About Us
Crystle and Liv met in Italy at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and developed their friendship through various pandemic-related lockdowns. They made it through the tumultuous year in Bologna, baking together and bonding over musicals and yoga.
Following graduation, they decided to create Balance of Power both as a way to engage intellectually in topics that interested them but did not fit into their professional lives, and as a way to make a difference for those with fewer opportunities and quieter voices. Although their expertise lies in different fields, they have found that together, they can address a wide variety of topics including gender, climate change, and race, which they aim to change the narrative around and make a difference in.
Liv Heinrich
Co-Founder
Liv Heinrich was born and raised in Bochum, Germany. Ever since she was a child, she was passionate about equality and about creating and preserving a fair world. Liv has always been eager to learn about other cultures and was lucky to have had teachers who organised conversations with diverse religious leaders. As a teenager, Liv was trained in the performing arts but abandoned that ambition and decided to follow her passions while travelling.
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After her high school graduation, Liv performed her volunteer service in Malta, where she became acquainted with different families who had fled East Syria after their village was conquered by ISIS. This sparked Liv’s passion for social justice and sharpened her understanding of the personal dimensions of conflict and the wrongful portrayal of PoC in the media.
Liv received her B.A. in International Relations from the University of Warsaw and her M.A. in International Affairs, with specializations in International Economics and European Studies, from Johns Hopkins SAIS. She currently works for the European Commission where she combines her passions of politics and music by simultaneously working on policy and leading the Trainee Choir.
Crystle Siegel
Co-Founder
Crystle Siegel was born in San Diego, California. As a child, she moved often due to her father's career, living in multiple countries and discovering her passion for travel. She studied abroad in Bangkok for her last year of high school. This turned out to be an experience that would change the course of her life drastically, as it was during this year she found her passion for cross-cultural relations, which she would later shift towards international relations and politics.
Following her return to the US, she pursued her B.A. in International Studies. She went on to complete an M.A. in International Relations, with a specialization in Culture and Politics, at Leiden University in the Netherlands, followed by an M.A. in International Affairs at Johns Hopkins SAIS in Bologna, Italy.
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One of Crystle's biggest passions is sustainability and she hopes to one day work on projects that lead to higher qualities of life around the globe, as well as better preservation of the planet. She currently lives in Italy with her cat and works with the European Food Safety Authority on project management and business continuity as a Business Coordination Trainee.