Dr. Surin joined the American Political Science Association’s Congressional Fellowship Program in 1983-1984, when he interned in the Congressional Office of US Representative Geraldine A. Ferraro (D-New York), who later became the Vice Presidential Candidate for the Democrat Party in 1984, and worked for the Senate Republican Conference in the later half of 1984. He taught Southeast Asian Affairs at the American University in Washington, D.C. during that same year.