Originally from rural Colorado, Ben is a tri-sector leader focused on developing and scaling community-based innovations that serve individuals with complex health and social needs. He began his career at Erie Family Health Center in Chicago, where he monitored and managed the performance of health programming, including HIV/AIDS care, pediatric and perinatal behavioral health, and diabetes management. He then led the Accountable Care Collaborative at Colorado’s Medicaid agency. There, he developed a cross-sector workgroup to improve behavioral health access and engagement for people reentering the community from state prisons. Under his leadership, the workgroup tripled the rate of engagement with behavioral health services for the population. He recently completed his MBA from The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, where he was a Neubauer Family Civic Scholar and Obama Foundation Scholar. During his time at Booth, he was a Managing Director and Chief of Staff of the Steven Tarrson Impact Investing Fund, Booth's student-run impact investing fund. He also interned at the De-Carceration Fund, the Roberts Enterprise Development Fund, and Gary Community Ventures, where he developed innovative financial tools and strategies to support promising community-based enterprises. This past summer, Ben worked as an Strategic Initiatives Summer Associate at the New Jersey Coalition to End Homelessness. During his time at Princeton, he hopes to deepen his understanding of broader urban policy, particularly public housing and criminal justice, and economics. After Princeton, he hopes to foster public-private partnerships that create meaningful community change and impact.

Sam was born in Hong Kong and was raised in the Philadelphia suburbs. His professional aspiration lies in the intersection between infrastructure and international development. Starting off as an engineer, Sam obtained his bachelor's and master's degrees in civil and structural engineering at Lehigh University and is a licensed professional engineer. Sam has experience at private and federal agencies and has worked on projects ranging from urban development, water resource management to emergency post-disaster response. Concurrently with engineering, Sam has volunteered with NGOs and multilateral organizations. Sam has designed pedestrian footbridges in developing communities, served as a youth representative at the U.N. Secretariat, and taught English at a refugee center. 

Originally from New York, Ben studied history, Asian studies, and foreign languages at Rice University before moving to Montana. Taking an unconventional path through school, he studied over a year and a half in Jordan and spent five months in Peru and Russia. After graduation, he worked as an Arabic linguist and research analyst and later trained EMTs. For his MPA internship, Ben worked as an International Economics Intern at the U.S. Department of Treasury in the Office of International Affairs in Washington. At SPIA and beyond, he aims to better understand evidence-based methods to reduce poverty and increase wellbeing and how to actualize them. He is committed to learning the lessons from rigorous randomized controlled trials in development and working to apply them to a career in the domestic nonprofit, international development, or research space. In his free time, Ben likes reading, alpine hiking, attempting to ski, trying (usually unsuccessfully) to solve boulder problems, and finding ways (usually successfully) to eat Margherita pizza.

Julia was born and raised in Pennington, New Jersey, and is excited to be returning to her beloved home state. In 2019, she graduated from the University of Virginia with a degree in economics. Since then, she has worked at the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in the Labor, Income Security, and Long-Term Analysis Division. At CBO, she has worked on estimating the labor market effects of a proposed policy to raise the minimum wage and modeling the economic effects of immigration. After Princeton, she hopes to use her quantitative background to craft policy to reduce income inequality and criminal justice reform. In her spare time, she loves to do crossword puzzles, go on hikes, and read.

Mackenzie is a democracy and governance professional with seven years of experience working to strengthen the capacities of election management bodies, political party leaders, members of parliament and county assemblies, and civil society organizations across Southern and East Africa. Originally from St. Louis, Missouri, she received a B.A. in Peace and Justice Studies with a minor in Africana Studies from Wellesley College. Following graduation, she moved to Washington, D.C., where she spent over three years working on the National Democratic Institute’s Southern and East Africa team and contributing to institutional initiatives. During the early days of the pandemic, Mackenzie moved to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, with the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), where she spent two years providing direct technical support to the National Election Board of Ethiopia and implementing peace and conflict resolution programs. Most recently, she managed IFES’ Africa programs in Kenya, Tanzania, and Zambia from the headquarters office in the Washington metropolitan area. When not thinking about democratic resilience, she can be found learning new languages, enjoying water sports of any kind, and attending as many musicals, plays, and ballets as time allows.