Northeastern University School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs

“Technology alone will not save us,” said Moira Zellner, speaking on the March 11 keynote panel on AI and The Future of Climate Innovation during Northeastern’s Sustainability Innovation Week, “if technology just keeps perpetuating the exploitation of resources, of other humans.” The keynote was delivered by Amy Luers (Senior Global Director Sustainability, Science & Innovation at Microsoft). In addition to Prof. Zellner, other speakers on the panel were Auroop Ganguly (COE Professor at Northeastern | Chief Scientist, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory), Ayan Paul (AI and Life Sciences Research Scientist, The Institute of Experiential AI, Northeastern University), and Galen Nelson (Chief Climate Officer, Massachusetts Clean Energy Center). Listen to the recording of the panel here: https://ow.ly/sPcu50VhgiO Northeastern University School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs #Sustainability #AI #ClimateInnovation #Northeastern #PolicySchool #TechForGood

Former Massachusetts governor, presidential candidate, and retired Northeastern University Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Political Science Michael Dukakis was the guest of honor at a March 11 screening, co-sponsored by Northeastern University School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs and Northeastern University Department of Political Science, of the documentary “Dukakis: Recipe for Democracy.” Directed and produced by Jeff Schmidt and Erin Trahan, the 28-minute documentary takes viewers on a journey along Dukakis’s long arc of leadership, reflecting on his formative years as the son of Greek immigrants and catching up with Massachusetts’ longest-serving governor three decades after he ran for the presidency. It shows him still an entrenched public servant as he mentors budding leaders as a Northeastern professor, chairs a commission to connect Boston’s North and South rail stations, and influences a crop of new public servants, who are carrying Dukakis’ legacy forward. Following the screening, three former Northeastern students of Gov. Dukakis reflected on his influence on their professional and personal lives. Sarah Stanton ’11 (MPA), who currently serves as Undersecretary of Economic Strategies - MA Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development, Juan Gallego ’19 (BS Political Science), who currently serves as Associate Deputy Chief of Staff to Lieutenant Governor Kim Driscoll, and Rob DeLeo ‘13 (PhD Political Science), who currently serves as an Associate Professor of Global Studies at Bentley University, offered anecdotes that illustrated the impact of Gov. Dukakis’s integrity, humility, and commitment to public service. “Democracy is a work in progress,” says Gov. Michael Dukakis in the documentary, “a precious gift that needs constant nurturing.” Amidst unprecedented uncertainty in American politics, “Dukakis” offers a reason to pause, take stock in the past, and look forward with renewed faith in what’s possible when people believe in democracy, and each other. #MichaelDukakis #PublicService #Leadership #NortheasternUniversity #PolicySchool #PoliticalScience #DocumentaryScreening #DemocracyInAction #CivicEngagement

Congratulations to PhD student Stephane Labossiere, M.S., MSc., who was just named a recipient of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government's 2025 Rappaport Public Policy Summer Fellowship! Stephane was one of 20 Fellows selected out of a highly competitive pool of 160 applicants. The Fellowship encourages students to apply their skills and passion for good governance to Greater Boston's public policy challenges. The Fellowship will empower Stephane to take a significant step toward his professional goal of becoming a leader in immigration and equity issues, especially for minority communities. Stephane’s research and policy interests focus on how migration-based inequities and structural determinants of disparities in health outcomes shape population health and sustainable programs serving immigrant communities. His population of interest includes Haitian immigrants and refugees in Massachusetts. During his Fellowship, he is hoping to partner with government agencies dedicated to supporting low-income individuals and families to meet their basic needs, helping them navigate the acculturation process, and promoting their achievement of long-term economic self-sufficiency. #RappaportFellowship #HarvardKennedySchool #PublicPolicy #PolicyLeadership #GreaterBoston #NortheasternUniversity #PhDResearch

Congratulations to Policy School alumna Fatuma Mohamed (MA International Affairs, ’24), who was just named by the Henry Luce Foundation Inc as one of sixteen 2025-2026 Luce Scholars! The Luce Scholars Program is an experiential fellowship program that offers emerging leaders immersive professional placement in Asia tailored to their interests and aspirations. Through these experiences, the program aims to forge more robust, more informed, more compassionate relationships across geographic borders by creating opportunities for young Americans across diverse sectors and interests to deepen their ties and understanding of the countries, cultures, and people of Asia. Fatuma’s experiences growing up in Dadaab Refugee Camp in Kenya and resettling in the United States profoundly shaped her commitment to advocating for displaced and marginalized communities locally and globally. She strives to deepen her interdisciplinary approach to addressing global inequalities and is passionate about bridging research and advocacy. Fatuma earned her MA in International Affairs from Northeastern University in 2024, where she also completed her undergraduate degree in Political Science and International Affairs. As an undergraduate, Fatuma worked as a research assistant on projects addressing environmental health injustices in U.S. cities, U.S.-China relations, and economic development in West Africa. As a Summer Scholars Independent Research Fellow (SSIRF), she conducted research for her honors thesis on the impact of surveillance and policing on Somali youth, examining the intersection of Islamophobia and anti-Black racism. Beyond her academic pursuits, Fatuma is a dedicated community organizer and youth advocate. During college, she co-founded Hormar Academy, a mentorship program supporting Somali high school students in Greater Boston to overcome barriers to higher education. She currently serves as the Director of Youth Advocacy at the Massachusetts chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), where she leads initiatives to empower Muslim youth through leadership development and civic engagement. She has also conducted state-wide research on the experiences of Muslim students in public schools and provides professional development training for educators. Fatuma’s return to Dadaab Refugee Camp in 2022 deepened her passion for understanding and addressing the challenges faced by displaced populations. During her master’s program, she studied forced displacement, migration, and refugee experiences across regions, including those of Vietnamese, Afghan, and Syrian refugees. Fatuma’s mission is to contribute to a just and equitable world, where all people have access to education, the freedom to move, and the opportunity to thrive. #CommunityLeadership #YouthEmpowerment #HigherEducation #CivicEngagement #NortheasternUniversity #PolicySchool #ResearchAndAdvocacy #DiversityAndInclusion

Explore the future of sustainability and innovation at Northeastern’s first-ever Sustainability Innovation Week, taking place March 10–14 across Northeastern’s global network This dynamic event will bring together students, faculty, industry leaders, and community partners to drive change, ignite ideas, and shape a more sustainable world. The signature event of the week, the Sustainability Innovation Showcase, will take place on Tuesday, March 11 and features: ?? Keynote Panel: Experts discuss the intersection of sustainability and AI. ?? Sustainable Campus Innovation Competition: A video pitch competition open to all Northeastern students. ?? Expo & Networking Reception: Explore projects and initiatives advancing sustainability across our NU community. On Tue, March 11 (11:00 am-12:30 pm, ET, Curry Student Center Ballroom), Prof. Moira Zellner will be a panelist on a lively discussion on the Intersection of Sustainability and AI, featuring expert insights on how emerging technologies can drive sustainable solutions. Register Here: https://lnkd.in/eE-ziGdY On Sun, Mar 10, (1:00 pm, ET, Zoom), Rebecca Riccio will participate in a panel discussion on Strengthening Local Climate Action Through Research Partnerships. Register here: https://lnkd.in/eDfdiSft This panel will bring together Boston-based environmental leaders to discuss how grassroots advocacy efforts are navigating federal challenges and where research, policy analysis, and institutional collaboration can help drive impact. Panelists: Dwaign Tyndal, Executive Director, Alternatives for Community & Environment Armani White, Co-founder, Reclaim Roxbury Rebecca Riccio, Juffali Family Director, Social Impact Lab at Northeastern University Moderator: Vatic Kuumba, Co-director, One Square World This event is an excellent opportunity for those engaged in community-based research to explore how partnerships can help advance climate resilience and environmental justice. #Sustainability #ClimateAction #GreenInfrastructure #UrbanResilience #FloodMitigation #CollaborativeDesign #EnvironmentalSolutions

Prof. Nishith Prakash, in collaboration with Vagisha Pandey and Sahil Pawar, has published an article on “Pedalling towards gender equality and empowerment” examining the impact of bicycle distribution initiatives to support the education of adolescent girls in Bihar, India and in rural Zambia. The government introduced programs to address gender gaps in education by providing adolescent girls with bicycles for their commute to school. Discussing the immediate and long-term impacts of these initiatives, the article provides insights into designing more effective and sustainable policies to promote gender parity in education. The United Nations identified “promoting gender equality and empowering women” as one of the eight Millennium Development Goals for 2015, recognizing the critical importance of “eliminating gender disparity in primary and secondary education” in achieving this objective. Programs like the bicycle distribution initiatives in Bihar and Zambia demonstrate how reducing physical and safety barriers can significantly improve access to education. By addressing challenges such as distance and security, these interventions not only enhance educational outcomes but also contribute to broader aspirations and empowerment for girls.

Prof. Moira Zellner will conduct a workshop on “Fora.ai: Reshaping Collaboration for Climate and Social impact” at the 2025 Intermountain Sustainability Summit in Ogden, Utah (Mar 20-21). Fora.ai is an intuitive digital environment that enables diverse stakeholder groups to collaboratively interact with embedded simulation models to understand real world socio-environmental problems and create novel and impactful solutions. Stakeholders interact with this digital representation and with each other, iteratively creating, revising and testing solutions until diverse needs are addressed. Workshop participants will use fora.ai’s interactive game-board to collectively build green infrastructure solutions to flooding in a neighborhood in Chelsea, Massachusetts. The virtual environment allows for participation in a facilitated process in which users will: 1) input their individual priorities, 2) collaboratively run simulations to understand flooding issues in the neighborhood, 3) co-design green infrastructure scenarios to address these problems, 4) see how their changes affect the simulation, and 5) deliberate on the tradeoffs that arise from each solution due to competing priorities. Participants will be introduced to the flooding model and, with facilitator assistance, engage in multiple iterations of the process of prioritization, solution-building, and reflection on results. This process will allow them to refine their proposed solutions towards a design they would jointly support for implementation, with an understanding of its benefits and drawbacks. The workshop will end with a focus group debrief. Laptops or tablets required. Main takeaways and/or learning objectives: 1.????Learn about flooding and green infrastructure 2.????Learn about fora.ai 3.????Experience collaborative problem-solving for environmental issues 4.????Understand the effect of diverse tradeoffs on decision-making Audience Engagement: The workshop is entirely interactive, and participants will work in small teams, supported by a facilitator. Networking opportunities will organically emerge from the experience. #Sustainability #ClimateAction #GreenInfrastructure #UrbanResilience #FloodMitigation #CollaborativeDesign #EnvironmentalSolutions

?? Northeastern University at ISA 2025: Advancing Global Policy & Governance ?? Faculty and scholars from Northeastern University participated in the International Studies Association (ISA) Conference in Chicago engaging in critical conversations on environmental governance, global security, AI, gender, and diplomacy. The Northeastern delegation included: ?? Denise Garcia – Global governance of AI & security, relationality in international studies ?? Valentine Moghadam – Women in global governance, gender & global restructurings ?? Maria Ivanova – Environmental governance, women’s leadership, international organizations ?? Carlos Arriaga Serrano – Environmental cooperation, regulation & litigation ?? Alireza Raisi – Comparative climate change politics across the Middle East ?? Jasreet Gill – Environmental action, the cost of clean energy and lithium mining in Latin America ?? Yunus Emre Tapan – High-tech & digital diplomacy, international studies From AI and security to climate governance, gender & diplomacy, and foreign policy analysis, Northeastern’s scholars are shaping critical global conversations. #ISA2025 #GlobalGovernance #EnvironmentalPolicy #AI #InternationalRelations #SecurityStudies #GenderEquality Northeastern University Northeastern University School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs Northeastern University-cssh polisci Northeastern Global News

Prof. Damon Hall and Northeastern colleagues Samuel E. Mu?oz, P. James Dennedy-Frank, and Geoff Trussell have been awarded a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to work closely with Kennebec and Penobscot river communities in Maine on flood-risk reduction and resilience planning using long-range climate and atmospheric predictive flood inundation models. Riverine flooding costs the United States up to $496B per year from damaged infrastructure, commercial impact, and disrupted livelihoods. The costs of flood hazard are projected to increase drastically with increases in floodplain population sizes, sea-level, and the intensity of precipitation. Yet, scientists still struggle to predict how floods will impact communities, and how to communicate their findings to community leaders and stakeholders. This co-developed research project is motivated by (a) understanding the causes and projections of riverine flooding in Maine and (b) increasing the resilience of floodplain communities. The project’s novel co-production process will be transformational because it diverges from traditional approaches to flood hazard assessment by addressing long-standing issues around uncertainty, social trust, and utility to stakeholders. This approach leverages both community-level knowledge of flood hazards and state-of-the-art tools in earth system science to address long-standing shortcomings of traditional flood hazard assessments. The iterative, community-oriented framework co-produces natural hazards science rather than following “one-way” or extractive approaches that have impeded the development of robust and resilient solutions. Due to its iterative approach, this framework will allow the researchers to refine decision-support tools and provide leading-edge flood inundation projections and visualizations to municipal decision makers to enhance resilience planning. Northeastern University School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs National Science Foundation NSF, GeoSciences “RAISE: CHIRRP: Building resilient floodplain communities in a changing climate through iterative stakeholder engagement " CHIRRP 2438338, Mu?oz, S (PI), Hall, DM (Co-PI), Dennedy-Frank, J (Co-PI), Trussell, G (Co-PI), Total cost: $998,696 #FloodResilience #ClimateChange #FloodRiskReduction #CommunityEngagement #Sustainability #ClimateResilience #DisasterPreparedness #NSFfunded #EnvironmentalScience #ResilientCommunities #RiverineFlooding #ScienceForPolicy #ClimateAdaptation #FloodModeling #SustainablePlanning #CoProduction #StakeholderEngagement #UrbanResilience #NortheasternUniversity #Geosciences #InfrastructureResilience

?? On March 5, the Environmental Studies Section of the International Studies Association (ISA) presented this year’s Engaged Scholar Award to Policy School Director Maria Ivanova.?The Committee noted her bold scholarship, which has generated meaningful public impact. ? Prof.?Ivanova’s scholarship interrogates international environmental institutions, environmental sustainability, and the science-policy interface. Her work in these areas is embedded in strong and enduring relationships with institutional leaders and policymakers at multiple levels of governance. ? Prof. Ivanova’s commitment to engaged scholarship has been a fundamental part of her work: ? Convening global leaders: Bringing together?UNEP Executive Directors to strengthen organizational leadership. ? Shaping environmental governance: Leading the?Global Environmental Governance Dialogues, uniting top policymakers. ? Developing impactful tools: Creating the?Environmental Conventions Index to track treaty implementation and offering online courses for government officials. ? Bridging research and practice: Empowering students by integrating them into environmental policy negotiations ??Building meaningful partnerships with governments: Serving on Rwanda’s national delegation for negotiations on a new global plastics treaty. ? Prof. Ivanova’s?commitment to engaged research is an inspiration for scholars in global governance.?Her work exemplifies how academia can drive real-world change!??? Northeastern University School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs #EnvironmentalGovernance #Sustainability #PolicyImpact #EngagedScholarship #GlobalLeadership