Matthew Matsuyama ’18 and Adriel Taslim ’18 share how GPS helped translate their passion for international affairs into careers at the disaster management agency
After graduating from college with a degree in music performance, Adriel Taslim was a professional violinist. But he found the lifestyle didn’t match up with what he was hoping for, so he decided to go to Thailand to teach English.
Around the same time, after graduating from UC San Diego with his undergraduate degree, Matthew Matsuyama was building on his studies of Japanese language as an English teacher in Japan’s Gifu prefecture.
For both Taslim and Matsuyama, the experience of teaching English abroad convinced them that they wanted to pursue additional education to foster their interest in working with different countries.
They both pursued this goal by attending UC San Diego’s School of Global Policy and Strategy (GPS), from which they graduated with Master of International Affairs (MIA) degrees.
“The greatest part about going to GPS was the community and the close knit nature of the program,” Taslim said. “That aspect was helpful in classes, but it’s become even more helpful in networking to find jobs.”
As it turned out, both of those components came together in their case: Matsuyama and Taslim met in class, and when Matsuyama ended up getting a job at FEMA after graduation, he encouraged Taslim to apply to join him in working at the agency’s Federal Insurance Directorate, which manages the U.S.’s flood insurance program.
Now, Taslim works as a project manager, ensuring that all the various people and teams in the directorate are on the same page; he also works in research and development. Meanwhile, Matsuyama said the multidisciplinary skills he gained as a GPSer have been a perfect fit for his work at FEMA as a statistician.
Matsuyama shared that FEMA is a great work environment for people who went to GPS, primarily because it is a place that allows people to combine their interests across a number of different fields.
“The greatest part about going to GPS was the community and the close knit nature of the program. That aspect was helpful in classes, but it’s become even more helpful in networking to find jobs.”
Adriel Taslim ’18
“Everyone at FEMA wears two hats,” Matsuyama said. “You’ve got your day job where you’re doing data analytics, or maybe you’re doing policy work. But then when a large-scale disaster strikes, you might get called to deploy — so you stop what you’re doing to help on the ground or coordinate in the command center. They call it being ‘FEMA flexible.’”
Taslim mentioned how the global focus of the MIA degree helped him navigate times when he has helped people from different cultural backgrounds as a field worker.
“Even though FEMA doesn’t have as many international touch points as, say, the State Department or the Department of Defense, I have still worked with folks from around the world — including when I was deployed to help refugees who came to the U.S. after the fall of Afghanistan, in 2021,” he said.
Matsuyama’s work also brings him into contact with the rest of the world. Until summer 2025, he is working in Japan, this time as a recipient of the Mansfield Fellowship, which allows federal employees to live in Japan to learn from their counterparts. Matsuyama is learning from Japanese public safety workers about how they forecast flood damage, as well as learning best practices for how to mitigate risk from the numerous natural hazards Japan faces.
Why pursue a career at the emergency response agency? Taslim summed it up nicely.
“It can be very difficult at times, seeing the devastation and the toll on the individuals,” he said. “But it does end up being a very rewarding job at the end of the day, seeing the impact that we have on these people — whether they’re affected by the fall of Afghanistan or a natural disaster.”
