The Citizen

Jieun Baek is a second-year MPP student. A Los Angeles native, Baek graduated from Harvard College in 2009, and then worked at Google for several years before coming to the Kennedy School. I spent the bulk of my summer learning about the Turkish economy in a rotational internship in Ankara. Several classmates and I had […]

By Alsherif Wahdan Alsherif Wahdan, a Mid-Career MPA student and an investment banker from Egypt, opines on the bidding system at HKS. While voicing support for the mechanism, he also offers his intriguing insights on how it can be adjusted and, therefore, be improved. The Louvre Syndrome is when excited tourists leave the famous museum […]

This summer, Fernando Berdion del Valle interned at a start-up incubator in Mexico City called Venture Institute. He followed a class of entrepreneurs and researched public-private partnerships between incubators in Mexico and the federal agency dedicated to supporting them, Institututo Nacional del Emprendedor (INADEM). You can follow him on his blog Verano Startupero. At first […]

By Jeff Kushner New and returning Kennedy School students have been greeted this semester by significant overcrowding throughout the Kennedy School, in classrooms as well as public spaces. On Friday the 20th, a number of Mid-Career MPA students voiced their concerns to the administration. During the meeting, students cited incidents of pushing and shoving, long […]

By Simon Bone, Editor-in-Chief Lazily crossing the Charles on a briskly cutting morn as translucent currents ebb and flow beneath. Drinking drenched in late sunshine in a Cambridge terrace. Engulfed by books and the distant low chatter of night-time fluorescent lighting. Congratulations. You made it. The full realisation has still to sink in. Your friends […]

President         Jieun Baek, MPP2 (56%) Shashank Shukla, MC MPA (44%) Executive Vice President        Simon R. Bone, MC MPA (36%) Maggie Williams, MPP2 (64%) VP International Student Affairs Mario Jaimes, MPA1 (59%) Lance Li, MPP1 (41%)   VP Technology and Operations          Shradha Balakrishnan, MPA2 (61%) George Xue, MC MPA (39%)   The […]

By Tim Purinton, Staff Writer United States Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack failed to show at the Kennedy School on Wednesday night for a planned talk on ‘Rural Innovation’ due to the federal government shutdown. Not one to leave an audience hanging, the Institute of Politics (IOP) hustled together a panel of Kennedy School experts to […]

By Chrissie Long, Staff Writer Responding to criticism of a dissertation written by a former PhD student on the IQs of immigrants, Harvard Kennedy School Professor Richard Zeckhauser defended the thesis, saying the “empirical work was careful.” “None of his advisors would have accepted his thesis had he thought that his empirical work was tilted or […]

By Chrissie Long, Staff Writer The heads of state of Colombia and Norway spoke at the Harvard Kennedy School on Wednesday night. Both came to Cambridge following the 61st proceedings of the General Assembly of the United Nations last week in New York. For Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos Calderón, it was a bit of […]

Jieun Baek, a second-year master of public policy student from California, was elected president of the student government last week with 56 percent of the vote. Her opponent, Shashank Shukla, a mid-career master of public affairs student, received 44 percent of the vote. Baek will serve with executive vice president-elect Maggie Williams, also an MPP2, […]

This summer, HKS students are traveling to all corners of the world to work on policymaking, advise nonprofits and conduct research. The ‘Summer Snapshots’ is a portrait of these experiences in which students — in their own words — share their stories, musings and reflections.  To see all the Snapshots, follow this link. Jieun Baek is an MPP2 […]

Alexandra Stanek (MPP/HBS MBA ’15), Dan Bowles (MPP/HBS MBA ’15) and Nadir Vissanjy (MPP/Sloan MBA ’15) at the start of the 2013 Water to Wine Half-Marathon in Healdsburg, California. All three achieved personal records in the race. After running 13.1 miles, the three of them, along with a dozen of HKS students and alums, went […]