The first day of our Honors College trip started off strong with three visits covering a variety of topics. First was the State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL). Here, we had the opportunity to speak with Meg Oates, Director of the INL’s Office of Knowledge Management, and Keira Gipson, Division Chief of the same office’s Division of Design & Learning. While most of our cohort was relatively unfamiliar with the INL’s work, we were pleasantly surprised to discover the breadth of its scope. Ms. Oates and Ms. Gipson discussed the department’s efforts toward anti-corruption, gender-based violence, narcotics, cybercrime, and more — topics that many of us are exploring in our own research. In our conversation, they also raised some of the considerations involved in their work, such as the balance between activist foreign policy and American overreach or how unrelated work on two separate issues may appear when lumped together in media coverage. Finally, they provided helpful insight into what the day-to-day of a State Department role may look like depending on where within the organization you are working, allowing us to envision future opportunities for our own careers. As life at the State Department is often hard for outsiders to discern, this visit was particularly helpful in revealing the many interlocking structures that exist to support efforts beyond what is shown in the media.

We took that knowledge into our next visit to a non-governmental organization, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). We had the pleasure of meeting with Damon Wilson, the President and CEO, who shared his thoughts on the NED’s strategy and goals and some of the particularly significant activities with which the organization is currently engaging. He spoke of the organization’s emphasis on “leading with humility” — refraining from masking the imperfections of the American system but highlighting the political freedoms American citizens enjoy. In this way, Mr. Wilson explained, NED partners are exposed to a selection of elements of the ‘U.S. model’ from which they can pick and choose within their own country context, instead of feeding the legacy of Cold War interventionalism that has plagued American efforts abroad. He also noted the important distinction between the agility and speed of non-governmental organizations such as the NED and the slower bureaucracy but superior funding of government entities engaging in the same work. The complementary nature of these two groups allowed us to further consider what career choices could be most appealing for our own futures.

~ Sofia Rasso

We finished the first day of Honors College with a trip to the Department of Energy. Chloe Koseff (BA ‘16, MA '17), a Special Assistant in the Office of Science, welcomed us to the building and introduced us to the department's structure and focus. We then heard from Josh Shiode, a Senior Advisor in the Office of Science. He discussed the Office’s emphasis on use-inspired basic science — prioritizing research that could help support the energy transition in the long term.

We also heard from Caroline Grey, the Chief of Staff to the Undersecretary for Infrastructure. She spoke about the Department’s implementation of President Biden’s infrastructure and climate agenda and the challenges and opportunities that arise from this implementation. She highlighted the Department’s Liftoff Reports, which detail how certain technologies — such as offshore wind, long-duration energy storage, and clean hydrogen — can become commercially viable.

Finally, we heard from Derek Gaston, a senior advisor in the Office of Nuclear Energy. He spoke to us about his scientific career, having spent nearly seventeen years working in a National Laboratory, and about his transition to working more directly in the policy space. 

I found the Q&A following the presentations to be particularly interesting. Students asked about modern nuclear reactors and the future of nuclear waste storage, sustainability goals and how close we are to meeting them, and what a career at the DOE looks like in the day-to-day. The speakers were incredibly candid, thoughtful, and optimistic, and the visit was an encouraging way to conclude our first full day in D.C.

~ Josh Orszag