Plans for the 2020-21 School Year at Heller
The Heller School will offer both online and hybrid instruction for the fall 2020 and spring 2021 semesters, with a focus on educational excellence and engagement. The Spring 2021 semester will start on Feb. 1. All students, faculty and staff coming to the Brandeis campus must fill out a Daily Health Assessment before arriving and sign up for mandatory high-frequency COVID-19 testing. For more information, frequently asked questions and student resources for online learning, visit Heller's FAQ page.
“As a Californian, I have lived through some pretty terrible fire seasons,” says Rebecca Avilés, MPP’22. “And as a Puerto Rican, I also remember seeing the energy infrastructure crumble when Hurricane Maria hit the island in 2017. Our energy system is not designed to withstand these extreme weather events.”
For incoming global health PhD student Kumba Sennaar, it was the unique combination of global health and health systems expertise that drew her to Heller.
As director of a group home for adults with mental illnesses in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, Adam Jones ’15, MPP’22, saw firsthand how critical it was to have stable housing and community support.
“I want to empower people, especially LGBTQ folks, people of color, to dive into finance and learn about financial literacy," says Charlie Stoever, MBA'22. "When COVID caused the stock market to dive, people like me who were financially literate could take advantage of lower-priced stocks, while millions were applying for unemployment.”
From Kenya to South Korea to Nepal, David Kim, MA COEX’22, has seen firsthand the impact of conflicts on local populations. That’s what led him to Heller, to gain the skills for a career in peacebuilding and diplomacy.
Remy Mujigiti, MS'21, has come to Heller to become a global health researcher, excited to gain quantitative skills like data analysis in the MS in Global Health Policy and Management program. He is dedicated to transforming health systems in Rwanda and throughout the African continent. Eventually, he hopes to pursue a doctoral degree focused on health workforce policy.
“My goal is to have a human-based approach to solving environmental problems," says Chad Marvin, MA SID'21. As a Peace Corps Volunteer in Guinea, he saw how “Climate change is creating huge problems for subsistence farmers, because it shortens growing seasons. At the same time the increased poverty that this is creating is changing the access that Guinean children have to go to school, because they need to help longer in the fields. Any real plan to address climate change has to also address these critical problems.”
Meet our Alumni
Nicole Rodriguez, MPP'14, Research Director, New Jersey Policy Perspective
“When I was writing my policy reports and advocating at the Massachusetts State House, I had a jump-start because I had worked on these things in grad school. I actually used the reports I had written. It was a perfect transition into my professional policy life.”
Evan Hochberg, MMHS’96, President, Crown Family Philanthropies
“Heller helped me understand how you could make the world a better place by focusing on the intersection of strategy, management and policy. What I enjoyed the most was getting a hard business education in an environment where the professors, case studies and students were all focused on social impact. There was a whole ecosystem for people like me.”
Adeyemi Okunogbe, MS'12, Health Systems Specialist, RTI International
“When I came to Heller, my understanding and perspective on health was limited to diagnosing and treating human ailments. After I graduated, I had the framework and paradigms for thinking about health policy, global health and social justice.”
Research at Heller
Heller's 11 research centers and institutes bring in $14 million in grant-funded projects annually, focusing on pressing social policy issues such as the racial wealth gap, substance use disorder, disability rights and more. Research faculty are a key part of a Heller education—they teach courses, employ students as research assistants and provide mentoring.