From Washington, D.C., and New York City to London, Geneva, Tokyo, Nairobi, and more, alumni of the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs hold an enormous variety of influential policy-related positions. But world capitals and global financial centers are not the only locales to find them. For some Princeton SPIA graduates, the best place to apply the skills they learned at the School is back home.
In the Milwaukee suburb of Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, for example, Dennis McBride MPA ‘80 is in his second term as mayor, the latest in a long string of public service roles in and around his hometown. Among other positions, he was a Wauwatosa alderman, as well as a trial attorney with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and a law clerk to a U.S. District Judge, both in Milwaukee.
Like many of his Princeton SPIA classmates, McBride says, “I had always intended to run for office. I wasn't sure what that meant exactly, at what level. The likeliest place was back in my hometown, where people know me, and I know everybody.”
The training he received at the School, especially its finance component, has been enormously beneficial during his time in municipal government, he says.
“Dean [Donald E.] Stokes said during orientation, ‘We're not going to make you economists and statisticians, we're going to make you intelligent consumers of economics and statistics,’” McBride recalls. “And that's what I think my MPA did for me. It has made me an intelligent consumer of those things I need to consume to be an effective public servant.”
When family circumstances brought Lauren Necochea MPA ’06 back to her Boise, Idaho, hometown from Baltimore, where she was serving in the city health department, she landed at a nonprofit focused on statewide budget, tax, economic security, and child advocacy issues in support of low- and moderate-income families. The shift from overseeing a team of 50 to being, essentially, a one-woman shop proved surprisingly beneficial.
“I discovered that I had a lot of autonomy, and I was able to absorb these other programs and build a top-notch policy advocacy shop in Idaho,” Necochea says. “I never would have imagined that that was how it was going to turn out when I moved back here.”
When her state representative resigned, Necochea found herself at the top of a ranked list of candidates for the open seat submitted by precinct captains in her district to Idaho’s governor, who appointed her to fill the slot. After completing the term, she ran twice more, winning a pair of terms before stepping down to focus on her current role as chair of the Idaho Democratic Party. Necochea cites the beginning of her master’s program as critical to her public service roles.
“Our first semester was great training because you have to be able to communicate concisely in the Legislature, whether you're on the floor, or in a committee debating the merits of a bill, or explaining your position and justifying it,” she says. “And then you have to turn around to your constituents and justify your position and the vote you took. So being able to digest a lot of information and then concisely summarize it, and come to conclusions and make recommendations – those skills have been very valuable.”
Daniel Bosa Rincon hadn’t planned to return to his hometown of Bogotá, Colombia, quite so soon after earning his MPA earlier this year. But the job market for international students in the U.S. proved tough, so when he got a chance to join Bogotá’s economic development office, he took it.
“When the opportunity arose to work on the economic development of my city, it felt like a natural next step — especially because this was a sector I had been hoping to transition into,” Bosa Rincon said. “I have been really enjoying my new role, and it feels closely aligned with what I wanted to do after SPIA.”
Understandably, returning to his home country in a public-service role is a deeply personal milestone for Bosa Rincon.
“Growing up in Colombia, I have seen firsthand the deep inequalities that exist,” he said. “I want to help close those gaps and improve people’s quality of life so that everyone has the opportunity to aspire to a better future — one that is not determined by where they were born or how much money their family has.”
Originally from Wichita, Kansas, Jess Hembree MPA ’08 enjoyed Princeton’s similarly calmer pace when she arrived for her master’s program. After earning her degree, she watched many of her classmates decamp for New York and Washington, D.C., “and I knew neither of those were the right place for me,” she says.
Hembree landed in Kansas City working for a nonprofit foundation focused on Medicaid policy, children’s health and school-based mental health services. Eight years ago, she founded Platform Civic Strategies to provide policy consulting services to nonprofits, public health agencies, and philanthropic organizations. She also serves on the Shawnee Mission School District Board of Education.
“The public policy space feels very mystifying to people,” Hembree says. “What I learned at Princeton made it not mystifying to me. I learned that there's this confluence of quantitative data and how you write something in policy, and the actual politics surrounding an issue. It gave me the ability to take in all of that information and synthesize it in a way that's really usable for people.”
About 100 miles north of McBride’s desk in Wauwatosa’s City Hall sits Little Chute, Wisconsin, which is the hometown of Thomas M. Nelson, MPA ’04. He didn’t intend to return home after earning his Princeton degree, but a conversation with a friend changed his mind.
“In the second semester of my first year, a friend planted a seed to run for my hometown assembly seat,” Nelson says. “I knew immediately I would run. And I did.”
Mere months after graduating, Nelson won his election. He proceeded to serve in the Wisconsin State Assembly for six years, the last two of which he was majority leader. After winning the primary but falling short in the general election in the 2010 race for lieutenant governor, Nelson was elected county executive of Outagamie County. Three years ago, he won an unprecedented fourth term.
The School’s “focused, super-sized liberal arts education,” he says, serves him regularly.
“I apply knowledge learned every day,” Nelson says. “The SPIA curriculum gave me a foundational understanding of policy analysis folded in with political realities.”
Rachel Morrow MPA ’25 grew up in Northwest Arkansas and already knew when she came to Princeton SPIA that she “wanted to return home and work on issues affecting communities across the state and the broader heartland.” While “going to Princeton was a chance to step back, build a stronger policy and leadership foundation, and learn from people working on public problems all over the world,” Morrow says, “I never saw it as a departure from Arkansas.”
After graduating, Morrow did indeed return to the Natural State, where she serves as director of the Maternal & Child Health Center for Policy & Practice at Heartland Forward. In that capacity, she leads efforts to develop sustainable, evidence-based solutions that improve outcomes for mothers, children, and families across Arkansas and the broader heartland region.
“The MPA helped train me to ask: What does the evidence say?” Morrow says. “Who is affected? What are the real barriers to implementation? Who needs to be involved? And what would make this solution actually work for the people it is intended to serve? In my current role, that means using research and data to inform policy recommendations, but also making sure those recommendations are grounded in what stakeholders and communities are experiencing.”
Regardless of their roles, their sectors, or their geographies, these Princeton SPIA alumni are united in a core tenet of the School, a deep, unyielding commitment to public service.
“I've been so lucky in my career that every day I get to wake up and do something I feel really good about, and to have that sense of purpose,” Necochea says. “I haven't had a day where I doubted the mission, or didn't feel that intrinsic reward of doing work that is needed in the world and that will hopefully make it more just, more equitable, and more prosperous.”
Photos courtesy of Dennis McBride MPA ‘80, Lauren Necochea MPA ’06, Daniel Bosa Rincon MPA '26, Jess Hembree MPA ’08, Thomas M. Nelson MPA ’04, Rachel Morrow MPA ’25.