Drawn to the MIA Program, They Found Each Other

ALBANY, N.Y. (July 28, 2026) — What began at Rockefeller College with a forgotten book ended five years later in marriage. 

In 2019, shortly before her next class was set to begin, Madeleine Goodman, then a first-year Master of International Affairs student, ran back to the Graduate Student Lounge in Milne Hall to grab a textbook she’d left behind. There, she came across Wilson Han, a fellow MIA student from China. 

“I started speaking Chinese to him the first time, and it didn't register to him that I was speaking Mandarin,” Goodman said. “He'd been in America for one year; no non-Chinese person had spoken Mandarin to him [before].” 

Han, who was in his second year of the MIA program at the time, was a teaching assistant for the Intro to Statistics class that Goodman was enrolled in, and the two became friends during the class. 

“What's kind of funny is I taught English for three years in China, so people think we met in China,” said Goodman, who majored in Chinese and history in her undergraduate years and, prior to enrolling in the MIA program in 2019, taught English abroad to university students. 

Their first date was at Shu Chinese Restaurant in Guilderland right before the COVID-19 crackdown in January 2020. 

“They serve great Chinese food, as authentic as you as you can get in the U.S.,” Han said. 

Many dinner dates, countless hikes, and two commencement ceremonies later, the two were married near Goodman’s hometown in Missouri in 2024.

Drawn to the program

The MIA program, a cornerstone at Rockefeller College, attracted Han because of its strength and location.   

“I wanted to do something with politics and especially international relations,” Han said. 

After earning his MIA in 2020, he went on to pursue his PhD at Rockefeller, which he just completed in May. His thesis explores how China uses international economic instruments to achieve its foreign policy. 

Goodman had long wanted to work in international relations and opted for Rockefeller’s MIA program because of the variety of classes and affordability.  

“The program had what I wanted. There were some Asian classes if I wanted to do more Asian politic classes,” Goodman said, adding that the campus was close to her extended family. She graduated with her MIA in 2021 and worked under the prestigious Excelsior Service Fellowship for the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, an experience that spurred on her love of hiking, which became one of the couple’s favorite hobbies. 

“That introduced me to all the State Parks and that made me comfortable traveling around the state,” Goodman said. 

Among the couple’s favorite hiking spots are around Henderson Lake in the High Peaks and down in the Catskills at Lake Minnewaska State Park.

Now that his PhD is complete, Han will have more time for summer adventures with his wife before his new role starts in September. Under the Excelsior Service Fellowship, Han will be working on artificial intelligence policy at the New York State Department of Health. 

“I've been just always interested in AI, well before ChatGPT came out in 2023. I have the knowledge and the expertise and there's also interest in the AI policy field,” Han said, “I’m quite excited for this job.” 

Goodman now works at Empire State Development and, looking back on her time at Rockefeller, her advice to current MIA students is to  connect with fellow students and professors. She made great connections through the MIA’s Students’ International Affairs Association. 

“Two years is very short and goes fast,” Goodman said. “So, expand your network – build your network with your professors, with your cohort.”