Project summary

This project supports the one-year MA in Public Policy at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy. Harris has awarded me a $45,000 merit scholarship. The remaining gap is for living support and remaining tuition after scholarship.

If this project reaches $40,000, it covers living support for the Harris year. If it reaches $65,000, it covers both living support and the remaining tuition gap.

The Harris MA would give me formal training in policy analysis, economics, regulation, and institutional design for AI governance work. My current work is already in this direction through SPAR research on market-based compute permits, the Successif AI Policy Strategy Fellowship, responsible AI in public health, international AI health regulation, and model safety evaluation work.

Harris would add formal policy training to what I am already doing and help me move into AI governance research roles at organizations like RAND, CSET, GovAI, AI safety organizations, university research centers, and policy research institutions.

What are this project's goals? How will you achieve them?

The goal is to use the Harris MA to develop formal policy and economics training for AI governance research. I have a quantitative background through my MS in Business Analytics and current governance work, but I need deeper training in policy analysis, institutional design, regulation, and public decision-making.

During the program, I would focus coursework and research on compute governance, frontier model evaluations, model access, safety cases, and institutional safeguards for advanced AI systems. I would also pursue research assistantships or policy research opportunities connected to AI governance or technology policy.

The impact comes through the research work I would do after Harris. I want to work on governance mechanisms that reduce catastrophic failures from advanced AI systems. This includes work on compute allocation and monitoring systems, evaluation frameworks for frontier models, institutional oversight structures, and enforcement mechanisms for AI safety standards.

Harris training would strengthen that work by giving me the policy design and institutional analysis tools needed to evaluate and design governance proposals rigorously. Right now, I can do quantitative analysis and follow technical governance debates. The missing piece is stronger formal policy training to design robust institutional mechanisms and evaluate regulatory proposals at the level these organizations expect.

I will consider this successful if I complete the core policy training, build a stronger AI governance research portfolio, pursue at least one research assistantship or policy research opportunity, and become well positioned to contribute to AI governance research teams after the program.

How will this funding be used?

If this project reaches the $40,000 minimum, it will cover living support during the one-year MA in Public Policy at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy.

That amount covers:

• Living support - $40,000

This amount is based on Harris’s published cost-of-attendance estimate for living expenses and fees, adjusted for the expected 2026–27 increase.

If this project reaches the $65,000 funding goal, it will cover both living support and the remaining tuition gap.

That amount covers:

• Living support - $40,000

• Remaining tuition gap - $25,000

Estimated 2026–27 Harris tuition for three full-time quarters is approximately $70,000, based on current tuition and the expected annual increase noted in my offer letter. Harris has awarded me a $45,000 scholarship, leaving $25,000 in remaining tuition.

Below $40,000, the Harris path is not workable.

Who is on your team? What's your track record on similar projects?

This is an individual project. Links: LinkedIn, CV, Harris Scholarship Letter

I have been building toward AI governance through research, fellowships, and applied work. I was selected as a SPAR Research Fellow from approximately 2,500 applicants and am working on market-based compute permits for frontier AI training under the mentorship of Joël N. Christoph (Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School). I am also a Successif AI Policy Strategy Fellow, contributing to research on responsible AI in public health and international AI health regulation, and doing model safety evaluation work through Micro1, Turing, and Handshake AI Solutions.

My research on institutional adaptability during COVID-19 received formal recognition from a Columbia University research panel for sound statistical analysis, clear hypothesis validation, and impactful insights on education governance and resilience. That project examined how pre-pandemic administrative capacity and digital infrastructure shaped school districts' remote-learning performance. I am co-authoring a manuscript on responsible AI use in public health, currently under editorial review.

I completed my MS in Business Analytics at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign with a 4.0 GPA and was inducted into Phi Kappa Phi and Beta Gamma Sigma. My technical training includes econometrics, causal inference, machine learning, and policy analysis methods.

Before my master's, I spent approximately four years as a business analyst and project manager at CAE and Sabre working on airline crew management systems for international carriers. I led requirement elicitation workshops with clients onsite in the UK and Spain, managed stakeholder alignment across sales, engineering, and product teams, and delivered safety-critical systems under tight compliance deadlines. I received multiple Bravo Excellence Awards for project delivery and client engagement.

At the University of Illinois, I led a five-person team for the US Pharmacopeia practicum project, building an NLP-driven metadata processing pipeline and deploying a scalable API-based system. At Resilience Inc., I led cross-functional marketing operations across a 30+ person department, directly managed the Google Ads Analytics team, and secured full reactivation of a suspended Google Ad Grants account within two business days of appeal by coordinating compliance efforts across multiple teams.

This track record shows I can execute complex projects, work across technical and policy domains, manage teams, and deliver under pressure. Harris would add formal policy training to this foundation and help me move into AI governance research roles at organizations like RAND, CSET, GovAI, and other AI safety or policy research institutions.

What are the most likely causes and outcomes if this project fails?

If funding does not reach $40,000 by May 8, I would have to decline the Harris offer. The current scholarship package would be lost, and Harris has already indicated that deferral while retaining the scholarship is not available.

If funding reaches $40,000 but not $65,000, the project will cover living support, but I would still need to secure the remaining tuition gap separately.

If funding reaches $65,000, the Harris path becomes feasible across both cost categories.

If funding does not reach a workable threshold in time, graduate policy training does not happen this cycle. That would mean losing a time-sensitive opportunity to move from fellowship-based AI governance work into formal policy training, and it would delay the transition into the research career this project is intended to support.

How much money have you raised in the last 12 months, and from where?

Current committed funding:

• $45,000 merit scholarship from UChicago Harris

Pending applications:

• Coefficient Giving CDTF: $25,000 for tuition (submitted April 2026)

• EA LTFF: $45,000 for living support (submitted April 2026)

• TC Young Scholarship: pending decision through Harris for tuition

No other committed external funding is in place for the remaining Harris costs.