Alumni

Hannah Cavendish-Palmer, MPP 2008

Hannah came to the MPP program in 2006 to develop her background in agricultural development and farmland preservation into a professional policy career. Today she is a Land Use Planner for the British Columbia Ministry of Agriculture, where she began working as a co-op student during the MPP program.

After graduating in 2008, Hannah was hired as the Ministry's first Climate Change Policy Analyst and examined greenhouse gas mitigation and climate change adaptation opportunities for the agriculture industry. After working in this position for several years, she transitioned into the position of Land Use Planner, working with local governments in the Lower Mainland to assist them in developing agriculture-friendly plans and policies.

To further her understanding of farmland and food systems, Hannah started a direct-market vegetable farm in the Fraser Valley called Skeeter Farm, where she farmed part-time for two years while working at the Ministry of Agriculture. Simultaneously, Hannah helped found FarmStart BC, a society that works to support new farmers by connecting them with resources, farmland, and local expertise. She later served as a board member, helping the society build partnerships with established BC farms and aspiring farmers. 

The MPP program has been critical to Hannah's career success. Not only was the MPP co-op term her original foot in the door at the Ministry of Agriculture, her capstone on British Columbia's Agricultural Land Reserve helped prepare her for her role as a Land Use Planner, which requires a thorough understanding of Reserve policies. Today, her knowledge of policy and agriculture helps her balance the interests of farmers and BC residents with environmental and economic objectives.

Julie Clements, MPP 2010

The summer of her graduation from the MPP program, Julie joined the Government of the Northwest Territories (GNWT) as a Senior Health Analyst. Her job is located in the Corporate Planning, Reporting, and Evaluation Division in the Department of Health and deals primarily with analyzing health data, development of program performance measures for evaluation, corporate reporting, and ministerial briefings on departmental statistics.

One notable accomplishment of Julie’s is the tabling of the Health Status Report in the legislature in August 2010. She was the project lead on the report and coordinated submissions and edits from the Chief Public Health Officer, the Territorial Epidemiologist, and the NWT Bureau of Statistics to report on health outcomes of NWT residents.  The report is widely referenced in the department and by the health authorities and can be found at:  http://www.hlthss.gov.nt.ca/english/publications/pubresult.asp?ID=326

Other projects and initiatives Julie has been involved in include:

• An audit of the NWT Medical Travel Program
• Respite Service Evaluation and Day Shelter Evaluation
• Participation in an FPT committee, the Multi-Stakeholder working group on Inuit Graves
• Building on Our Foundation, Health Services Strategic Plan
• Negotiating data sharing agreements with Statistics Canada
• Development of a Chronic Disease Management Model

Julie attributes much of her career success to the skills and experience gained from the MPP program, particularly with respect to problem analysis and the political environment.  She frequently draws on the capstone process which provided experience collecting primary survey data, critical policy analysis, and oral presentation skills.  Looking back, she finds that each MPP course contributes to applicable knowledge in some aspect of her job.  Julie is greatly enjoying her new life in the North and would highly recommend the MPP program to aspiring policy students, and for MPP alumnus to consider opportunities with Northern government.

Aaron Cruikshank, MPP 2006

With a diverse background that includes working in the trades, marketing/communications, public policy, project management and market research, Aaron is an alumni of the Centre for Policy Research on Science and Technology (CPROST) and the School of Public Policy.  Aaron completed the MPP program while working fulltime as a policy and market research consultant where his clients included government, private sector companies, non-profit organizations and universities in BC.

After completing the MPP program, Aaron brought together his experience in Communications, Public Policy and Market Research to grow his reputation as an advisor on science and technology policy, post-secondary education policy and program development, skilled trades training policy and technology commercialization market research. Many of his clients noted that having the MPP degree gave added credibility to his work.

Aaron incorporated his consulting practice in 2009 and grew it to a team of seven people. Due to the economic downturn, the business closed in late 2010 and Aaron eventually transitioned into an executive position with Ipsos Reid in Vancouver where he is an Associate Vice President. His role at Ipsos Reid includes working with clients in a number of sectors that includes government, private sector companies, non-profit organizations and universities in BC.

He is often asked to explain how he has reconciled his threefold path into his current role. Aaron usually replies "good Market Research and Public Policy work follows similar methodologies for identifying the problem that needs to be addressed, doing research, interpreting those results and making recommendations. Communications is what makes me a good storyteller to tie all of the research and analysis together into a compelling package. You only need to look to the HST referendum to see what happens to reasonably thought-out policy when it isn’t communicated properly."

Marrying factual data from research with strategic advice (gained from contextual analysis of the data) was a key skill that Aaron felt he honed in the MPP program – a skill that was key in helping him land his current role at Ipsos Reid.

In addition to his main career, Aaron is a frequent public policy advisor to non-profit organizations such as the Learning Disabilities Association. He is also a sought-after public speaker on creative job seeking, market research and content marketing.

To current MPPers, Aaron offers the following advice: “think outside the box when it comes to your career. There are more opportunities on the horizon for you than being a policy analyst for the Provincial/Federal government. Those jobs are great but they’re not the entire job market.”

Kora DeBeck, MPP 2007

After completing the MPP in 2007, Kora DeBeck applied and was immediately accepted into a Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Studies at UBC, focusing on epidemiology and public policy analysis. Soon after, she was awarded both a Doctoral Research Award from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and a Senior Graduate Trainee Award from the Michel Smith Foundation for Health Research in support of her doctoral research into social disorder, illicit drug policy and HIV prevention among people who inject drugs.  Her research has been the subject of presentations at international conferences and has resulted in the publication of numerous policy-oriented studies in top medical and addictions journals including the Canadian Medical Association Journal, Addiction, Drug and Alcohol Dependence, and the Journal of Community and Epidemiology Health. 

She has also taken a lead role in developing and implementing a unique program of ‘Knowledge Translation’ with the Urban Health Research Initiative at the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS’s. The goal of this program is to make scientific research findings accessible to relevant policy-makers and community groups in support of evidence-based policies in the areas of HIV prevention and illicit drug policy. Kora attributes a major part of the success of this project to the policy skills she learned in the MPP at SFU.  As a measure of its success, this Knowledge Translation program was recently recognized by the National Collaborating Centers for Public Health with the  ‘Knowledge Translation Graduate Student Award’ in June 2010.  All of this in three short years after leaving the MPP program! 

Not letting up in the least, and in keeping with the emphasis in the MPP on working to tight time lines, Kora will complete her Ph.D. this year, and then she is off to post-doctoral studies at the Centre for Public Health and Human Rights at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the world’s foremost centre for such studies.  And she has just been awarded a prestigious three year fellowship from the Canadian Institute for Health Research to support these studies, ranking in the top 10% of all applicants.  Kora credits the MPP at SFU and the skill sets she developed with providing the launching pad for her already very successful research career in policy and public health. In particular she credits the MPP with providing the knowledge and support needed to pursue an advanced academic research path, and she strongly encourages potential applicants with an interest in advanced research to take the MPP at Simon Fraser, particularly if they aspire to make a mark in complex interdisciplinary fields.  “I know of no better way to prepare to make your mark as a successful academic and researcher at the advanced level”, she says.

Michael Gomm,  MPP 2007

After being exposed to several policy areas during the MPP program, Michael began his career working in education policy by spending a year at the Canadian Council on Learning before finding his passion in local government. Beginning in 2008 in the Transportation Division at the Corporation of Delta, Michael quickly rose to his current position of Senior Policy Analyst in the Corporate Planning Department. Regular duties include researching and analyzing emerging issues, liaising with external agencies, and preparing reports for council.

Encompassing the communities of North Delta, Ladner, and Tsawwassen, the Corporation of Delta is a municipality of 100,000 people south of Vancouver. With new issues arising on a daily and even hourly basis, a policy analyst at Municipal Hall is forced to tackle little-known topics and produce analysis on extremely tight deadlines. The focus on practical, real world scenarios in the MPP program is ideal preparation for the fast-paced world of local government.

Michael credits the program with providing a sound background to respond to ever changing duties. Clear, concise writing is required to produce effective reports to council, advanced research skills are necessary for gathering information and evidence for key policy considerations, and an understanding of governance is essential to move important issues through the bureaucracy. The MPP program is an excellent step on the road to a challenging and rewarding career in local government.

Heather Millar, MPP 2010

MPP Alumni Heather Millar is currently pursuing a PhD in Political Science at the University of Toronto.  A  recipient of a 3-year SSHRC Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate  Doctoral Scholarship, Heather is specializing in comparative politics  and public policy.   For her dissertation research, she plans to explore the role of non-state actors in multilevel governance systems, particularly with regard to the provision of social policy in Canada and Europe.  Heather credits the SFU School of Public Policy with fostering her renewed interest in academic research.  Through the course requirements, Heather gained extensive experience in research design and mixed methods, which resulted in a co-op position with Canada Public Research Network, a national social policy think-tank.  

Heather authored a report on youth housing that was published online in 2009, which she used as the basis of her capstone research.  “My capstone provided me with an in-depth understanding of how to manage the myriad of challenges in conducting primary research while nonetheless producing a rigorous study” Heather says.  She also notes that the collegial atmosphere fostered by MPP faculty has prepared her well for presenting her research at academic conferences, as well as teaching public policy to undergraduates. “An SFU MPP degree gives graduates a strong grounding in public policy theories and issues in Canada,  complemented with practical skills and experiences that will benefit  any students interested in pursuing an academic research career.”

Rob O’Brien, MPP 2007

After Rob  graduated from the MPP program, he was one of two applicants selected in 2007 for the Government of British Columbia’s Graduate Development Program (BC’s equivalent to the federal government’s accelerated economist training program). Working as an analyst with Treasury Board Staff in the Ministry of Finance, Rob provided strategic advice to the ministry’s senior executives and Cabinet Ministers on significant financial and policy issues considered by the Province of British Columbia.

Over a two year period, Rob had responsibility for oversight of fiscal matters for the Ministry of Attorney General, Ministry of Public Safety & Solicitor General, and the Ministry of Advanced Education. Being a TBS analyst requires an individual that can identify the fiscal implications of policy problems, examine alternate courses of action, and can summarize complex issues into 3-4 concise points from which a minister can make decisions. The MPP program expertly prepared Rob for this challenge and had him briefing the Minister of Finance within his first month on the job.

Prior to his studies at SFU, Rob worked for a non-profit housing developer in Toronto and completed a university work term in Zimbabwe where he researched land settlement issues in a post-colonial setting. From 2001 to 2003, Rob taught English in rural Japan through a program administered by the Japanese government. In 2009, Rob took a temporary assignment within the BC Government’s Ministry of Trade and Economic Development (now Jobs, Tourism & Innovation) to develop the Province’s contracts for its trade and investment offices in the Asia-Pacific and Europe.

Two weeks before the 2010 Winter Olympics, Rob began work as an international business development manager for the BC Government’s Japan program. His Olympic experience involved coordinating business meetings between business leaders from BC and Japan. Rob currently has oversight of the Province’s trade and investment office in Tokyo, Japan. He works closely with staff from the Consulate of Japan in Vancouver and with BC’s business community as they look to strengthen economic activity with Japan.

Rob credits the experience gained through his co-op work term with the Interior Health Authority in Kelowna, his capstone project on physical activity promotion in Metro Vancouver’s high schools and the structure of the MPP program for preparing him for his career in the BC public service.

Allison Prieur, MPP 2010

Following the completion of the MPP program, Allison returned to her home province of Ontario. She began working for the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care in January 2011. Allison is currently employed as a Policy Assistant in the research unit of the Planning, Research and Analysis Branch, which is in the Health System Strategy and Policy Division.

The research unit funds approximately $54M per year in health system research, primarily to large hospitals and universities. In addition to managing a funding portfolio, Allison is currently the lead on the Ministry's Applied Health Research Questions process. The process provides an avenue for knowledge users and policy makers in the Ontario health system to ask specific research questions of MOHLTC-funded research institutions, generating policy-relevant research and evidence-informed policy. She also organized the 2011 Health Research Showcase, which brought over 200 researchers and policy makers together to share ideas and facilitate knowledge translation.

The MPP program provided Allison with the fundamental skills required to write briefing notes for senior officials, work to tight timelines and prioritize competing demands. It gave her a starting point that is a level above many colleagues who were trained in other disciplines, which has contributed to her continued success in the workplace. Her current position enables her to use the policy analysis, economics and research skills she gained during the MPP program simultaneously. "It's exciting to see how what I learned during the MPP program directly applies to my work in a real-world setting. To subsequently see my work influence policy at the provincial level is also very rewarding."

Marta Taylor, MPP 2007

Marta is a committed public servant, having worked for government at the local, provincial, and federal level both in Canada and overseas. She is an experienced policy analyst, program coordinator, and strategic planner.

Marta was a member of the 2007 MPP cohort and presented her capstone research project on organic waste diversion in Canada. Immediately after graduating in 2009, she started a Local Government Management Internship with the City of Port Moody and City of Port Coquitlam, sponsored by the Local Government Management Association (LGMA). 

One of the first projects Marta worked on was Port Moody's transition to a new solid waste collection system, where she applied the knowledge gained from her capstone research to write bylaws and devise community engagement strategies. Along with City Manager Gaetan Royer, Marta chronicled Port Moody's transition to in-house, automated, diversion-focused waste collection in a conference paper for the Solid Waste Association of North America.

After the one year rotational management program, the City of Port Moody hired Marta as a Manager of Special Projects, where for the next two years she worked on coordinating community consultations, drafting strategic plans, writing bylaws and policies, managing projects, and overseeing economic development programs.

She also took on an increasingly larger role in Port Moody's sustainability initiatives including drafting the Community Sustainability Plan, introducing corporate policies to enhance sustainability, planning for carbon neutrality, and leading the city's corporate sustainability team (Green Team). Under Marta's leadership, Port Moody's Green Team was a finalist for the 2011 BC Hydro Power Smart Leadership Excellence Award. Marta also completed her Masters Certificate in Project Management during this time.

After working for the City of Port Moody for three years, Marta traveled to Zambia with her husband to work for Impact Network, piloting e-schools in rural community schools. Recently returned from this five month adventure, Marta is looking for her next challenge, eager to apply the many skills she has developed through the MPP program and her career in government.

Jenny Tierney, MPP 2007 

Following completion of her MPP degree , Jenny  accepted a position as a Policy Analyst with the First Nations and Inuit Health Branch at Health Canada and later moved to the Strategic Policy Branch.  It was during her time at Health Canada that Jenny was provide the opportunity to undertake a three year interchange assignment with the Government of Nunavut’s Department of Health and Social Services (HSS) as the Intergovernmental Policy Analyst in the Policy, Planning and Evaluation Division.

The move to Iqaluit, Nunavut afforded Jenny the once in a lifetime opportunity to experience life in Canada’s Arctic as well as the opportunity to help shape the Government of Nunavut’s participation at the Federal/Provincial/Territorial health table.

Jenny recently accepted the position of Executive Director with the Isaksimagit Inuusirmi Katujjiqatigit Embrace Life Council, a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to support and encourage Nunavummiut to value life.  This new position is the perfect complement to her research and capstone which focused on Inuit youth suicide in Nunavut. 

The MPP program at SFU provided Jenny with the tools and critical thinking that are required in today’s workplace.  The opportunity to study public policy in Vancouver and to build upon those skills during her career in Nunavut has been an incredible experience.