Alisha Saxena
MPP '23
Hometown: San Ramon, CA
Current City: Washington, DC
Why did you choose McCourt? McCourt emphasized quantitative and qualitative skill development, and at the same time, gave me the flexibility I needed to explore various policy areas and develop my own policy concentrations. Also, as a policy student, there truly is no better place to be than in Washington DC!
What professional/ work experience did you have prior to coming to McCourt? I worked, and still work, with RepresentWomen, a nonpartisan advocacy organization focused on promoting electoral reform, ranked-choice voting, and gender parity in politics. So far, during my time there, I have published two reports with RepresentWomen, one focused on disabled women's representation in American politics and the other on first-generation women's representation in American politics. Outside of this, I was really involved in undergraduate student government and advocacy work surrounding higher education!
What has been the best part of your experience so far? There's been many positives since starting at McCourt, but the biggest one for me has been finding my community, both in fellow students and in teachers.
Student organization involvement while at McCourt: GradGov, Georgetown Public Policy Review (GPPR), McCourt Disability Policy Initiative (DPI), Women in Public Policy Initiative (WiPPI)
Undergraduate University, degree, and major: UCSD (University of California, San Diego), Major: Political Science-Public Law/ Minor: African American Studies
Hobbies/ Interests: yoga teacher, singing, reading
Other Policy Interests: electoral policy, disability policy, gender policy