Position: Policy Advisor to Manhattan Borough President

Field: Politics & Policy

Thesis Title: “Selling Sunsets and Oranges: South California Boosters and the True Meaning of the California Dream, 1875-1920”

Graduated: 2006

After graduating from Harvard Law School in 2009, I moved to New York City to join the New York chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. In 2011, I left ACLU to join the office of Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer as a Policy Advisor and later became the Deputy Policy Advisor to Comptroller Stringer upon his election to that office in 2013. Today, I work in Public Policy for Airbnb, using my legal and policy/political background to work with cities and towns to foster responsible home sharing. 

 The most obvious manifestation of my history background is in the historical vignettes that I sprinkle throughout amicus briefs and stump speeches. However, on a more fundamental level, my study of history—and the individuals, institutions, and communities that embody it—has given me critical insight into how the nation’s greatest City came to be and what the role of government can and should be in ensuring its continued prosperity.

From Michael McCormick, Sven Beckert and Lizabeth Cohen’s masterful work about the growth of economies in the modern world, to Stephen Thernstrom and Jim Kloppenberg’s essential lessons about the importance of immigration and the power of ideas in American life, the Harvard History Department continues to affect every aspect of my life—both personal and professional. I am deeply honored to have had the opportunity to be a part of it and I am proud to call myself an alumnus of Robinson Hall .