Aditya Achanta
Graduate School: Harvard Medical School
Undergraduate School: University of Michigan
Interest Area: Public health equity issues
Mentors: Jim Segel, Chair, Rappaport Institute Advisory Board and Audrey Morse Gasteier, Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector and former Rappaport Public Policy Summer Fellow
Placement: COVID-19 Command Center
Supervisor: Ryan Schwarz, Director of Policy for Accountable Care, Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services
Project Description:Aditya assisted with the COVID-19 response. Since late-March he interned at Commonwealth of Massachusetts COVID-19 Command Center's procurement and testing teams. He created and maintained a tracker for medical equipment, diagnostic equipment, and personal protective equipment offers, evaluated offers for medical equipment by regulatory requirements, technical specifications, and demand estimates, and gave recommendations for purchasing decisions. He also answered scientific and supply chain related questions for the testing team about various topics such as saliva based testing strategy, sensitivity of PCR testing during different periods of the disease course, and 3-D printed swab viability. For his final project, he wrote a white paper about government led coordination of 3-D printing capabilities to respond to medical equipment and device shortages.
Xiomara Alvarez
Graduate School: MIT
Undergraduate School: University of California Berkeley
Interest Area: Environmental Issues
Mentors: Carol Burns, Principal, Taylor Burns Architects and Rappaport Institute Advisory Board Member and Amanda Formica, National Grid and former Rappaport Public Policy Fellow
Placement: Boston Department of the Environment
Supervisors: Peyton Jones, Climate Resilience Program Coordinator and Zoe Davis, Climate Resilience Project Coordinator
Project Description: This summer, Xio worked with the Climate Ready Boston team on questions of equity and engagement when it comes to resilience in the city. Officially, she was brought on to develop equitable engagement guidelines and digital engagement strategies as separate deliverables; but as the summer wore on she had more and more trouble separating the two. The natural hazards of climate change, much like COVID-19, disproportionately impact Black and Brown communities in the city. The barriers to power for these communities are not unique to the world of zoom open houses. What was more useful was to consider the ways that engagement can change and adapt now to reach residents who are still not accounted for in the zoom world, and to build a definition of engagement that prioritizes not just equity but justice. As a deliverable, she wrote a memo which designed a sort of modular, plug-in-what-is-appropriate set of strategies for engagement that center community empowerment in the resilience efforts of the city. These options used the circumstances of the pandemic to highlight where existing engagement strategies were already weak, and suggested ways that the city could support residents now that would translate into even more robust engagement and relationships in a post-COVID world. They were also written into the RFPs and grants she had the opportunity to be a part of writing over the course of the summer, which was exciting!
Gray Babbs
Graduate School: Boston University School of Public Health
Undergraduate School: Carleton College
Interest Area: LGBTQ+ Policy
Mentors: Jeffrey Sanchez, Rasky Partners, Inc. and former Rappaport/Boston Urban Scholar and Sasha Albert, Brandeis University and a former Rappaport Public Policy Fellow
Placement: Massachusetts Department of Youth Services
Supervisor: Lisa Belmarsh, Director of Policy and Training
Project Description: Gray’s project supported the Department of Youth Services to facilitate positive change in LGBTQ+ youth in DYS custody and care. Nationally, LGBTQ+ youth involved in the juvenile justice system face unique challenges. Gray conducted 18 interviews with DYS youth, staff, and administrators and analyzed five years of DYS data. They made recommendations on how DYS can improve data collection and analysis around sex, sexuality, and gender. They also created a new measure to capture a sense of how well DYS-involved youth are doing. Currently, youth success is understood through recidivism rate, and DYS hopes to paint a picture of youth success and well-being that is based on a less punitive model. The new measure will serve as a tool for DYS to compare experience across demographic groups and identify disparities to focus on closing moving forward.
Nick Brenner
Graduate School: Harvard Kennedy School/MIT Sloan School of Management
Undergraduate School: University of North Carolina
Interest Area: Workforce Development
Mentors: Stephen Chan, The Boston Foundation and Rappaport Institute Advisory Board and Reilly Kiernan, The Bridgespan Group and former Rappaport Public Policy Fellow
Placement: Mayor's Office of New Urban Mechanics, Boston
Supervisor: Jaclyn Youngblood, Chief of Staff
Project Description: This summer, Nick worked in the Boston Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics, helping pilot a new technology to map and analyze the city’s curb regulations (think loading zones, parking restrictions, etc.). Understanding these regulations is extremely valuable for planners and other city employees to improve public transportation access, improve safety, make public space more welcoming, and create streets that meet the city’s goals around sustainability, equity, and safety. To test the platform, he walked ~50 miles of Boston’s curbs while taking pictures of street signs, hydrants, and other features that govern how a curb is used. He then evaluated how well the technology translated his data into a geospatial format, identified where this data would be valuable for the city, and recommended how Boston should move forward with implementing a curb data solution after the conclusion of his fellowship.
Somala Diby
Graduate School: MIT
Undergraduate School: Columbia University
Interest Area: Housing
Mentors: Mary Jo Meisner, MJM Advisory Services and Rappaport Institute Advisory Board Member and Marcus Mello, Boston Planning and Development Agency
Placement: Department of Neighborhood Development, Boston
Supervisor: Marcy Ostberg, Director of Operations
Project Description: As a fellow with the City of Boston’s Department of Neighborhood Development (DND), Somala spent the summer helping the agency reflect on its COVID-19 response efforts and prepare for future crises. She pursued this work through two key projects. The first was an internal report documenting DND’s crisis response activities between the City’s initial shut down in March 2020 through the present day. Compiling feedback from semi-structured staff interviews, discussions with DND leadership, planning documents, and performance data, the report shed light on key lessons and challenges from this unprecedented crisis. The report culminated in a work plan for the agency to prepare its systems, programs, and staff for future surges in COVID-19 cases. Through her second project, Somala designed a process for DND to measure equity within the city’s COVID-19 housing recovery programs. This involved designing an equity assessment of existing programs, developing equity-focused logic models for each program, and generating data collection plans to keep the agency accountable to its equity goals. She concluded this project by offering a series of recommendations for how DND can maintain and scale this work across the agency.
Ehab Ebeid
Graduate School: MIT
Undergraduate School: Cornell University
Interest Area: Transportation Issues
Mentors: Monica Tibbits-Nutt, 128 Business Council and Rappaport Advisory Board Member and Andrew McFarland, MBTA and former Rappaport Public Policy Summer Fellow
Placement: Office of City Councilor At Large Michelle Wu, City of Boston
Supervisor: Boston City Councilor Michelle Wu and former Rappaport Center Law and Public Policy Fellow
Project Description: Ehab served as the transit policy fellow in the Office of Michelle Wu, Boston City Councilor At-Large. In this capacity, Ehab prepared a report on the benefits and costs of fare-free bus transit in the post-COVID context, departing from the precedence that the MBTA set by mandating rear-door boarding and not charging fares on buses during the COVID-19 pandemic. The report details the reasons for adopting fare-free bus service and reassesses its potential costs and other effects, including equity benefits, lost revenue, changes in passenger behavior, and interactions with other modes such as the subway and The Ride. Ehab additionally assisted with the office’s efforts to develop the transit dimension of a just and equitable COVID recovery and wrote city council resolutions on transportation topics.
Kelsey Edmond
Graduate School: University of Massachusetts Boston
Undergraduate School: University of Delaware
Interest Area: Governance and Digital Equity Issues
Mentors: Amy Dain, Dain Research, Rappaport Institute Advisory Board Member and former Rappaport Public Policy Fellow and Grace Ogilby, Altman Villandre and Company and former Rappaport Public Policy Fellow
Placement: Department of Innovation and Technology, Boston
Supervisor: Anne Schweiger, Broadband and Digital Equity Advocate; Reilly Zlab, Director of Product Manager; and Jeanethe Falvey, Chief Digital Officer
Project Description: Kelsey Edmond was a fellow with the City of Boston’s Department of Innovation and Technology, where she conducted research on Boston’s growing digital divide amid the coronavirus pandemic. In mid-March, the world was forced to suddenly flip everything to a remote model overnight, which exacerbated the disparity between those who have access to information and communication technologies, and those that do not. Kelsey interviewed 11 organizations or city departments that have an education or workforce development focused mission to better understand their needs throughout their transition, the experience of their adult learners or constituents, and how the city can best assist with mitigating the digital divide moving forward. She centered anti-racism in her work by primarily interviewing organizations whose target demographics are immigrants, people of color, low-income, unemployed or underemployed individuals or historically under-served and marginalized communities.
Alexis Farmer
Graduate School: Harvard Kennedy School
Undergraduate School: University of Michigan
Interest Areas: Economic Development
Mentors: Dan Kennedy, Northeastern University School of Journalism and Rappaport Institute Advisory Board and Alex Ciomek, Harvard University and former Rappaport Public Policy Fellow
Placement: Office of Returning Citizens, Boston
Supervisor: Kevin Sibley, Executive Director
Project Description: This summer, Alexis worked with the City of Boston’s Office of Returning Citizens. The COVID-19 pandemic prompted the rapid release of inmates, and the process revealed serious gaps that are critical for a successful reentry, including, non-shelter housing options, continuity of health care services, and obtaining identity documents to name a few. In Boston, the limited options of finding a safe and stable place to land on the first night out places a hardship on returning citizens during one of the most vulnerable and critical times of their reintegration – immediately upon release. To help solve this problem for not only the pandemic, but also in the long-term Alexis wrote a report detailing how the City of Boston can implement a temporary transitional housing program for returning citizens. She also wrote an advocacy piece encouraging the Department of Corrections and Secretary of the Commonwealth to ensure parolees left a correctional facility with a MassID in hand. Lastly, she inputted data about gender and zip codes for the office to understand the demographics of people the office served and where people most often lived post-incarceration.
Kateline Fonseca
Graduate School: Simmons School of Social Work
Undergraduate School: Federal University of Ceara, Brazil
Interest Area: Immigration Policy
Mentors: Ramon Soto, uAspire and Rappaport Institute Advisory Board, Mariangely Solis Cervera, Transforming Education and former Rappaport Public Policy Fellow and Crystal Lopez Haynes, Boston College School of Social Work and former Rappaport Public Policy Fellow
Placement: Office of Rep. Natalie Higgins, Massachusetts House of Representatives
Supervisor: Rep. Natalie Higgins, former Rappaport Center Law and Public Policy Fellow
Project Description: As a Rappaport fellow, Kateline collaborated with various agencies and organizations to support homeless individuals during the COVID-19 outbreak. Through extensive interviews with multiple agencies and constituents, gaps in services and challenges emerged for unaccompanied homeless adults. Kateline found that issues such as poverty, high cost of living, low-wage jobs, lack of affordable housing, mental illness, physical illness, substance use disorders, discrimination against homeless individuals, and lack of adequate shelters all create barriers to care for providers and constituents. Although agencies and providers implement distinct strategies in their system of care, homeless individuals do not receive all the services that they need because they have to seek help from multiple providers. Potential solutions suggested by agencies representatives and constituents relate to the reallocation of resources. The consensus from providers and homeless individuals is for robust investment into more social workers, caseworkers, and stabilization workers. Additionally, funding should be allocated to building more housing units rather than shelters. Investing in tiny houses and more domestic violence prevention programs is also viewed as a long-term solution to this crisis. Participants view shelter as an entity that contributes to the homelessness issue because of the short-term strategies and lack of comprehensive care. Constituents and providers agreed that permanent housing with supportive services would address the basic needs of single homeless adults and alleviate burdens for everyone. There is also a need for more funding to sustain programs such as the Residential Assistance for Families in Transition (RAFT) and Homebase.
Florence Glynn
Graduate School: Boston University School of Social Work and School of Theology
Undergraduate School: College of William and Mary
Interest Area: Governance
Mentors: Brian Doherty, Building and Trades Council of the Metropolitan District and Rappaport Institute Advisory Board Member and Jessica Hamilton, Boston University School of Theology and former Rappaport Public Policy Fellow
Placement: Mayor's Office for Immigrant Advancement, Boston
Supervisor: Carol Léon, Programs Manager
Project Description: At the Mayor's Office for Immigrant Advancement (MOIA), Flo helped develop the curriculum and logistics for a program to promote emerging immigrant leaders’ civic engagement with the City of Boston’s government. MOIA will launch the pilot for this program this year. The program will include a multi-session course, with interactive speakers, projects and activities designed to advance equity and immigrant leadership in city government. Through this program, MOIA will provide opportunities for participants to 1) build skills and knowledge to strategically engage with and navigate local government; 2) connect with city officials and other immigrant leaders; and 3) actively address issues facing their communities.
Emma González Roberts
Graduate School: MIT
Undergraduate School: University of Chicago
Interest Area: Economic Development
Mentors: Phil Puccia, JP Morgan and Rappaport Advisory Board Member and Margaret Keaveny, LISC and former Rappaport Public Policy Fellow
Placement: Department of Economic Development, Boston
Supervisors: Natalia Urtubey, Director of Small Business and Executive Director of Imagine Boston 2030
Project Description: As a fellow with the City of Boston’s Office of Economic Development, Emma González Roberts supported the implementation of the city’s Outdoor Dining Pilot, developed a Salesforce training guide, prepared a Current State of Boston Main Streets report, and processed Reopen Boston Fund applications. Through the Outdoor Dining Pilot, she worked with the Small Business Unit to provide technical assistance, free equipment, and $5,000 grants to 20 restaurants in low-income communities. She created a previously non-existent Salesforce training manual, presented it to the team, and made recommendations for improving Salesforce protocols. She interviewed team members and conducted demographic research for a report that will the support the forthcoming Re-Imagining Boston’s Main Streets project. Lastly, Emma reviewed hundreds of Reopen Boston Fund applications and reached out to small businesses to request missing documentation.
Enjoli Hall
Graduate School: MIT
Undergraduate School:Princeton University
Interest Area: Health equity policy
Mentors: Jeffrey Sanchez, Rasky Partners Inc and Rappaport Institute Advisory Board and Tariana Little, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and former Rappaport Public Policy Fellow
Placement: Massachusetts Bureau of Environmental Health
Supervisor: Jennifer Robertson, Policy Director
Project Description: Enjoli will be working with the Massachusetts Bureau of Environmental Health to develop a strategic plan for advancing environmental justice within the Bureau’s programs and for anticipated agency-wide adoption by the Department of Public Health. The plan will be specific to public health and align with the state-wide Environmental Justice Policy.
Greer Hamilton
Graduate School: Boston University School of Social Work
Undergraduate School: University at Buffalo, State University of New York
Interest Area: Social services policy
Mentors: Ben Forman, Director of Research, MassINC, Rappaport Advisory Board Member and former Rappaport Public Policy Fellow and Dewin Hernandez, Boston College School of Social Work and Carroll School of Management
Placement: MassDevelopment
Supervisor: Andrew Levine, TDI Operations Officer
Project Description: During the summer Greer had the opportunity to work on two projects during her time as a Transformative Development Initiative (TDI) intern. The first project she completed was the development of an equity toolkit for the new Mass Housing Neighborhood Stabilization Hub. The second project was the development an inclusive leadership framework to support the ongoing work of TDI to make their partnerships more representative of the Gateway Cities the TDI districts are located in. The framework resulted the development of a final report that includes the equity tool. In addition to these projects, TDI allowed her to facilitate a lunch and learn series on racial equity and the built environment and follow-up conversation on the same topic during the annual retreat.
Salman Khan
Graduate School: Harvard Graduate School of Education
Undergraduate School: Rutgers University
Interest Area: Education issues
Mentors: Kevin Sullivan, Babson College and Rappaport Advisory Board Member and Nick Woolf, Tufts University and former Rappaport Public Policy Fellow
Placement: Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education
Supervisors: Matthew Deninger, Director of Resource Allocation Strategy and Planning
Project Description: This summer, Salman developed dashboards that underscore opportunity and achievement gaps within schools across a number of measures. He presented his work to the Senior Associate Commissioner for Strategic Initiatives as well as key stakeholders across the state. He also supported the analysis of the new state-wide Early College program.
Osamu Kumasaka
Graduate School: MIT
Undergraduate School: Lewis and Clark College
Interest Area: Environmental Issues
Mentors: Vivien Li, Rappaport Advisory Board Member and Kara Runsten, Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and the Environment and Former Rappaport Public Policy Fellow
Placement:Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and the Environment
Supervisor: Mia Mansfield, Director of Climate Adaptation and Resilience
Project Description: Osamu will be working at the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and the Environment on developing an environmental justice training and outreach materials for the Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness program. He will also be updating the Massachusetts Climate Assessment with a new engagement plan which is more detailed and customized to both geographic regions and sectors of the economy.
Alexander Lebovitz
Graduate School: Brandeis University
Undergraduate School: Northeastern University
Interest Area: Public Health Finance Policy
Mentors: Abby Kim, Office of Senator John Keenan and former Rappaport Public Policy Fellow
Placement: Joint Committee on Economic Development and Emerging Technologies
Supervisor: Daniel Wood, Staff Attorney
Project Description: Alec completed his fellowship with the Committee on Economic Development & Emerging Technologies in the Massachusetts State Legislature. Over the course of ten weeks, he worked with Committee staff and legislators to re-tool a major economic development bond bill to respond to the twin public health and economic crises unleashed by the COVID-19 pandemic. He conducted an environmental scan of other state’s economic development strategies, developed an evaluative framework for lawmakers delineating what an equitable recovery strategy for the Commonwealth should look like, and ultimately offered policy recommendations for inclusion in the final bill.
Takia Myers
Graduate School: Boston College School of Social Work
Undergraduate School: University of Massachusetts Boston
Interest Area: Social service policy and equity
Mentors: Renee Landers, Suffolk University Law School and Rappaport Advisory Board Member and Ronesha Williams, Brandeis University and former Rappaport Public Policy Fellow
Placement: Office of City Councilor At Large Michelle Wu
Supervisor: Michelle Wu, Boston City Councilor and former Rappaport Law and Public Policy Fellow
Project Description: Takia will work for the Office of City Councilor at Large Michelle Wu. Takia’s project focuses on analyzing how current school administrative practices disproportionately affect students of color and other marginalized identities. She will gather and evaluate data on the PUSHOUT of Black girls in Boston Public Schools and to update existing policies, guidelines, and practices regarding discipline and behavioral procedures.
Christine Peterson
Graduate School: Harvard Kennedy School
Undergraduate School: Illinois Wesleyan University
Interest Area: Criminal Justice Policy
Mentors: Sarah Zaphiris, former Rappaport Boston Urban Scholar and Jessica Simes, Boston University and former Rappaport Public Policy Fellow
Placement: MassDevelopment
Supervisors: Andrew Levine, TDI Operations Officer
Project Description: This summer Christine worked on program evaluation for the first round of TDI Local COVID Emergency Grants that were distributed to small businesses and used the evaluation to design the next round of small business support. She is also working on a program evaluation strategy for the broader TDI program.
Rees Sweeney-Taylor
Graduate School: Harvard Kennedy School
Undergraduate School: University of North Carolina
Interest Area: Environmental Issues
Mentors: Tom Keane, Rappaport Institute Advisory Board and Arah Schuur, Acadia Center and former Rappaport Public Policy Fellow
Placement: Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and the Environment
Supervisor: Claire Miziolek, 80x50 Study Manager
Project Description: Rees Sweeney-Taylor worked at the State’s Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs helping to develop policy recommendations for decarbonizing Massachusetts’ economy by 2050. His primary project was modelling how a price on carbon could help meet this mandate while also distributing revenues equitably. Additionally, he researched the relationship between heating fuels for Massachusetts homes and geographic location and income. This led to the development of a tool that can be used to focus heat pump conversion efforts in neighborhoods with low-income residents and/or high usage of fuel oil. Finally, he worked one day each week for the Department of Public Utilities, writing a report comparing several jurisdictions’ approaches to microgrids and potential next steps for Massachusetts; he presented these findings to the Department Commission.
Noor Toraif
Graduate School: Boston University School of Social Work
Undergraduate School: Boston University
Mentors: Lissy Medvedow, Rappaport Center for Law and Public Policy and Rappaport Institute Advisory Board Member and Alexis Yohros, Northeastern University and former Rappaport Public Policy Fellow
Placement: Massachusetts Office of the Child Advocate and the Committee for Public Counsel Services
Supervisor: Melissa Threadgill, Director of Juvenile Justice Initiatives and Joshua Dohan, Committee for Public Counsel Services
Project Description: This summer, Noor completed a joint placement with the Youth Advocacy Division (YAD) of the Committee for Public Counsel Services (CPCS) and the Office of the Child Advocate (OCA). At YAD, she developed an Adolescent Development training curriculum for public defenders, including modules on Positive Youth Development and trauma, resilience, and trauma-informed legal advocacy. She also created a resource with further reading and other materials on trauma-informed public defense and the latest research on Positive Youth Development as applied to the Juvenile Justice System. At the Office of the Child Advocate, Noor completed a number of projects including contributing to the OCA’s report on COVID-19 and child mental health and developing surveys for schools, congregate care, and child care settings to get more information on how the OCA can best support them during the reopening process. Her two largest projects at the OCA included adapting the OCA’s Trauma-Informed and Responsive Framework into toolkits for various child-serving sectors, and developing content for a parent support website – including resources on grief, suicidal intent, ideation, and attempts, mental health symptomology, and COVID-19 conversation starters for children and teenagers.