Meet the inaugural Tech & Public Policy Scholars

The McCourt School’s Tech & Public Policy (TPP) program is pleased to announce that  Santiago Vidal Calvo (MPP’25), Maitreyi Natarajan (MPP/MBA’24), Kevyanna Rawls (MPP’24), Talia Stringfellow (MPP’25) and Sanha Tahir (MS-DSPP’24) will join the inaugural class of Tech & Public Policy Scholars. 

The TPP Scholars program gives up to five students the opportunity to work with Georgetown faculty and researchers on issues related to tech policy. The interests of this year’s class range from predictive policing and privacy preserving technology to biometric data collection. 

Get to know the inaugural class of Tech & Public Policy Scholars

Santiago Vidal Calvo (MPP’25)

Santiago Vidal Calvo (MPP’25) is an international student from Caracas, Venezuela, who will be joining the McCourt School’s Master of Public Policy program in the fall of 2023 after finishing his undergraduate degree at Fordham University. During his time in the TPP Scholars program, Santiago hopes to research the usage of tech and public policy for controlling free speech, especially in authoritarian countries. 

Following the completion of his degree at the McCourt School, Santiago aspires to establish an NGO that can bring financial and technological resources to low-income neighborhoods in Venezuela, increasing quality of life and improving tech policy and societal outcomes.

Maitreyi Natarajan (MPP/MBA’24)

Maitreyi Natarajan (MPP/MBA’24) is a dual-degree Master of Public Policy/Master of Business Administration student at Georgetown University. She began her career in working for a technology start-up company in India and came to Georgetown to expand her knowledge of economics and mathematics.

Through the TPP Scholars program, Maitreyi hopes to learn more about different facets of Artificial Intelligence in health care, and explore how this technology will interact with gender, race and culture. In the future, she would like to continue working with data and emerging technology to improve tech policy and health care outcomes in developing countries. 

Kevyanna Rawls (MPP’24)

Kevyanna Rawls (MPP’24) is a first-year student in the McCourt School’s Master of Public Policy program with an interest in social policy. Prior to attending McCourt, Kevyanna worked for a nonprofit organization advocating for immigrant rights in partnership with the local government. As a graduate of the University of Memphis, from Little Rock, Arkansas, Kevyanna is committed to improving the lives and experiences of communities of color, especially in the South. 

Through the TPP Scholars program, Kevyanna hopes to explore the intersection of race and technological advances in policing. Through McCourt’s Race & U.S. Criminal Legal Policy course, taught by Associate Teaching Professor of the Practice Jasmine Tyler, Kevyanna developed an interest in how predictive policing can further disenfranchise Black communities and lead to over policing in neighborhoods in need of additional resources.

Talia Stringfellow (MPP’25)

Talia Stringfellow (MPP’25) will join the McCourt School’s Master of Public Policy program in the fall of 2023. Talia previously worked at Tulchin Research in San Francisco, CA, a leading national political polling and strategic consulting firm. She also has experience working on political campaigns in Oregon, including as campaign manager for Adrian Brown’s successful judicial campaign.

During her time at the McCourt School, Talia plans to explore the intersection between technology, privacy and democracy, with specific interests in misinformation and social media. Since the 2016 elections, Talia has found herself increasingly interested in the tech sector’s role in democracy and the effects it can have on strengthening or weakening human rights globally.

After completing her degree, Talia plans to pursue a career in developing digital-privacy policy, either in public service or at a think-tank. She hopes to use her bi-cultural lived experience as a French American to supplement her education and work on domestic and international regulatory policy.

Sanha Tahir (MS-DSPP’24)

Originally from Lahore, Pakistan, Sanha Tahir (MS-DSPP’24) is a first-year student in the McCourt School’s Master of Science in Data Science for Public Policy program with the vision of using data analysis techniques to improve the delivery of public education.

During her last year at McCourt, Sanha will focus her research on public education and social media misinformation. While the two subjects may seem separate, Sanha believes that they have the potential to ascend their boundaries to explain real-world events and behaviors. 

Currently, Sanha is working with Assistant Professor NaLette Brodnax to investigate carceral ideology in public school handbooks using advanced text analytics techniques. As a TPP Scholar, Sanha hopes to apply these skills to understand the pattern, progress and scope of social media misinformation and sentiment.