Derrick Zantt earned his master's degree in public affairs from Brown in 2016. A fourth-generation service member, Zantt currently works as an analyst for the Department of Defense, where he puts his belief in open data and the knowledge he acquired at the Watson Institute to influence policy.

Sonia Cuesta, who earned her Master of Public Affairs (MPA) degree from Brown in 2017, was happy to give back to the program that helped her establish a career in human rights and international relations. During the spring 2025 semester, Cuesta supervised a new generation of MPA students' Policy in Action project from her position at the United Nations.

Senior International and Public Affairs and environmental science concentrator Charlie Adams, who graduates this month, grew up around policy and politics. Naturally, he found himself at home in the Watson Institute's International and Public Affairs (IAPA) concentration.

Driven by a curiosity to push our collective spatial imaginaries, Amienne Spencer-Blume, a 2023 graduate of Watson's International and Public Affairs (IAPA) concentration and current sociology Ph.D. student at Johns Hopkins University, is researching how the configuration of space, at the micro- and macro-scales, impacts social structures and politics.