Q: What was the path you took to get to where you are now?
A: After I graduated from Drew University with a Poli Sci major/History minor, I was trying to choose between government work and a graduate degree in history. I went to work for the Martin Van Buren National Historic Site. From there I was an intern for the Governor of New York which led to a job with NY State Assembly in the Environmental Conservation Committee as a Committee Clerk. I knew at that point my public service interests were leading me to continue government work. I looked around and applied to graduate school. I was drawn to UNC-Chapel Hill because of the strong alumni network and small size of the program.
In retrospect, the Program’s focus on organizational behavior gave me a framework for how to think about people and institutions. The MPA program taught about how organizational structure influences the way that work gets done and the experiences of employees. While at UNC, I applied for and was successful in getting a Presidential Management Internship (now Presidential Management Fellowship – PMF) with the federal government. Through an UNC MPA alumni at US EPA, my resume ended up on the desk of the man who became my boss and mentor for many years. I have enjoyed tackling air pollution problems at the Agency for nearly 30 years. Reducing emissions of soot, smog, and toxic air pollution in neighborhoods improves people’s health and quality of life. I didn’t expect to work at the federal level when I started graduate school but my two years at UNC broadened my interests and perspective, and I was open to new things.
Q: Have you pursued/attained any other degrees since your MPA?
A: Not degrees but I’ve taken a number of leadership classes/fellowships. One through the Brookings Institute and one through the USDA Grad School. I’ve worked on Capitol Hill twice through those fellowships. I also took classes at Duke on the science of air pollution soon after I started at US EPA.
Q: Is the field you are working in now relevant to your MPA degree?
A: Definitely. Working on air pollution issues for the federal government, public service is the core of what I do now. Serving the American people is incredibly important to me, and I certainly developed and refined my sense of what public service meant to me while in the MPA program at Carolina.
Q: How did the MPA program specifically prepare you for future work experiences or inform what you do now?
A: I credit the excellent professors in writing, organizational development, ethics, and communications. It gave me the tools and foundation for exactly the work I do now. The UNC MPA provided access to an amazing network of classmates, alum, and pipeline of talented students, some of whom have become colleagues at US EPA.
Q: Have you been able to fulfill goals formulated while in the MPA program? If so, how?
A: The MPA program informed my public service journey. The PWE gave great appreciation for direct service and economic development work in small communities in western NC. While it seems far away from the work I do now, it was actually the foundation for my current work . Commitment to making sure that people in neighborhoods and rural areas can breathe clean air is rooted in the experience I had in the summer between my first and second year in grad school. I learned lessons about how to communicate effectively with people in crisis. I give a lot of credit to my classmates as well. After that summer of PWE, we all came back and shared stories about what we had been through, comparing experiences. Having smart peers and professors who could help dissect why things worked and didn’t work was really helpful in processing and learning. It helped us tackle issues and potential solutions from a lot of different angles. I am grateful for the support that the MPA program offers to students and alum at all stages of our careers.
Q: What was the path you took to get to where you are now?
A: I started out pursuing a career in clinical social work. I studied social work in undergrad at the University of Georgia and worked in a program supporting grandparents who were raising their grandchildren in the rural counties surrounding Athens, GA, and got my first experiences in research looking at barriers to graduation for high schoolers in the area. I then moved to North Carolina where I received my MSW from the School of Social Work at UNC Chapel Hill. While at the School of Social Work, I worked as a graduate research assistant on the early stages of a study looking at substance use trajectories among biracial adolescents and adults. I supervised research assistants, helped lead area trainings, and contributed to a successful NIH grant application. I also served as a clinical social work intern on an assertive community treatment team in Chapel Hill. In this role I worked on a multidisciplinary team to provide in-home treatment and support groups to promote independent living in the community for persons with serious and persistent mental illness.
I left that experience with great respect for folks in direct practice social work, but pretty quickly realized that systems level change, program evaluation, and research best fit my skillset. I knew I still had a knowledge gap, as I wanted to continue to hone my research and management skills and better understand good government, That led me to pursue my MPA at UNC. Throughout the program, I worked for UNC MPA Alum Kristin Siebenaler who (at that time) was Deputy Director of the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program’s National Program Office. She had experience in the federal government and was a big part of helping me see that as a career option. (I even stayed with her sister when I interviewed in DC.) Seeing and writing about the about the research done by the clinical scholars also helped drive my interest in health policy. I also continued to work on my research and communication skills throughout the MPA program, both through coursework, my professional work experience, and some short term work with School of Government professors.
I had never heard of the US Government Accountability Office (GAO), but luckily learned about it from Maureen Berner. I was able to pursue a position on GAO’s health care team right after I graduated, which was a great fit for my social work background, drive for public service, interest in research, and desire to make government work better and more efficiently for the people it serves. I have spent the past 9 years developing objective, nonpartisan, fact-based reports and congressional testimonies on a range of health care related topics. I also recently completed a two year detail supporting the head of the health care team, including managing our reporting to Congress about our spending on audits related to COVID-19, developing presentations about our pandemic work for auditors from other countries, and revamping our internal awards process.
Q: Have you pursued/attained any other degrees since your MPA?
A: No. As noted above, I attained my MSW prior to applying to the MPA program. The way we do our work at GAO means I get to deep dive into a different topic for a year or two at a time. It continually meets my passion for learning and keeps me from going back to school.
Q: Is the field you are working in now relevant to your MPA degree?
A: Definitely. I think the UNC MPA is well known for how It can prepare you for work in local government, but it applies to the federal government as well. My agency is full of public servants conducting program evaluations to make government better, which pull directly from the skillset that an MPA helps students develop.
Q: How did the MPA program specifically prepare you for future work experiences or inform what you do now?
A: I get to work as a generalist and lead evaluations on a variety of health care related federal programs and policies, ranging from how mental health parity laws have been enforced to how the VA ensures that its medical centers appropriately review a doctor’s care if quality or safety concerns arise. The MPA program prepared me for this role in a variety of ways, largely by providing foundational or fundamental knowledge of government budgeting, organizational leadership, and thinking more systematically about what makes good government and the importance of public service values. Understanding research methods and developing a full research project from design to report during the program helped me better understand research and project management than past positions I had, where I was only able to assist on smaller segments of a research project. The cohort model and the team-based projects really helped prepare me for the type of work I do where everything is team based and relationship building and trust are incredibly important for getting the information we need from the agencies we’re auditing. The ample opportunities to hone both written and oral communication skills were also incredibly important in helping prepare me to speak to or write for a variety of audiences.
Q: Have you been able to fulfill goals formulated while in the MPA program? If so, how?
A: I think I am still working on it! I had lofty goals of improving health policy and programs for the folks with mental illness that I used to work with and just generally making government programs work better. I got really lucky in finding a job and an agency that aligned with my goals and my values. I’m proud of the work I’ve done so far and some of the program and policy changes that have been made as a result, but there is still a long way to go.