41. “The level of discipline and rigor I learned at Heller has kept me and my organization sustainable and excellent in the work we’ve done. It’s required an intensive strategy and relentless discipline, which I would have never gotten without the Heller School.” Toni Burke, MPP’09
42. “Heller’s mission of using knowledge to promote social justice is really what I see as my mission.” Robyn Powell, PhD’20
43. “The staff during orientation recognized the sacrifices that everyone had made in order to come here, which was very important.” Zizwa Mwafulirwa, MS GHPM’20
44. “Heller is the only public policy school I know of that advertises itself as a social justice graduate school. That means there’s a self-selection on the part of students: They’re not just here to get a credential, but to gain a deeper set of insights so that they can do social justice work more effectively. That’s what I love about teaching here.” Robert Kuttner, Meyer and Ida Kirstein Visiting Professor
45. “At Heller, we go through simulations that relay real-world experiences. Our professors are respected international experts in their field — and we learn the word is mightier than guns, and that by bringing people together, they can work through their differences.” Peter Ter, MA SID/COEX’14
46. “Heller is truly a people-centered school. I knew that my professors were interested in my learning and development. The small size of the MPP program helped me get to know them and feel comfortable asking them for advice.” Erin Robinson, MPP’16
47. “Since I’ve come to Heller, I’ve loved seeing how committed the students and alumni are to pursuing careers where they tackle core issues.” Benny Belvin, Assistant Dean of Career Development
48. “Heller stepped up with a way I could conduct my own education and research that was relevant to the queer rights movement and HIV policy. I’ll be honest: the dual MPP and MBA was extremely difficult but so rewarding, because I learned more than I ever thought I could have.” James Miller, MBA/MPP’11
49. “For me, the SID program was a stepping stone to a dream career in international development. The research and project management skills I learned in the program have been very useful in my job. Being a part of a diverse cohort was also a very unique learning experience that only Heller could offer.” Megha Hedge, SID’14
50. “Here, I can get experience from the stars of our field. That’s really exciting. It’s like a great football club—like I’ve been invited to play with Barcelona, one of the best clubs in the world—that’s what it means to me to study at Heller.” Nikita Trafimovich, COEX’20
51. “We all have values and an image in our mind of the way the world should be. These are our roadmap for seeking to improve society, which is of great importance to the Heller School. But it is not enough. Our students must know how the policy world works and how public actions actually affect us.” Jeffrey Prottas, Director of the PhD program
52. “You’re not only learning from the faculty, from the professors, you’re also learning from your peers as well. It’s not just you alone, trying to find answers to the problems of this world. You find a community of people from different cultures and countries and ethnicities that all have the same goal.” Esther Daniel, COEX/SID’20
53. “Both the SID and MBA programs mix the theoretical with the practical. Together, these programs—along with the Heller staff and faculty— built upon my previous professional and educational experiences and positioned me well to get to where I am today.” Josh Cramer-Montes, MBA/MA SID’17
54. “Heller people are my people. Everybody here has done such interesting things with their lives to affect positive change.” Leila Quinn, MBA/MPP’19
55. “The students, alumni and researchers at Heller are chance agents, working to build a more equitable and just world, addressing an urgent need.” Kate Kaplan, Director of Development and Alumni Relations
56. “There’s also diversity of thought. It’s really common that a student will say something in class that I never, ever would have thought of myself. I love that about this program.” Tozoe Marton, MS GHPM/MA SID’20
57. “The chance to study with University Professor Anita Hill is the main reason I was drawn to Heller, and has far exceeded my expectations. Professor Hill not only champions social change but embodies a professorship that fosters and energizes that power necessary to influence policy discourse and help shape history.” Nicole Rinier, MBA/MPP’21
58. “At Heller, we are very involved with what’s happening on the ground. We provide research to support action. As a policy researcher, I want to impact policy discussions and policy creation.” Tatjana Meschede, Senior Scientist
59. “Heller is a great place for people who would like to be bridges.” Kristen Whited Beals, MBA/MPP’15
60. “Heller’s motto, ‘Knowledge advancing social justice,’ emphasizes our ongoing responsibility to grapple with emerging social policy challenges. Even as we recognize the strides we’ve made, the real spirit of our 60th anniversary and the next chapter is about addressing pressing societal problems at local, national and international levels. We eschew simple answers or ‘silver-bullet’ solutions. Instead, the Heller community devises evidence-based responses from multiple disciplines in teaching, research and public engagement.” David Weil, Dean and Professor
Tag: Why Heller? (page 3 of 3)
We’re continuing to celebrate Heller’s sixtieth anniversary with our 60 Reasons for 60 Years series, where you can hear from current students, alumni, staff, and faculty about what makes Heller a unique experience.
21. “Everybody at Heller wants everyone else to succeed. My classmates would say, ‘I want you to be whatever you want to be in the world. I’m going to cheer you on.’ That spirit— it’s what the world needs. It touched me in a deep way. I am changed forever because I have these people in my life.” Megan Casey, MA COEX’18
22. “Literally in my first class at Heller, which was with Janet Boguslaw, I learned this language around asset building, the racial wealth gap and the hidden welfare state. It was an amazing experience.” Alexandra Bastien, MPP’12
23. “I chose Heller because I was interested in an interdisciplinary approach. I wanted to think about the issues I was interested in in a broader context, and I’ve had that opportunity—to think about how education and discipline connect with health, mental health, housing, poverty and equity issues.” Joanna Taylor, PhD candidate
24. “At Heller, there’s the opportunity to be proactive and create your own path through the programs. I leveraged what professors had to offer with their experiences, had the experience of teaching and grading, and took advantage of being in Boston to work with NGOs there.” Rebecca Herrington, MA SID/COEX’14
25. “My dissertation experience was wonderful. As the first person in my family to graduate college, I appreciated the fact that my professor encouraged someone like me to write a book, even though it was hard. It meant a lot to me.” Carol Hardy-Fanta, PhD’91
26. “Heller’s a unique environment. I lit a match and it started a fire. I don’t think I could have found that anywhere else.” Isaac Cudjoe, MA COEX’19
27. “Through a combination of academic and real-world experiences during my time at Heller, I became more attuned to the role that government can play in addressing social determinants of health and other upstream factors that can improve population health and reduce inequities.” Fran Hodgins, MBA/MPP’18
28. “I chose to come to Heller because of the international focus and the diversity. The connections have been the best part of my experience so far. It’s given me new perspectives of different places in the world I’ll never go.” Tomesha Campbell, MA SID/COEX’19
29. “I got more than I expected at Heller. Everything from the classes and the professors, to the optional training in Excel, to the Career Development Center staff and website.” Farida Mushi, MS GHPM’16
30. “Heller students are among the most progressive crowds I’ve ever been with.” Alain Lempereur, Director of the COEX program
31. “I realized, to shift paradigms we were witnessing with respect to economic fragmentation, I needed to have the tools to champion all the outcomes I’d like to see and that’s what led me to Heller.” Ricky Ochilo, MPP/MBA’15
32. “With my interest in Heller specifically, I really appreciated the grounded focus on social inclusion and social justice. What drew me to the specific Assets and Inequality Concentration was Tom Shapiro and the work that he does on toxic inequality, and focusing not specifically on just wealth employment but also asset attainment.” Aaron Colemen, PhD Candidate
33. “I chose Brandeis because of the programs here at Heller. They were really attractive to me, as I want to work with people in my home country to bring a change in mindset.” Sita Leota, MA SID’20
34. “The writing quality that I got from the Heller program— writing memos and policy analyses— distinguished me from the other candidates for the job.” Todd Swisher, MPP’16
35. “I’ve seen the school’s commitment to social justice and also how diverse the classroom is. It’s the first time for me that I’m in a place where I see so many other Asian-American women too, so I feel like it’s a great place for my learning, and I also feel more at home.” Chibo Shinagawa, MS GHPM’19
36. “Heller’s curriculum, faculty, staff, and students prepared me well to work directly with senior-level financial and strategic decision makers.” Roger Perez, MBA/MA SID’16
37. “Our students are really, really good at going into a situation, understanding it in a sensitive way, using data-driven analysis to develop objective solutions and figuring out how an organization can implement it. That is a suite of very valuable skills.” Carole Carlson, MBA Program Director
38. “The practicum option was attractive because international development is something that’s so dependent on experience. The opportunity to spend the second year traveling and working and getting exposure was really valuable.” Noah Steinberg-Di Stefano, MA SID’17
39. “I’ve made very good connections through both Heller and UPEACE. You meet such genuinely wonderful people who have a similar mindset of mutual support, from all over the world.” Kyla Graves, COEX/ILHR’19
40. “We’re trained at Heller to not just pursue business opportunities, but to take on the harder challenge, which is always to look at the social impact of business on our team, on our community, on our economy.” Brenna Schneider, MBA’12
Look out for our final post in this series coming soon!
Since our founding in 1959, Heller faculty, students, researchers, staff, and alumni have remained united by a vision of “knowledge advancing social justice” and a commitment to rigorous research and engagement with policymakers, practitioners and recipients of social policies, as well as academics. To celebrate our 60th anniversary, we’ll be sharing sixty messages from students, alumni, faculty, and staff over the next few weeks.
1. “I’ve never experienced the support that the staff gives the students at any other 
higher education institution, and for that, I will always be grateful.” Nicole Rodriguez, MPP’14
2. “We always treat the person as the number-one priority when we’re dealing with any issues, be they academic, personal or professional. And we make sure to link them to the resources they need.” Ravi Lakshmikanthan, Assistant Dean for Academic and Student Services
3. “Heller was where I first understood health policy, its links to global health, and the social justice issues around global health. Heller helped me choose a focus on research to provide rigorous evidence that health policymakers can use to make meaningful decisions.” Adeyemi Okunogbe, MS GHPM’12
4. “My education at Heller, including a deeper understanding of economic, political and sociological theories, coupled with skills in statistics and research methods, has given me a distinct advantage.” Antoinette Hays, PhD’90
5. “Having classmates from all over the world helps you to get rid of some of the biases you have.” Shadi Sheikhsaraf, MA SID/COEX ’17
6. “I was drawn in by Heller’s social justice focus. I didn’t want to have to do a more traditional graduate program and translate that to the work I wanted to do. I wanted to be around people who cared about the same things I cared about.” Maryse Pearce, MBA/MPP’18
7. “My Heller cohort continues to be my extended family and professional network. I frequently reach out to individuals or groups to inquire about specific topics and I’m always amazed by the overwhelming support.” Rodrigo Moran, MA SID’16
8. “The students are enormously dedicated and engaged. I was thinking, during orientation, that it kind of feels like a family, and that’s wonderful, especially when you are dealing with such difficult issues and topics.” Pamina Firchow, Associate Professor
9. “At Heller, social justice is in the DNA.” Michael Levine, PhD’85
10. “Heller not only had the SID program, but also the environmental conservation concentration that I wanted. My coursework at Heller and summer internship are preparing me to address sustainable energy challenges in Africa from a global perspective.” Abdishakur Ahmed, MA SID’20
11. “Our community is passionate about local and global social justice, and we have a strong academic purpose.” Maria Madison, Associate Dean for Equity, Inclusion, and Diversity
12. “Heller sends grads out with the tools to understand data and models, and also with the skills to understand whether a policy is going to help people or hurt people.” Brian Kennedy, MPP’16
13. “I just had a great experience at Heller. The faculty, the students — the community was fantastic.” Susan Windham-Bannister, PhD’77
14. “The most important thing I took away from Heller was the way I approach my work. As someone passionate about social change, I bring a much stronger equity lens to every aspect of my work as a result of my time at Heller. I also feel more confident, more organized, and generally more impactful in my work processes.” Analissa Iversen, MBA/MPP’16
15. “The professors are very approachable, they’re always telling us to come visit them, and they really make themselves available.” Dahiana Loaiza, MS GHPM ’14/MA SID ’21
16. “I’m really, really happy here, with how much I’m learning and seeing everything from other perspectives,” she says. “My professors are convinced there’s a resolution for everything. A lot of us came from war zones, where people just gave up. They show us different ways to do things and what’s possible.” Natalia Hermida-Cepeda, MA COEX’19
17. “Through a combination of academic and real-world experiences during my time at Heller, I became more attuned to the role that government can play in addressing social determinants of health and other upstream factors that can improve population health and reduce inequities.” Fran Hodgins, MBA/MPP’18
18. “I went into Heller to pursue what I was most passionate about and learned things I knew nothing about before, like organizational theory with Jody Hoffer Gittell.” Anne Douglass, PhD’09
19. “Heller helped me to understand the theories behind what I was doing in my work. At Heller, you meet a lot of inspiring people and you learn the way they have done things in their own countries. I now understand the problems in Nigeria, the challenges to young people in America, the struggles around gender identities in India.” Qaisar Roonjha, MA SID’19
20. “I chose to attend Heller to be part of a community of policymakers intent on incorporating social justice into every aspect of their work.” Billierae Engelman, MPP’19
Stay tuned for part 2 and part 3, coming up over the next few weeks!
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