono, a Chestertown legal aid nonprofit that helped immigrants access humanitarian aid. Funded by the Washington College Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience, Sansanelli worked as an intern for Mid-Shore Pro Bono for the remaining 18 months of her Washington education. 

“I really loved all my clients, especially a lot of them from Central America. I’ve never met kinder people,” Sansanelli said. “It directly led to my full-time work after graduation.” 

Not only was the work she had been doing a direct fit for the job she took as a bilingual legal assistant at low-income immigrant services nonprofit Ayuda in Fairfax County, Virginia after graduation, Sansanelli already had been in contact with Ayuda while working at Mid-Shore, which sometimes referred clients there. 

While she had a passion for Spanish that Washington helped develop into a professional skill, Sansanelli also discovered and nurtured at the College a passion for studying and advocating in the areas of human rights, peace, justice, and reconciliation. 

These were topics she had wrestled with at Washington through her political science classes, especially with Professor Christine Wade. After a couple of years at Ayuda, Sansanelli knew she didn’t want to go to law school but wanted to find ways to do more to serve people coping with migration, seeking asylum following domestic or sexual assault, or otherwise vulnerable populations. 

“I found myself very interested in what was happening in their home countries that was prompting this migration,” Sansanelli said.  
Seeking her next step, Sansanelli spoke with Wade, and Ponti, and working her way through a Washington College network as one referral led to another. She spoke with Katie Wellington ’16, whom she remembered from a human rights class of Professor Wade’s when alumni came in to share their experiences in the field. Wellington connected Sansanelli to Ted DiSalvo ’14, and talking with the two of them helped convince Sansanelli that her future ran through the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, where she earned her master’s in peacebuilding and mediation in 2024. 

Sansanelli completed the degree in just one year, but still also found time to play on the university volleyball team, write for its Foreign Affairs Review, and volunteer as deputy director for another student’s startup nonprofit that uses satellite imagery to identify potential mass graves around the world and provide that information to the United Nations and other large agencies with the resources to address international conflict. 

“I worked hard to embed myself in the university even in the short time I was there because I learned the value of that at Washington College,” Sansanelli said. She added that the size of St. Andrews made her appreciate the connections and the care everyone at Washington has for one another. 

“I attribute so much of my career and educational success to Washington College providing these opportunities. The professors really care about you,” Sansanelli said. “There is a really strong Washington community in my post-graduate life, which I’m really grateful for.” 

— Mark Jolly-Van Bodegraven