Gergen Fellows reflect on summer experiences, advancing climate action, health equity, education access

Willow Fortunoff MPP 2026

UN Climate Change (UNFCCC) Global Climate Action
Bonn, Germany

I am a Master in Public Policy candidate, concentrating in International and Global Affairs. During my time as a Gergen Summer Fellow in the UN Climate Change (UNFCCC) Global Climate Action team, I focused on supporting and developing strategies to engage subnational government leaders in the UNFCCC process amid calls for UN-wide reforms.

Historically, local government leaders have had limited or largely performative roles at the annual international climate conferences (COPs). However, Brazil, as the COP 30 President, set the tone by rallying Parties and non-Party stakeholders, including private companies, nonprofits, and local governments, around two connected priorities: the implementation of existing efforts and organizing a “Global Mutirão,” which aims to activate all segments of society around a shared goal. This platform has facilitated greater opportunities for local governments to provide input on COP outcomes and spotlight their experiences in implementing current initiatives. This summer, I contributed to projects advancing subnational engagement at an organizational and technical level.

On the organizational side, I helped plan two closed roundtables with Party representatives and subnational leaders with partners, including city networks and multilateral development banks. The first roundtable took place during the June Climate Meetings (SB 62) in Bonn. During the dialogue, national representatives acknowledged the value of local expertise in shaping Nationally Determined Contributions and discussed calls from mayors and regional officials to improve access to climate finance and climate reporting platforms. The second took place during UNFCCC Climate Week 2 in Ethiopia and dug deeper into proposals for building local capacity and investable project pipelines.

For the technical aspect, I worked with the Climate Champions Team to implement the COP 30 Global Action Agenda. I served as a UNFCCC focal point for the key objective on ‘’Multi-level Governance,’’ which refers to coordination across national, regional, and local levels to deliver climate goals. In this capacity, I mapped top global initiatives and helped design key performance indicators to track progress. Additionally, I participated in a brainstorming process with the UNFCCC Transparency Division on upgrading the NAZCA portal to make subnational climate action more visible and accessible to both Party negotiators and technical experts.

At a moment when mayors and governors may soon be the primary U.S. government representatives in global climate discussions, this work expanded my view of future U.S. climate diplomacy. I collaborated with phenomenal U.S.-based and global networks mobilizing local governments. While my UNFCCC secretariat role focused on facilitation and research, I saw how these networks drive reforms and rally Party support for deeper engagement with subnational actors. Following graduation, I hope to build on this experience by working directly with a network or enabling partner as part of the next era of practical, whole-of-society global climate action.

In my last year at Harvard Kennedy School, I will continue engaging with the Center for Public Leadership as a Gergen Fellow. Outside of classes, I will conduct research on city responses to international security challenges and serve as a Teaching Fellow for the graduate-level ‘Global Governance’ course. My Policy Analysis Exercise project will focus on strategies for connecting U.S. cities and states to international institutions. Previously, I was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to study city diplomacy and migration in Ecuador. As Assistant Director at the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center, I helped launch programs on city and state diplomacy and supported partnerships with the U.S. State Department. My work has appeared in The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, The New Atlanticist, and The National Interest. I am a Vermont Truman Scholar and hold a BA in Political Science and International Studies from Macalester College.

Rohit Kataria MPP 2026

Massachusetts Department of Higher Education (DHE)
Boston, Massachusetts

Raised in the rural Appalachian town of Wheelersburg, Ohio, I am guided by the belief that equitable access to learning, in all forms, is necessary for collective human flourishing. 

My academic journey began at Vanderbilt University, where I earned a BA in Public Policy Studies with a concentration in advanced quantitative methods. To deepen my policy and analytical skillset, I came to the Kennedy School as an MPP student, where I am supported by a John F. Kennedy Fellowship and a Program on Education Policy and Governance Fellowship. 

I am also fortunate enough to have spent the last few months working at the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education (DHE) as a Gergen Summer Fellow through the Center for Public Leadership. My experience at the DHE strengthened my commitment to building a world where every student, regardless of socioeconomic, geographic, or racial background, has equal opportunities for a quality higher education.

This summer, I served as a graduate policy analyst intern in the DHE’s Office of Research and Planning under the direction of Dr. Mario Delci. My work centered around one question: What is the public return on state investments in public higher education in Massachusetts? To address this question, I developed a model that estimated the higher tax revenues and local consumer spending associated with attending one of Massachusetts’ public institutions of higher education. I also built companion models to measure the relationship between increased higher education and decreased usage of public assistance, increased civic participation, and higher rates of volunteerism. I compiled my analyses into a policy report, the findings from which I presented to department leadership. The report will be used in negotiations with the state legislature to allocate higher education funds under the recently implemented Fair Share Amendment, more commonly known as the “millionaire’s tax.”

I additionally built a policy simulator to estimate individual lifetime tax revenue and local consumer spending based on various assumptions. The simulator allows the DHE to experiment with various policy options, including free community college, early college, and three-year bachelor’s degrees. I also developed technical documentation of my analyses in R and Excel, ensuring that future analysts can build off this summer’s work.

My work for the Commonwealth primarily provided a deeper appreciation for the way data and policy intersect. The Kennedy School’s MPP core curriculum played a foundational role in this learning. My economics and statistics courses gave me the toolkit to incorporate net present value estimates and multivariate regression models, while my ethics course inspired me to include non-economic measures of higher education’s public benefits. Communicating my findings to other research team members and to the department leadership also challenged me to find ways to keep my message clear while tailoring it to my intended audience, a skill I know will serve me well.

This summer also gave me a broader perspective on the relationship between partisan politics and higher education. With previous experience in public higher education institutions in Ohio and Tennessee, two states with Republican-led legislatures, I was curious to see the similarities and differences with Massachusetts and its Democrat-led legislature. I was surprised that the similarities far outweighed the differences and even more surprised to learn that Massachusetts often looks to other states, including Tennessee and Texas, for inspiration for innovative higher education models.

I am incredibly grateful to the Gergen Summer Fellowship for making this opportunity possible. The experience sharpened my technical toolkit, allowed me to develop new communication skills, and deepened my understanding of higher education policy. Most importantly, it reminded me of why I came to HKS in the first place: to bring together data and policy in pursuit of a future where every student, regardless of their background, has an equal chance to thrive.

Lukasz Kolodziej MPA 2026

European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) Digital Hub
London, England

The most valuable leadership lesson often emerges not from moments of crisis management but from the deliberate construction of systems that prevent crises altogether. 

During my summer placement at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development’s Digital Hub, I discovered that sustainable impact in complex institutional environments requires a fundamental shift from individual problem-solving to building organizational capacity.

This experience, working across Central and Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the Western Balkans, and the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean, revealed how the most effective leaders operate not only as problem-solvers but also as architects of institutional resilience.

I spent hours building what my colleagues jokingly called my “obsessive list”—a single place where nothing could get lost—because I had watched too many requests disappear into email chains, leaving clients unaware of potential help they could receive in cyber resilience. 

I took what my supervisor later called the “boring route,” tackling the messy, unglamorous work that nobody wanted to own but everyone needed. I built a simple intake questionnaire so we’d be prepared to ask the right questions straight away on any potential investment, regardless of its origin and nature. Moreover, I drew up a decision tree that sorted requests by risk level, business characteristics, and business development potential. I also created templates so the procured consultants would produce comparable analysis assessments, aligning with widely used and recognized cybersecurity standards.

The Kennedy School’s emphasis on adaptive leadership proved practical. My work helped the team stop treating cybersecurity as purely technical and reframe it as adaptive—changing how the institution gathers information, makes decisions, and coordinates. That shift powered two concrete wins:

1. Standardized assessment protocol. Before, consultants used divergent methods; cross-country comparisons were apples-to-oranges. We built shared criteria: infrastructure capacity, regulatory environment, budget parameters, timeline, and institutional readiness. Every request landed on the same grid. Specialists spotted repeatable patterns and analysts could focus on higher-value work.
    
2. Knowledge retention by design. Institutional memory had lived in inboxes and individual heads. With my supervisors’ blessing, I moved it into systems, including a unified project register that is automatically tagged by region, assigned to the right person, and tracked through standardized milestones. Instead of playing email tag to figure out who was handling what, we now had clear ownership and everyone could see progress in real time. Operations could scale without lowering standards because knowledge accumulated in the organization, not just in relationships.

What I cherished most was getting to see the whole picture—where the team was struggling and what wasn’t working—and then actually fixing it in real time. Watching my systems take hold while I was still there to refine them felt incredible. I learned to read the room differently, including discerning who really made decisions versus who had a title and which conversations happened in meetings versus what happened over coffee. With confidence from my supervisors, I stopped waiting for permission to lead and started just leading—quietly, but with more conviction than I’d ever felt before.

Reflecting on this summer, I think that CPL’s Leadership Development Cohort shows up here, too. Peer coaching and after-action reviews trained two muscles in me: humility and discipline that map to Level 5 leadership. I took the slower path so the team can move faster every time after. I believe that this is compounding leadership.

I am grateful to the Center for Public Leadership’s Gergen Fellowship for making this work possible; to the late David Gergen, whose bipartisan, open-minded focus on the common good remains a north star, for the standard his name sets; to the Harvard Kennedy School Office of Career Advancement (HarvardKey required) for opening the right doors at the right time; and to Roi Yarom, Associate Director for Cybersecurity at EBRD’s Digital Hub, whose judgment, patience, and professionalism raised the quality of my work every day.

Daniela Schulman MPP 2026

Maryland Department of the Environment
Baltimore, Maryland

The grassy wetlands of the Chesapeake Bay look nothing like the rocky beaches of my childhood in the Pacific Northwest. But my commitment to protecting coastal ecosystems and communities from climate impacts remains the same, whether I’m working in Washington or Maryland.

This summer, I served in the Maryland Department of the Environment, helping the secretary’s leadership team advance climate resilience, environmental justice, and clean energy deployment. A highlight of my work included supporting the relaunch of Maryland’s environmental justice screening tool featured in Governor Moore’s July 18 executive order. Another was conducting nearly 30 interviews to craft recommendations for increasing affordable, abundant clean energy in the state. These projects enabled me to sharpen my project management skills, deepen my energy expertise, and meaningfully contribute in ten weeks.

My work was made possible by the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard Kennedy School, which funded me as a David Gergen Summer Fellow. When applying, I shared my vision of launching from graduate school into public service to implement state climate, energy, and ocean policy. Joining the Secretary of the Environment’s team was my chance to test that vision with hands-on implementation experience. I am deeply grateful for the opportunity and the resulting lessons in leadership. 

One particular lesson from the deputy secretary shaped my approach to the summer. After reviewing my work plan, which included deliverables like memos, reports, and presentations, she asked me, “Are you trying to write a paper or change a behavior?” She pushed me to consider my problem definition more carefully and approach my projects from a change management perspective. I rose to challenge with help from Harvard, applying Ronald Heifetz’s tools in “The Practice of Adaptive Leadership” and Marshall Ganz’s principles in “People, Power, and Change: Organizing for Democratic Renewal” to the issues my agency wanted to tackle.

For example, the Water and Science Administration had been working for five years to update permit requirements to account for climate impacts and increase resilience. The work was voluntary, largely unfunded, and delivering slow, uneven progress. My supervisor hoped to support and eventually expand the work across the entire agency. While the problem had technical aspects, it was largely an adaptive challenge. To assess the problem, I asked who benefited from the status quo and how conflicting priorities and attitudes toward risk were impacting progress. I met with staff at all levels and listened closely to their concerns. To develop guidance for permit modernization, I focused on leadership’s need to nurture a shared story and commitment across program teams, plus a structure to hold everyone accountable. Behavior change requires patience, but I left Maryland knowing I helped move the needle.

The deputy secretary was full of wisdom, but she did get one thing wrong. She told me that the best teachers are the worst leaders. Respectfully, I disagree. Serving in Maryland, I was surrounded by more positive examples of effective, principled public leadership than ever before. I took notes watching the governor deliver a speech, the deputy secretary respond to a briefing, and the senior policy advisor prepare for a cabinet-level meeting. Despite a summer full of strong headwinds at the federal level, I left feeling hopeful and proud of the state leaders who remain committed to climate action.

This year at Harvard Kennedy School, I will carry my leadership lessons from the Chesapeake Bay to Boston Harbor. I am excited to make the Center for Public Leadership my campus home and grow within its community of practice to best advance state climate, ocean, and energy policy in the years ahead.

Ruhee Wadhwania MPP 2026

U.S. House of Representatives Ways and Means Democratic Health Subcommittee
Washington, DC

I enrolled at HKS to become a health care policy expert and fight inequality in our public systems as an advocate and leader. 

After I completed my undergraduate degree in public health and economics at UC Berkeley in 2020, my public service began in the District Office of Congressman Jerry McNerney in California’s Central Valley, an area with significant health disparities. Seeking to uplift these communities, I began working for the California state government, specifically with the University of California Health system, and drafted policies and legislation to improve statewide health outcomes and expand the health workforce. Last year, as an MPP student at HKS, I applied to the Gergen Fellowship to elevate my passion for advancing health equity to the federal level. I had the privilege of achieving this goal this summer as a Health Policy Fellow for the U.S. House of Representatives Ways and Means Democratic Health Subcommittee.

At a time when our health care system is at its most inaccessible and the health of Americans is worsening, I pursued this opportunity with the Ways and Means Committee to gain critical skills to improve my country’s health through policy leadership. After graduating college into the COVID-19 pandemic and witnessing how people of color and low-income communities were disproportionately harmed, I was eager to support health care policymaking in an office centering vulnerable populations and fighting to increase access to care.

My summer was so enriching, affirmed my desire to continue working in the federal health care space, and exposed me to critical health policy issues that I had previously only explored on the surface. Through supporting the Committee’s 2025 Reconciliation work related to Medicare and the Affordable Care Act (ACA), I learned how Congressional Committees determine the impacts of legislative provisions on federal spending, how Medicare beneficiaries (older adults and adults with disabilities) might be impacted by Medicaid cuts, and how changing eligibility for enhanced ACA premium tax credits impacts plan costs. 

I also had the privilege of attending and preparing for Committee hearings on topics including Medicare Advantage (MA) and digital health and wearables. I dove into prior authorization in MA and how it affects patient access to care, which prepared me to understand the significance of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ introducing prior authorization to fee-for-service Medicare this summer. I also supported the Committee’s priorities and oversight activities through stakeholder meetings and background research, enabling me to understand multiple perspectives that should be considered for effective and inclusive policymaking.

In my work experience and education, I learned about “Health in All Policies,” or the idea that all policy issues affect our health. Congress was the perfect place to see this concept applied, as I learned from staffers about how health considerations were integrated into policymaking for issues such as climate change, labor rights, and housing.

In addition to the work I performed this summer, I connected with and learned from leaders in public service who are fighting to make our public programs and our country more equitable. I attended a roundtable with reproductive rights advocates sharing stories of how the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision impacted women and their medical care. I heard from Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar about their experiences as the first Muslim women to serve in Congress and was inspired by their courage. I also met with several Massachusetts representatives, including the Ranking Member of Ways and Means, Congressman Richard Neal, and Ayanna Pressley, my own Congresswoman representing me in Cambridge.

CPL’s investment in me as a public servant and future leader enabled me to successfully transition to federal government service and made me feel supported in my journey to improve health care accessibility in the United States. I will remember the lessons from this summer (and the great frozen yogurt in the Senate Dirksen Office Building) for the rest of my career. 

These students' reflections were originally published on the Center for Public Leadership website. Photos courtesy of Willow Fortunoff, Rohit Kataria, Lukasz Kolodziej, Daniela Schulman, and Ruhee Wadhwania.