2025 TSPPPA Newsletter
Message from the Director
Spotlights
Faculty Kudos
Alumni Class Notes
Message from the Director
Dear TSPPPA Alumni and Friends!
Our fantastic alumni are a key selling point for why to join the Trachtenberg Community! I have been saying that for many decades, but this year has made it more true than ever.
With many alumni and current students losing their jobs, our Career Advancement team has been called upon more than ever. Denise Fowler, a rock star among all career services directors in NASPAA schools, has risen to the occasion, continuing to provide career services for life in support of our alumni. Our alumni have stepped in to provide career guidance, mentoring, employment opportunities and programming support! THANK YOU—you know who you are! Our alumni continue to impress and inspire me!
Kathy Newcomer
TSPPPA Director
Spotlights
Trachtenberg Advisory Council Launches New Initiatives for Students and Alumni
Over the course of the year, the Trachtenberg Alumni Council has had the pleasure of working on numerous projects, two of which I’m thrilled to share.
First, we launched a funding initiative to support the program’s goal of participating in the Partnership for Public Service Internship program. We invite all alumni members to show support for our promising students by donating to the Trachtenberg Internship Fund. To donate:
- Step 1: Visit the GW Donations page
- Step 2: Select “Columbian College of Arts and Sciences”
- Step 3: Select ”TSPPPA” and enter “Internship Fund” in the notes section
Lastly, the Alumni Impact Circle is coming soon! Starting in 2026, the Trachtenberg School will launch the TSPPPA Impact Circle, a new initiative recognizing alumni who are making a meaningful difference in their communities, professions and the world. Each year, approximately 10–20 outstanding graduates will be named Impact Alumni Honorees, joining a growing network of past award winners who exemplify leadership, service and innovation. This is more than an honor—it’s a celebration of the powerful legacy and future of Trachtenberg alumni!
Know someone who embodies this spirit? Nominate them—or yourself—and help us spotlight the transformative impact of our alumni community.
Application Period: November 1, 2025–February 1, 2026
Save the Date! Honorees will be celebrated at the spring 2026 Capstone Expo on May 1, 2026. Stay tuned for more exciting alumni updates!
Kai Martin, MPP ’21
Trachtenberg Alumni Council Chair
Trachtenberg Alumnus Comes Back and Gives Back to Community
Kyle Farmbry, MPA ‘94, PhD ’99, is spending this academic year with the Trachtenberg School as visiting research faculty. In this role, he is working with students as an advisor on projects, providing guest lectures and seminars for classes and helping to promote the Trachtenberg School wherever he can. In the past few months, he has served as a speaker for a Career Catalyst seminar on the new academic job market, given a guest lecture for Professor Jill Kasle’s undergraduate honors college seminar on constitutional issues and spoke on a panel that focused on “Addressing Misinformation and Disinformation in NASPAA Curricula” at the annual conference of our school’s accrediting body, NASPAA.
Dr. Farmbry has been active in fundraising for TSPPPA, having submitted proposals on behalf of the Trachtenberg School to the U.S. Embassy in South Africa and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Very recently, he began working with a small team of Trachtenberg School graduate students to launch a project called Equitable Aging, which will examine inequities in the lives of our rapidly aging population in the United States.
Dr. Farmbry joins the Trachtenberg School after having spent three years serving as president of Guilford College, a small liberal arts college in Greensboro, N.C. Prior to coming to Guilford, he spent 16 years at Rutgers University-Newark, where he served as a faculty member in the School of Public Affairs and Administration and as dean of the Graduate School for six years.
Dr. Farmbry earned his undergraduate degree from George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs and his MPA and PhD from the Public Administration program (prior to its being in the Trachtenberg School). In addition to his GW degrees, Dr. Farmbry has a law degree from the Rutgers University School of Law. He has served as a Fulbright Fellow in South Africa (2009) and Malta (2016) as well as an American Council on Education Fellow at South Africa’s University of Pretoria in 2017-2018. In 2021, he was inducted into the National Academy of Public Administration.
Dr. Farmbry looks forward to working with members of the Trachtenberg School this semester and next!
Trachtenberg Post Docs Engaged Around the World
Hernando Grueso, PhD ’22, is an associate member of the Department of Social Policy and Intervention at the University of Oxford, where he completed his postdoctoral fellowship in conjunction with Nuffield College. During his postdoc, Hernando joined the Accelerate Hub at DSPI, where he led impact evaluation and a cost-effectiveness analysis of economic development programs aimed at improving the well-being of vulnerable adolescents across sub-Saharan Africa. This work was conducted in collaboration with institutions such as the World Bank, UNICEF, Save the Children and the Gates Foundation. Building on his interest in applying machine learning to evaluation research, he recently launched AImpact Lab, a tech-enabled evaluation company that combines econometrics and data science to help investors who foster social and environmental well-being also drive their bottom line.
Jordan Herring, PhD ’24, is currently a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford University School of Medicine. Trachtenberg provided him with a rich foundation for studying public policy, thanks to the extensive faculty expertise in a variety of social science disciplines. His research focuses on understanding structural inequities in health care, particularly in Medicaid and among immigrant populations, and how public policy can improve health care access and outcomes. His work has recently been published in journals such as Social Science & Medicine, JAMA Health Forum and Health Affairs.
U.S. Coast Guard and Trachtenberg Partnership Reaffirmed
The Trachtenberg School is one of four places where a select cohort of mid-career U.S. Coast Guard officers are sent to earn an MPA or MPP as they progress through the ranks. (The others are Harvard, Princeton and Syracuse.)
Since the early 1980s, about two CG officers have come to the Trachtenberg School each fall, and a good number of them have progressed through the ranks and become admirals. One of our star alumni is Admiral Thad Allen, MPA ’86, Honorary Doctorate ’13, who was not only commandant of the Coast Guard but also led the federal response to both Hurricane Katrina and the BP Oil Spill. He continues to be a highly respected thought leader in national defense and diplomacy.
The CG officers enrich our classrooms with their experience and dedication, and the school’s close relationship with the Coast Guard has provided our students with innumerable opportunities for capstone projects.
Current student Cyrus Unvala joined Trachtenberg after working as a vessel operator and personnel manager on Coast Guard ships for eight of the 10 previous years. Reflecting on his Trachtenberg experience, Cyrus said: “The MPA program has helped me understand different ways to approach, interpret and question a broader range of public policy issues than I had ever been exposed to. I appreciate the opportunity to learn from an experienced and devoted faculty and a diverse and inspiring peer group. I have also had the opportunity to pursue and research my own interests in foreign policy and Arctic security through Trachtenberg’s journal, Policy Perspectives, and the program's culminating capstone project.”
Faculty Kudos
Our faculty continue to be productive scholars and skilled educators. They are active in a variety of service realms and serve in editorial and leadership positions. Faculty highlights from 2024-2025 include:
- Stephanie Cellini was GW’s Oscar and Shoshana Trachtenberg Teaching Award recipient.
- Domonic Bearfield was elected to NASPAA’s Executive Council.
- Jill Davis joined the Trachtenberg faculty this fall as Amsterdam Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Public Administration.
- Rachel Emas was awarded NASPAA’s JPAE Spotlight Award.
- Mike LaForest-Tucker was hired to the Trachtenberg faculty as Amsterdam Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Public Administration. Mike will join us on campus next fall, as he is currently embarking on a one-year fellowship in Copenhagen.
- Sanjay Pandey was awarded NASPAA’s William Duncombe Excellence in Doctoral Education Award.
- The Regulatory Studies Center received a $1,178,00 award from the John Templeton Foundation for research on increasing transparency and raising awareness of regulatory impacts.
- Trachtenberg faculty authored over 43 publications, including five books by Jasmine Johnson, Kathy Newcomer and Mike Worth.
Alumni Class Notes
Nish Acharya, MPA ’01, served as an executive-in-residence at the Trachtenberg School for the 2025-2026 school year. In this visiting role, he advised GW students about career opportunities in politics, philanthropy and entrepreneurship.
Jason Briggs, MPP ’13, following the reorganization of the U.S. Department of State, is now the acting director of the Bureau of South and Central Asia’s Office of Foreign Assistance.
Libby Chamberlin, MPP ’20, marked her second year at Community Change as the senior policy advisor for state and local policy. She’s kept busy working on strategic campaigns around the country and is often able to advise on her core research interest, state fiscal policy.
Richard Livingstone, MPA ’17, celebrated one year since joining the Office of the Chief Technology Officer for Washington, D.C., where, among other things, he is responsible for the District’s artificial intelligence governance. Over the past year, the District of Columbia was recognized as an inaugural AI 50 award winner from the Center for Public Sector AI, in part due to Richard’s work.
Sarah McCue, MPA ’91, is a senior advisor to United Nations, World Bank and international NGO initiatives, and chair of the Knowledge Impact Network Plastic in Humans Expert Group to build global awareness of the health harms caused from ingestion and inhalation of degraded microplastics. She is also an adjunct faculty member for the Elliott School of International Affairs where she teaches the Strategy and Leadership course within the Master of International Policy and Practice program.
Zahra Moulvi, MPP ’09, is the monitoring and evaluation lead for the Data and Research in Education‚ Äì Research Consortium (DARE-RC) project. DARE-RC is a 30-month, FCDO-funded programme that supports Pakistan‚ Äôs education system through commissioning and disseminating high-quality research, conducting research capacity strengthening activities and evidence-informed policy engagement.
Henry Moy, MPA ’81, is currently serving on the board of directors of Woori America Bank and as a board advisor at Amerasia Bank. Both are headquartered in New York City.
Celeste Murphy Greene, MPA ’94, started a new position this fall as associate professor of political science at Norfolk State University. She is also the new president of the Hampton Roads Chapter of the American Society for Public Administration.
Tony Palermo, MPA ’93, is the assistant director of community development for the City of Fort Myers. He serves as vice president for membership and outreach of the American Planning Association Florida Chapter.
Joshua Sagers, MPA ’16, retired October 1st, 2025 in Colorado after an exceptional 26 year career with the United States Coast Guard. Josh plans to channel his skills and experiences in leadership, project management, strategy implementation, stakeholder engagement and program evaluation into impactful roles in the NGO and nonprofit domains.
Daniel Sheehan, MPA ’88, is at the United Nations International Maritime Organization, developing a regulatory regime for Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships, a multinational collaborative effort to address an emerging technology.
Kaitlin Swanner, MPP ’19, is a senior policy analyst at United Network for Organ Sharing. In this role, she works with transplant surgeons, doctors, nurses, patients, organ recovery specialists and governmental agencies to develop national policies related to organ donation and transplantation.
Bob Tansey, BA ’73, MPA ’81, mentors individual students and groups at GW and is trying to see if he can author several books after his rich careers in energy information, diplomacy and nature conservation.