Sara Plana is a PhD student in the Department of Political Science at MIT, focusing on the balancing act between military effectiveness and abuse of power. Her academic interests include structures of armed groups, civil-military relations, civil wars, and political violence. Prior to MIT, Sara worked as a country analyst for the Department of Defense…
Colleen Berryessa, Class of 2011
I have always had a passion for criminal justice and policy, as well as the inner-workings of the legal system. All of these things were fostered during my career in Government at Harvard, especially my love of research on these issues and the writing of my senior thesis. After graduating with a concentration in Government,…
Nafees Syed, Class of 2010
Nafees graduated magna cum laude in Government in 2010. She attended Yale Law School, where she was Co-Chair of the Moot Court Board, student government representative, Yale Law and Policy Review Notes Editor, and teaching fellow for four Yale College courses. She is currently an Associate at Boies, Schiller, & Flexner in New York City and a Visiting…
Hannah Mullen, Class of 2015
Hannah Mullen is a student at Harvard Law School, where she is an editor of the Harvard Law Review. She has worked as a summer intern at the Department of Justice and as a summer associate at Munger, Tolles & Olson. She is especially interested in appellate and constitutional law. After graduating from law school, Hannah…
Kellie Desrouchers, Class of 2013
One of the things that I appreciated the most about the Government Department at Harvard and my degree in general was the amazing staff that were so supportive of my interests that intersected with my focus on International Relations. Whether it was letting me count my Anthropology of Violence and Conflict class towards my degree…
Nathaniel Rakich, Class of 2010
I graduated from Harvard in 2010 with a degree in Government and a secondary field in the Classics. Early in my career, I bounced around between a variety of political jobs: communications director on a legislative campaign, associate at a Boston-based political consulting firm, political analyst at a major research shop in Washington, DC. Today,…
Jieun Baek, Class of 2009
Jieun Baek worked at Google HQ upon graduation and then completed her MPP at HKS followed by a two-year research fellowship at the Belfer Center, where she wrote her book North Korea’s Hidden Revolution: How the Information Underground is Transforming a Closed Society. (Yale University Press, 2016). She is currently a doctoral student in public policy…
Nicholas Kristof, Class of 1981
After graduating from the Gov Department in 1981, I was in some danger of becoming a lawyer. Fortunately, studying law at Oxford persuaded me to pursue journalism instead, and I joined The New York Times in 1984. I spent much of my career as a foreign correspondent in Asia, along with stints covering politics and…
Josh Hyman, Class of 2015
Concentrating in Government was one of the best decisions I made at Harvard. From an intellectual standpoint, Government is inherently interdisciplinary, seamlessly combining the fields of history, philosophy, politics, economics, law, and policy into one cohesive area of study. Not only is Government an especially wide-ranging academic discipline, but it is also a uniquely flexible…
Matthew Young, Class of 2012
I graduated from Mather House in 2012 with a concentration in Gov and secondary in Global Health & Health Policy. I initially thought about pursuing a special concentration in Health Policy, but took Gov 20 with Levitsky and fell in love with Gov. It is true that you can do anything with a degree in…