Research Assistants

Christopher Tyler Burks is a Founders’ Fellow for the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA) and a doctoral researcher of public administration and policy at American University’s School of Public Affairs. His research area is urban political economy with topical examinations of how metropolitan governance, urban planning, and city management set the market conditions for economic development or decline. Chris holds a Master of Public Administration from the University of Alabama at Birmingham where he founded Urban Analysis, a consulting firm for changemaking through policy, planning, and politics.

Arielle Levin is a Master of Public Policy candidate at American University. Her research interests include wealth and income inequality, federal welfare policy, poverty alleviation, and reproductive justice. Arielle holds a Bachelor of Science from the University of California, Berkeley, where she majored in Society and Environment. She is dedicated to the research, creation, and implementation of equitable and sustainable social policy.

Katharine Silva is in her second year of the Masters in Public Administration program, as well as her second year with MPC. She returns this year after a summer at the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University where she was in charge of developing and piloting qualitative tools for the Poverty Tracker, a large-scale, multi-year research project on poverty and financial wellbeing in New York City. Katharine is passionate about tackling urban economic and social inequality. She holds a Bachelor's degree from Simmons College in Arts Administration and Music History.

Social Media Coordinator

Anh Ta is currently a second year Master student at SIS pursuing the Global Media program. Prior to joining MPC, she was a communications fellow at a Myanmar educational non-profit and a research intern at Promundo-US. She is passionate about storytelling and gender justice. Anh holds a BA in International Relations from Lawrence University of Wisconsin.