Prior to arriving at Princeton, Brendan’s life was a tale of two cities. After growing up in Raleigh, North Carolina, he moved west to Nashville, Tennessee, to attend Vanderbilt University. There, he studied economics and public policy, developing an interest in public service in the oft-overlooked lower levels of American government. Immediately after college, he went back to Raleigh to work with North Carolina’s Medicaid program. After a year there, Brendan doubled back to Nashville, where for two years he was a Commissioner’s Fellow in the Tennessee Department of Health. Among other projects, he researched and wrote three white papers detailing Tennessee’s past and then-ongoing policy responses to the opioid epidemic, and he helped create a primer for staff on how the Department’s budget is developed and structured. Most recently, Brendan spent his summer interning for the City of Detroit, where he evaluated a proposal to overhaul property taxes in the Motor City. After Princeton, he hopes to test and evaluate programs on the city or state level. When it is not too cold, Brendan enjoys cycling; when no one else is around, Brendan enjoys trying to teach himself how to play the piano.