Benjamin Petrini earned his master's in international relations from Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies with a concentration in international economics and strategic studies. He also holds a degree in political science from Università degli Studi di Roma Tre. He has worked for the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime headquarters in Vienna and, through a fellowship, the Italian embassy in Tehran. He has also worked as a researcher at Globe Research and Publishing, an Italian think tank focusing on the Middle East. Benjamin was a fellow in our Barcelona and later in our Washington, D.C., office from June to September 2007 before joining the World Bank's Conflict, Crime and Violence team. He is fluent in English and Spanish, and Italian is his mother tongue.