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.

On Thursday, February 27, seven Master of Public Affairs (MPA) Director's Fellows presented the results of a semester of research working with Watson faculty and other international and public affairs professionals.

After witnessing systematic inequalities first-hand while working two jobs supporting at-risk communities, Jillian Harvey decided she needed to further her education in public policy to make a real impact in her community. After graduating from the Watson Institute's Master of Public Affairs Program in 2019, Harvey became a leader in the field of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in the state of Massachusetts.

Graham Sheridan's success demonstrates that while the shortest distance between two points may be a straight line, it's not always the best career path. After earning his Master of Public Affairs degree from Brown in 2014, Sheridan took a winding route to his current position as a clean communities and economic development director at Virginia Clean Cities.

Kelly Rogers earned her master's degree in public policy from Brown in 2012. Since then, she has leveraged the knowledge she acquired and the connections she made at the Watson Institute into a career that has seen her make a significant impact on the state of Rhode Island.

Charles Alaimo, a junior concentrating in International and Public Affairs (IAPA), credits Watson's multidisciplinary approach to learning and its extraordinary professors for fully preparing him for a career in emerging technical policy and foreign policy research.