2013-2014 SFL Annual Report 1 | Page 23

THE ACADEMIC Alumni Profile LIYA PALAGASHVILI I became involved with Students For Liberty in Fall 2009 when I attended the Philadelphia SFL Conference. I was a junior at George Mason University at the time, and I did not realize there was a growing movement of libertarian-oriented students outside of the undergraduate economics department at Mason. I was so inspired by the conference that I began getting more involved with SFL. I started attending their webinar series, participating in SFL Workshops, and I even published an Op-Ed with the SFL Op-Ed Project. I then attended the 2010 International Students For Liberty Conference and officially joined the SFL ‘family’ as an Executive Board Member. I served for two years and in those two years, I helped to organize the International SFL Conferences and ran the SFL Webinar Series. When SFL was founded in 2008, there were only a handful of pro-liberty student groups in existence, many of which ceased to exist within a year or two once the founder graduated. Today, there is a thriving international network of pro-liberty student groups around the world comprised of talented pro-liberty students ready to change the world. These experiences with SFL have been invaluable for me. I am currently pursuing my PhD in