Cody Arigo
University of Maryland, School of Public Policy
CLASS YEAR: 2024
Cody was born and raised in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, before moving to Cumberland, Maryland, in 2011. He received a Bachelor of Arts degrees in history in 2018 from Salisbury University with minors in social studies and environmental studies. Cody wrote comprehensive academic historical papers that focused on colonialism, development and the Haitian Revolution. After graduating magna cum laude from Salisbury University in May 2018, Cody joined the Peace Corps in August 2018 where he went to Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia to teach English.
While a Peace Corps volunteer in a small village in the mountains of central Kyrgyzstan, Cody co-taught English lessons and wrote lesson plans with counterparts to improve the capacity of local teachers. Cody also conducted after-school American-Kyrgyz cultural exchange and sport clubs and wrote a small grant with the help of USAID and the Peace Corps to fund a project which trained local teachers how to implement technology with their lessons.
In the summer between his first and second year of his Peace Corps service, Cody worked with a local tourism small business to improve its sustainable translation services between English-speaking tourists and local Kyrgyz-speaking guides. Cody was evacuated from the Peace Corps on March 20, 2020, seven months prior to his close of service date because of the Covid-19 global public health emergency.
Since Cody left Kyrgyzstan, his primary counterpart has gone on to earn a scholarship for math study at the American University of Central Asia in Bishkek, where she will graduate in May 2022. Cody returned home from the Peace Corps eager to continue serving. He has worked wit the Maryland Department of Labor’s Division of Unemployment Insurance since June 2020 as an unemployment insurance professional, where he helps to process and enforce policy when adjudicating unemployment claims in the State of Maryland.
Cody is currently completing a Boren Fellowship in India, where he is studying Urdu. Upon his return from India in the Spring of 2024, he will complete his Master of Public Policy degree at the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy, where he specializes in International Security & Economic Policy.