Michelle Katz

After a few years in the environmental nonprofit field, Michelle Katz (MPA ’20) had hit a ceiling. “I knew that I wanted to stay at the nexus of public health and environmental health with my work, but I really wasn't sure where I could go from there,” she says. Seeking to explore the higher-level government funding initiatives that support nonprofit work, she started looking at public policy and administration graduate programs. “My goal was to gain the skills necessary to help me pivot into other sectors and be more versatile in my next career move.” During her research, the Fels Master of Public Administration (MPA) program stood out.

“I looked for a smaller program that could offer more individualized attention,” she shares. Her ideal degree could be completed in a year so she could return to the workforce quickly yet would still offer flexibility. “I wanted a curriculum that I could tailor to my own interest areas, giving me a foundation in public sector work while still allowing me to specialize in the areas I wanted to pursue.” When she started the program in fall 2019, she quickly realized she could reach her goals at Fels.

“Fels did a great job of providing the foundational coursework in public administration across budgeting, strategic development, planning—all of those big components,” she says, “and within the majority of courses, there were a lot of topical, present-day case studies or projects that were open to specialization. I could take any assignment and pick a topic of interest, which for me was usually food security and food access, to make it more personalized and to build my own subject matter expertise in that space.”

A hesitation to overcome entering the MPA program was her lack of quantitative skills. She was pleased to find some classmates also came from stronger qualitative backgrounds. And the Fels curriculum helped build those weaker skills without overwhelming her. The course Public Finance and Public Policy gave Michelle a firm grasp of financial management and how to put together a scope of work and allocate resources. Statistics for Public Policy strengthened another previously weak area for her. “That class was not the easiest for me,” she admits, “but it helped me build more technical knowledge.” One of the most helpful quantitative classes she took, she says, was Program Evaluation and Data Analysis. “That course really pulled together quantitative and qualitative analysis in an actual stakeholder case study in real time, combining those pieces together to produce a real work product for a client.”

Her education went beyond the classroom, too. “I was a research fellow at ImpactED all year,” she says, a center for social impact at Penn that’s a popular experiential learning opportunity with Fels students. “I worked primarily with the Philadelphia Water Department helping assess customer trust and satisfaction using mixed-methods research,” she continues. “That helped me bridge any additional gaps I had between quantitative and qualitative evaluation because I got to see firsthand how to build focus groups, how to develop materials for in-depth interviews, how to build out a survey and evaluate it, and how to put together an actual research and evaluation plan for a real client.”

She also devoted time to the student group Women of Fels, serving as communications chair, and frequently attended Fels networking events, featuring politicians, advocates, and other experts.

A key part of every student’s Fels education is the social experience. “My cohort was a really tight-knit community,” shares Michelle. “We each brought in different backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives and were able to come together quickly, form connections, and leverage each other's expertise,” she says. “It really made the Fels experience what it was.”

The rest of the Fels community made a difference, too. “I always felt like I had tailored, individualized support,” she says of the program staff, who continue to offer her career mentorship since her 2020 graduation. And the faculty, many of whom are high-level practitioners, provided relevant, real-world scenarios in the classroom that bridged the gap between academics and workforce realities. “Being removed from school for a few years at that point, it was really nice to be able to ground what I was learning about in present-day issues or priorities,” she recalls.

For her capstone project, Michelle combined her new public administration skills with her interest in food security at Philabundance, a nonprofit food bank in the region. She was tasked by the organization to build out a workforce development program designed to minimize long-term barriers to food access. “It really pulled everything together for me, doing all of the research, surveys, and evaluation to deliver something tangible to a client.”

Toward the end of her Fels experience, she also completed an internship with the City of Philadelphia’s Department of Public Health, doing more work with food access and food security initiatives. “That was huge because it definitely helped launch and solidify my actual working experience in the food security space,” she says.

“After I got my degree, I felt like a lot more sectors were open to me outside the nonprofit space because I had such a grounding in all of the different pieces of public policy and public administration,” Michelle reflects. She tried a few sectors—including a job with the government working on vaccine access and education—before deciding on government and public services consulting with Deloitte. In her current role, she works with commercial, government, and nonprofit organizations across different industries while keeping a foothold in food and public health projects.

For now, Michelle hasn’t committed to longer-term career goals, but she has a newfound career confidence and the strong foundation she was looking for to allow her to pivot.  “Fels has made me very nimble at being able to adapt and navigate between different career sectors,” she says. “I’m very much open to wherever the wind takes me next.”