Think Globally, Act Locally

Pressing global problems motivated Policy School faculty to deliver impact-focused research and transformative pedagogy. The School is home to key centers and labs including the Boston Area Research Initiative, the Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy, and the Social Impact Lab. Policy School faculty have also created one of the two Impact Engine Accelerators at Northeastern – Community to Community (C2C). By building collaborative communities and pursuing both local change and global engagement, the Policy School is helping to create solutions to pressing issues in Boston and beyond.

Bari Student Workshop

Under Greg Zappata's leadership, BARI launched "Picturing Environmental Justice," an afterschool program that focuses on environmental justice, environmental racism, and the role of data science. It provides eleventh-grade students from Dorchester's Jeremiah E. Burke High School with knowledge about the environmental justice movement, data science basics, and policy implementation. Successful participants become eligible for paid summer internships with local community-based organizations

Community To Community

Through Community to Community (C2C), Professor Alicia Modestino use data and analysis to design, implement, and evaluate public policies that push the needle forward on complex problems found in urban areas. C2C will bridge the gap between knowledge and practice by fostering community engaged research across all of our global campus locations starting with partnerships in Boston and Oakland. This includes seed grants for faculty to build research-practice partnerships, a "no wrong door" for policymakers and practitioners to pitch a project or get connected to a faculty expert, and training for both academics and external partners to make use of research on the most pressing problems that our campus communities are facing Profs Modestino and and Carrie MaultsbyLute were honored with the Network Accelerator Award for connecting diverse communities of problem-solvers that span disciplines, colleges, campuses, countries, and industry sectors

International Plastics Treaty

Policy School Director Maria Ivanova, highlighted in September 2022 in Times Square for the UN Transformers initiative, has contributed significantly to global environmental governance She was a member of the International Science Council delegation at the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Plastic Pollution and advised Rwanda's delegation The negotiations took place at UNESCO headquarters in Paris, ending with a unanimous agreement for a first draft of an international treaty on plastic pollution by November 2023.

COP-TRANSFORMERS PODCAST

In partnership with the United Nations Science-Policy-Business Forum, the Policy School co-hosted the COPTransformers Podcast. In the first episode, Policy School director Maria Ivanova and PhD student Olga Skaredina engaged in a conversation on empowering Africa and the role of tech and finance

Myra Kraft Open Classroom

A longstanding tradition in the Policy School, Open Classroom is a semester-long seminar series for the Northeastern community and the general public facilitated by Prof. Ted Landsmark. Open Classroom guest speakers offered insights on topics including "The European Green Deal – Towards the first climate-neutral continent," "The ENVISION Program for the Pedestrian Bridge and the Sustainable SITES Initiative for Carter Field and Playground," and "Leadership in Global Environmental Governance: Individuals, Institutions, and Ideas "

Indian Bicycle Program

Bicycles can serve as a powerful tool for public policy and female empowerment, Prof. Nishith Prakash and a team of researchers have found. In 2010 they began measuring the impact of a program designed to close the education gap among girls in Bihar, India, Launched in 2006, the program provided every girl in grade nine in the state with money for the purpose of buying a bicycle to commute to school The Bihar bicycle program improved enrollment by 32 percent and reduced the corresponding gender gap by 40 percent. Prakash and his team even found that the program led girls to express more of a desire to delay marriage and pregnancy. They subsequently helped bring the program to Zambia as part of another successful trial and hope to bring similar programs to half a dozen more countries. The study has been picked up by the US Aid and World Bicycle Relief and his team has received around $3 9 million to scale it up in five or six countries in Africa

Traffic Ticket Audit

Connecticut State Police submitted at least 26,000 fake traffic tickets from 2014 and 2021, according to the findings of an audit of the department’s records co-conducted by Prof Matt Ross The audit revealed that 387 troopers and constables had submitted thousands of fake tickets. Ross estimates that the total number of fake tickets could be as high as 58,533. The fake tickets made state troopers and constables seem more productive, putting them in line for certain perks and promotions. The thousands of false records also distorted the state’s racial profiling traffic stop data, making it appear that state police were ticketing more white drivers. The audit has prompted both state and federal inquiries.

Policy School History Project

Summer 2023 interns Sienna Robertson, a student at Boston Green Academy, and Paige Webb, a student at the Noble Greenough School, collaborated with Policy School co-op student Hannah Mohtadi ’24, an Environmental Studies and International Affairs major, to research the history of the Policy School Their participation in the C2C program enabled the interns to engage in this research As part of this Director-initiated project, they conducted interviews with Profs Ted Landsmark, Chris Bosso, and Joan Fitzgerald

Dialogue Of Civilizations Water Governance

Associate Dean Tom Vicino and Prof. Lori Gardinier co-led 29 Northeastern students on a Summer 2023 Dialogue of Civilizations in London Students learned about the politics, culture, and globalization of London, with a focus on the changing demographics and shifting role of public policy and family. They visited sites of political, historical, cultural, and economic importance and attended lectures with local experts, government officials, and leaders of NGOs.

Policy School PhD candidate Vaishali Kushwaha organized and hosted a panel on “Water Governance towards Sustainability and Resilience in the Cities of Global South” at the 6th International Conference on Public Policy (ICPP6) in June 2023. Scholars and practitioners from Latin America, Asia, and North America shared their case studies, methodologies, and analysis of water issues. Presenters discussed case studies from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Kyrgyz Republic, Sri Lanka, Argentina, and India

Summer Youth Jobs Program

“It’s so kids don’t have to choose between a learning experience and having a job during the summer,” said Prof Alicia Modestino, a leader of Northeastern’s Summer Youth Employment program. The collaboration brought 130 Boston youth ages 14 to 18 on campus for six weeks. Eighty-five or so of the participants were Boston Public Schools students who took part in the Bridge to Calculus program. Another 50 participants worked among 25 departments across the university. Another ten jobs were created on Northeastern's campus at Mills College in Oakland, California a program that may be extended in future years to other locations in Northeastern’s global campus network

At Home In Chinatown

At Home in Chinatown: A Residence Lab Retrospective highlighted four years of the Residence Lab Arts Residency program (ResLab), a community-driven yearly artist residency that activates spaces in Boston's Chinatown through culturally affirming codesigned public art. Curated by Prof. Lily Song, the exhibition supported ResLab’s mission to highlight the dignity, vibrancy, and imagination of Boston’s Chinatown inhabitants in the face of a long history of gentrification and institutional neglect