The Josef Korbel School of Global and Public Affairs is excited to welcome Dr. Meredith DeBoom as a new assistant professor this year. She brings years of expertise in international environmental politics, global energy access, and the geopolitics of climate change. 

When DeBoom talks about what drives her, she locates the origins in her very first job: pulling weeds on her family's Iowa farm for a penny a piece.

"Commodity price fluctuations defined my childhood. Like many resource-rich places, my hometown bore heavy costs from resource extraction yet was poor in economic opportunities. And that sparked a question: how can the benefits and costs of resource wealth be distributed in a more equitable and just way?" she said.

That question, first sharpened when she wrote a policy proposal for the Truman Scholarship in college, has shaped every stage of her career, and it's part of what she brings to Korbel as a new faculty member this year.

DeBoom's path to international environmental politics wasn't linear. A first-generation college student at the University of Iowa, she arrived thinking she was headed toward law school or a career in government. That changed when she saw a flyer for nonpartisan research work with the Iowa legislature. The job opened her eyes to a different kind of political engagement: interviews, surveys, and comparative policy analysis as tools for understanding how people think about the issues affecting them. Because Iowa's citizen legislature often received information filtered mainly through political parties, DeBoom's research helped fill a real gap, while comparisons with other states offered a window into policy best practices. It was her first taste of combining research, teaching, and direct engagement with policymakers, a perspective she would take with her while studying abroad in Moscow and South Africa.

From there, DeBoom interned at the EPA, where she learned about the intersection of climate change and economic development. After graduating, she moved to Washington, DC to work on environmental policy at the Department of Transportation. She loved the work but missed the chance to shape original research and talk directly with the people affected by policy decisions. That pull back toward fieldwork led her to campaign work, spending more time with the Iowa legislature, and a full summer stationed at the U.S. Embassy in Namibia, experiences that ultimately pushed her toward a master’s and PhD in Geography at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Her first faculty position took her to the geography department at the University of South Carolina, where she spent seven years. She describes geography as a discipline not unlike history: it’s broad enough to examine almost anything, but with a focus on dynamics across place rather than time.

What eventually brought her to the University of Denver was Korbel's approach to bridging research and policy work in an interdisciplinary environment.

"The spirit here is not just to study problems, but to actually play a part in solutions," she said.

She's also been struck by the students: their curiosity, their range of knowledge, and their willingness to ask hard questions and be challenged in return.

This academic year, DeBoom is teaching two courses. During the Winter Quarter, she’s offering Environmental Geopolitics, a course that examines how environmental issues intersect with conflict, nationalism, sovereignty, and the distribution question at the heart of so much policy debate: who has the right to benefit from a given resource? During the Spring Quarter, she'll teach Environment, Economy, and Development, a course in the broader Global Environmental Sustainability program.

Outside of teaching, DeBoom focuses her research on global energy politics, using Namibia as a case study of the tensions many governments face between economic necessity and sustainable development. Namibia has attracted massive EU-backed investment in green hydrogen, nearly equivalent to the country's GDP, even as offshore oil discoveries complicate the picture. DeBoom sees the country's resulting "hedging strategy" as illustrative of a much larger climate justice issue: historically extractive nations, she argues, bear responsibility for funding diversification and development in places like Namibia that can't simply trust that external green investments will materialize.

For DeBoom, climate change is both a global crisis and an intensely local one, and she doesn't see a shortage of ways in. That range, from grounded fieldwork to global policy debates, is exactly what she hopes to pass on to students at Korbel. We can't wait to see how her work and mentorship shape the next generation of researchers and policymakers.

Please join us in welcoming Assistant Professor Meredith DeBoom to Korbel!

Water touches nearly every part of daily life, from agriculture and housing to public health and, increasingly, national security. That interconnectedness is what drew two Josef Korbel School of Global and Public Affairs alumni to careers in water policy.

Michael Thomas (Master of Public Policy '11), Senior Water Efficiency Planner at Northern Water, helps municipalities across Northern Colorado use water more efficiently. Kimberly Lemme (MA International Economic Development '04) has spent more than two decades expanding access to water and sanitation, first internationally and now across the United States.

Their paths to water policy began in very different places, but both say the interdisciplinary education they received at Korbel prepared them for a field where progress depends as much on relationships and governance as on technical solutions.

Different Paths, Shared Foundation

Michael grew up in Colorado Springs and experienced the impacts of the 2002 drought firsthand. After studying global freshwater conflict as an undergraduate in Switzerland, he came to Korbel to understand those challenges closer to home.

"All of the work that I do is in pursuit of saving water. Since we pull from the West Slope, we have a responsibility to use our water as efficiently as possible," he said.

After spending six months at a hospital in Kenya during the height of the HIV crisis, Kimberly arrived at Korbel expecting to pursue global health. Instead, she gravitated toward global finance and economic development, work that led her to 15 years at Water For People, expanding water and sanitation access worldwide, and more recently to DigDeep, focused on water access along the Texas-Mexico border, on tribal lands, and in Appalachia.

Michael found a similar cross-disciplinary pull in Korbel's small class sizes, where students focused on water still had to reckon with healthcare policy, budgeting, and national security debates happening around them. Kimberly experienced the same mix from the other side, sitting alongside classmates headed into intelligence work and global health.

"Here we are in 2026, and we have municipal water systems being targeted by foreign governments. It's all interconnected," she said.

Water Is a Governance Challenge, Too

Their interdisciplinary lenses now shape both alumni's work and pertain to the broader issue of water access and conservation in Colorado today.

At Northern Water, Michael is working to develop a regional rebate portal for water-efficient devices and supports water-loss auditing, helping utilities find leakage in aging infrastructure before investing in repairs. In Colorado, cities set their own rules for things like lawn-watering restrictions and conservation programs, which makes regional collaboration essential.

"Colorado is the only state where all the water moves out. We are the headwaters for seven different basins," Michael said. "So we have to collaborate. We have to work together to make sure the state has a stable water future."

Michael also helps coordinate that collaboration directly. Through the Colorado Drought Coordination Group, he meets regularly with water resource managers and conservation staff from across the state to compare notes on what messaging and restrictions are working and where they aren't. Because of how our water system (the Colorado-Big Thompson Project) operates, Northern Colorado's water providers have had more options and faced fewer restrictions than the West Slope, a gap Michael says he's mindful of as drought conditions persist.

In his experience, progress rarely comes from certainty. "It's in discussions and in disagreements that better policy comes about," he said.

Kimberly has seen a similar governance dynamic from a different angle. Millions of Americans still lack reliable access to clean water and sanitation at home, and she's found that the barriers are strikingly consistent across the communities she's worked with: political will, historic underinvestment, and entrenched inequity. In the U.S., she says, the strongest predictor of whether a household has water access is race, closely followed by income, a pattern she traces back to redlining and to tribal lands where infrastructure investment stalled once utilities hit "good enough" coverage.

"Good infrastructure only works when it's backed by political will, sound governance, and financial support," she said.
These governance challenges extend to the Colorado River itself, where negotiations over how the state's namesake river is shared among Western states remain unresolved. The stakes feel more urgent this year amid one of the driest summers on record.

"We all have very quick memories. We get a few days of rain here in Denver, and we forget," Kimberly said.
Still, she sees progress in who's now at the table: unlike in 1922, when the original interstate agreement was signed, tribal nations have some representation, and that feels like progress to her.

Reasons for Optimism

Despite the scale of the challenges, both alumni point to real progress and the idea that solving these complex problems requires smarter choices, not sacrifice.

Michael has watched Colorado grow more comfortable adopting the kind of water-efficiency codes that states like Oregon and California put in place a decade ago. The results are showing up in the numbers: average indoor residential water use across his region has held roughly flat even as the population has grown by hundreds of thousands of people. He's also seen a shift toward native, low-water landscaping, something Northern Water demonstrates on its own campus.

"We don't have to sacrifice our way of life to use water efficiently," he said. "It does require some choices, but it doesn't have to be dire."

Kimberly's current work has taken her from Colorado to Hawaii, where she's consulting on wastewater and cesspool issues that mirror what she's seen everywhere from Malawi to the Navajo Nation to Cape Cod: the systems people rely on most are the ones they notice least, until they fail. Now she focuses on helping organizations tell that story clearly enough to move funders and policymakers to act.

A Shared Outlook for an Uncertain Future

Michael and Kimberly entered Korbel from different places and have taken very different paths through the water sector. What connects their stories isn't a particular job or specialization, but how they approach complex problems: moving between disciplines, weighing competing priorities, and building relationships across communities and institutions.

In the wake of complexity, trust in relationships over quick fixes drives Michael and Kimberly’s ability to navigate a water landscape shaped by scarcity, aging infrastructure, and increasingly complex questions of governance and security. As Colorado and the broader West confront an uncertain water future, connecting the dots and bringing people together is proving to be one of the most important tools of all.

CO Policy Talks is an ongoing series spotlighting Korbel alumni working across the policy landscape. Stay tuned for more conversations.

A Master of Public Policy (MPP) from the Josef Korbel School of Global and Public Affairs prepares students to navigate complex policy challenges in communities both around the world and close to home. The program is designed to help students develop the analytical, research, and leadership skills needed to understand how government works, evaluate policy solutions, and turn ideas into action.

That foundation has led two MPP graduates to local politics. Now running for elected office in their respective communities here in Denver, they're drawing on lessons learned in the classroom and throughout their careers to tackle the issues near and dear to them. Though their paths to public service have been different, both see local government as a place where thoughtful policymaking can have an immediate impact on people's daily lives.

Matt Walter, MPP 2021

Matt first came to the University of Denver in 2016 as an undergraduate student interested in international studies and political science. It was also an election year, and the outcomes prompted Matt to consider how he could fix the issues our own country seemed to be facing.

“I had never really heard of the word policy before. I had just thought of laws and how cool it would be to write them. But I thought you had to have a law degree to do that. Turns out you don't,” Matt said.

Through his time in the classroom and participating in a student-run, nonpartisan public policy organization, Matt began to learn that in contrast to political science, which involved a lot of theory, public policy felt more vocational and detail-oriented which was more fun and appealing, so he opted into the 4+1 program to receive both an undergraduate and master’s degree in public policy.

After graduating in 2021, Matt was hired as a driver for a congresswoman in Washington, DC, but as the only driver with a master’s degree, he was quickly promoted to legislative assistant, where he was tasked with researching topics like agriculture, space, science, and technology.

However, after a few years working on Capitol Hill, Matt felt called to return to the community aspect of politics, so he moved back to Denver to work as a Senior Advisor for Councilwoman Amanda Sawyer. It was this work that inspired his current run for city council in District 6.

“Local government is less about grant-making and injecting funding into programs and more about providing equitable, high-quality service in a way that takes your city and its constituents’ values into account,” Matt said.

Matt continues to draw on the skills and perspective he developed at Korbel while on the campaign trail. Looking back, he encourages students interested in public service to start early: attend public meetings, connect with alumni and professionals, and take the initiative to learn how government works beyond the classroom. For Matt, meaningful careers in public policy aren't built by waiting for opportunities: they're built by showing up, staying curious, and investing in the communities you hope to serve.

Emily Parker, MPP 2013

Emily is a Colorado native who learned the importance of civic engagement at a young age. Growing up, receiving mail-in ballots was like a holiday in her family. They would all gather at the kitchen table and debate every issue on every ballot anytime there were elections, well before she was an active voter. But it wasn’t until she became older that she discovered that there was an entire career centered around what had long been a hobby and passion for her and her family.

As a Boettcher scholar, and through the 4+1 program, Emily was able to pursue undergraduate and graduate degrees in public policy and political science from DU. Her early career highlights include interning with the Brookings Institution in DC, Channel 9 News as a fact-checker for 2012 campaign ads, and the Colorado Department of Higher Education. She loved her time in DC so much, she moved there after graduation to continue working full-time for the Brookings Institution.

“It was the best job I've ever had. As a 23-year-old, I was surrounded by really smart people. I would see Supreme Court justices in the lobby or go off to hear senators and representatives from other countries speak. It was an incredible opportunity,” she said.

Emily moved back to Colorado a few years later, where she went from working for the Education Commission of the States to her current position as a Senior Budget, Planning, and Policy Analyst at the University of Colorado.

“I’m a budget person at my core. A budget is like a moral document. It informs priorities and sets the agenda,” she said.

Through her education at Korbel, passion for party politics, and 15 years of experience and expertise in fiscal, monetary, and budgetary policy, Emily became inspired to challenge an incumbent for a seat on the city council for District 7.

“I love being out in the community and seeing what their needs are and channeling that into change. My goal is to differentiate myself from the status quo. And I think that's what people want, someone who’s different and can lead the community towards a more livable Denver,” she said.

While their paths have taken different directions, both Matt and Emily demonstrate how a Korbel education can serve as a launchpad for a meaningful career in public service. Their stories are a reminder that a career in public policy starts with showing up, building relationships, and trusting in your ability to create meaningful change.

This reflection was written by Leticia (Lety) Madrigal-Tapia (MA International Human Rights, ’27)

This summer, I had the privilege of serving as a human and civil rights intern with the Katutu Center for Civil Rights. The Katutu Center, directed by Farida B. Nabourema, partnered with the Inclusive Global Leadership Initiative (IGLI) to co-host this year's East Africa Summer Institute. During my internship, I served on the institute's steering committee, supporting logistical preparations for the convening and attending the program's seventh iteration in Nairobi, Kenya.

The Nairobi convening brought together 26 feminist activists, organizers, and scholars from Kenya, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Uganda, Sudan, South Sudan, Togo, Madagascar, and the United States. These participants lead social movements in diverse fields, including environmental sustainability, pro-democracy initiatives, gender-based violence prevention, and human rights advocacy. Throughout the institute, we examined social movement strategies, feminist approaches to movement care, and the concept of rigorous hope, reaffirming our collective vision for a better future. The environment fostered radical hope and joy, which felt especially vital amid rising authoritarianism and backlash against social movements worldwide.

One of the most constructive moments for me during the institute was during Farida’s workshop session on resisting authoritarianism. As a prominent pro-democracy activist in Togo and accomplished writer, she led a session on resisting authoritarian governments in the context of new technologies. During the workshop, she shared a passage from her diary, written at the height of her on-the-ground activism. Her words conveyed a feeling I had felt time and again: a profound sense of uncertainty and hopelessness in a world that is ever-changing and growing more complex by the day. However, within that sentiment of loss, grief, and desperation, she incorporated what feels even more important: “Hope is not evidence that change is coming. Hope is the work of making change inevitable.” This depiction of the work profoundly informs my own commitments to protecting human rights at both national and international levels. It shows how to hold dual truths at the same time. One truth being that we are living in a period marked by rapid environmental decline, escalating armed conflict, and persistent threats to democracy, all of which cost human lives and strip many of their rights and futures. At the same time, we are surrounded by activists who deeply understand the urgent problems at hand and continue to show up daily in their struggles, showing remarkable courage while working under extremely oppressive and dangerous circumstances. It emphasized how crucial it truly is to maintain a clear, unwavering vision for a more just world even in the face of such realities.

As a graduate student dedicated to creating such a world and transforming systems of power through my education, advocacy, and future professional roles, I believe that we must all play an active role and take responsibility for confronting injustices. Connecting my academic work, the projects I am part of that aim to understand and/or address key social issues, and my time at IGLI has helped me develop a more robust skill set. Reflecting on IGLI, I deeply value being in solidarity with women who lead with rigorous hope, compassion, and care, which has given me renewed clarity in my own advocacy work. Rigorous hope, to me, is essential to any of my ongoing efforts to create a world where safety, security, and human rights are fully realized.

As part of my degree curriculum, I completed several of Professor Berry’s courses, including Foundations of Global Justice and Gender Security and Human Rights. These courses fundamentally shaped my academic perspective and prepared me for participation in the institute. They gave me a critical, holistic understanding of how gender shapes our collective understanding of security and how to comprehensively address it within our struggle for global human rights. It also highlighted how imperative it is to address systems that disregard global justice if we aim to live in a more just and secure world. At the end of both classes, Professor Berry left us with the task of thinking rigorously and creatively about the world we envision and the actions and systems it would take to get there. That same teaching was evident within the institute in how participants addressed direct violations of human rights within their own countries and communities. This experience not only affirmed my commitment to advocacy but also equipped me with strategies and perspectives I will carry into my future career.

Beyond the meaningful lessons and knowledge I gained, strengthening my relationship with Professor Berry was especially impactful. The opportunity to engage personally with such an influential, insightful, and deeply passionate professor was invaluable, both personally and professionally. Professor Berry's mentorship is among the most important aspects of my experience, both in Nairobi and throughout my time at Korbel. She has shared her knowledge, insights, and a network of professionals in international human rights. Additionally, through this connection, I was also awarded the role of graduate research assistant for IGLI, where I will help gather stories of rigorous hope from the institute's participants for a series of books featuring narratives from women across the globe.

I am deeply grateful to the Katutu Center for Civil Rights, Farida B. Nabourema, Korbel Career Services, and the funding sources that made this transformational experience possible. I am also thankful to Professor Marie, Carly Paul, and Julia Zulver for their ongoing support and mentorship.

This reflection was written by recent Korbel graduate, Adam Dettmer (MA International Development, 2026)

Standing at the top of a massive bowl filled with cement buildings, it didn’t feel like we were looking at thousands of houses in the favela (an informal, densely populated neighborhood built on the outskirts of a city in Brazil). The beautiful and lively community was exciting to see, even with armed gang members keeping watch over the area nearby. To them, Rocinha wasn't a place to explore but a community to guard from rivals. Dr. Singumbe Muyeba and I had just met with Rocinha’s Residents’ Association to confirm our research project for the following week and were exploring more of Rocinha to understand the process our data collectors would face.

When I came to the Josef Korbel School of Global and Public Affairs in 2024, I expected a solid educational experience at a top international relations school before I kick-started a life in international development. Then, following the 2024 election, the development landscape was uprooted. Despite the purging of USAID, I found my development courses interesting, the professors engaging, and I was hopeful the development field would be revived in the next few years. In preparation for an uprooted development space, I increased the scope of my coursework by not just taking courses concentrated on financial development and economic development, but also on the humanitarian network, econometrics, and environmental tipping points.

I first met Dr. Muyeba in his Sustainable Development of Sub-Saharan Africa course in the 2025 winter quarter. My first impression of him was that he was a likeable and friendly teacher, mostly because many of my classmates had taken the travel course to Kenya with him a few weeks earlier. After a few weeks, it became clear to me that he was a development and research genius, so naturally, I became jealous of my peers who had already formed relationships with him from the travel course. Eventually, I joined an indoor soccer league with him and his friends. One night, he told me about the research he was beginning, and it sounded very interesting to me, so when he posted that he was looking for a research assistant, I applied and got it. Now I like to think of Dr. Muyeba as a mentor, boss, and friend.

In summer 2025, my first task with this project was to use AI to list all the informal settlements globally with their geolocations. Since the list was created in April 2026, we began confirming these settlements by viewing the geolocations using satellites and defining the boundaries. Once we knew where the boundaries of these settlements were, we could calculate the number of houses and multiply this by the average household size for these areas to find the total population. However, since buildings in informal settlements rarely make it clear how many houses there are, we designed a step to check our results and produce a conversion factor for our satellite results and ground truth count.

For this step, we went to Kibera in Nairobi, Kenya for 6 days during the spring quarter and trained 20 data collectors to count the number of households in the settlement. Then, before returning to Denver, we went to Azerbaijan for five days to attend the World Urban Forum 13. Here, we made connections with researchers doing work in informal settlements and community officials who would be interested in collaborating to conduct household censuses in their communities to better refine the data we are gathering using satellites. Eventually, Dr. Muyeba wants to create an open-source dashboard, publish numerous academic papers and a book displaying the findings of this project to those responsible for future global development goals and anyone who would like to use the knowledge responsibly.

After graduation, Dr. Muyeba asked me to accompany him to Brazil so we could do similar research in Rocinha. We decided, since neither of us had done research in South America, that we would need more time to guarantee the success of our study, so we stayed in Rio de Janeiro for 6 weeks. In Brazil, we visited Rocinha multiple times, met people at the Federal University of Fluminense, and had time to explore the city. I am very grateful to Korbel and Dr. Muyeba for this opportunity to work, travel, and learn in many countries during and shortly after my master’s program.

Korbel has provided me with many opportunities to gather theoretical, quantitative and qualitative research, leadership, and organizational skills through coursework, internships, student employment, international travel, and extracurricular activities. While I didn't take advantage of many networking trips or travel courses during my time, I was lucky to travel as a research assistant to Kenya, Brazil, and Azerbaijan for work, and Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and Panama for long exploratory layovers. As I leave Korbel, I trust the connections I made, the knowledge I gained, and the experiences I’ve had will continue to guide me on my professional journey.

Alumnus Clayton King (Master of Public Policy, 2022) has approached his career in public policy with curiosity and intention. While both embracing new challenges and remaining steadfast in seeking opportunities to make an impact, Clayton has devoted his time to strengthening democratic institutions and closing the gap in civic participation. His commitment to a brighter future brought him to Washington, DC where he went from facing the budget cuts at USAID to becoming the founder of the Alliance for Competitive Elections, a nonprofit focused on building a multiparty democracy in the United States.

We sat down with Clayton to talk more in-depth about his experiences at Korbel, the lessons that have shaped his approach to policy and leadership, and his vision for the future of democracy.

What drew you to public policy and international affairs?

I've always been focused on the idea that politics is a way that you can change the world. I was registering voters in my hometown of Fort Collins, Colorado before ever casting a ballot myself. But after my undergrad at CSU, I realized I hadn't really explored the world yet. "I wanted to see what makes us all human regardless of where we are in the world." So, I joined the Peace Corps and spent two years in the Republic of Moldova.

I worked in a library and in the mayor's office, and it was really my first time abroad for more than a week. I just dove in. I knew it was the only chance for me. If I didn't do it then, it would never happen. It kind of changed my life. I made some friends who are family to me now, and I got a lot of really good experience.

How did you decide to come to Korbel?

COVID hit pretty quickly after I returned from the Peace Corps, so I decided it would be a good time to continue my studies. I was deciding between the University of Denver and Duke. Then I saw that Fritz Mayer was going to become Dean of Korbel after previously leading public policy at Duke. That helped make the decision for me.

Coming to Korbel also meant I could stay near home during the pandemic while working in Colorado politics to start bridging my international experience with my domestic experience. It was a really good combination of things for me. During my time at Korbel, I kept hearing, “Think global and act local.” I think I acted global more before I started bringing that back.

How did your experiences at Korbel shape the work you do today?

A big part of my time at Korbel was spent surrounded by other students who came from experienced backgrounds and were expected to do big things. Despite being in graduate school during COVID, the connections with other students were incredibly valuable. Being in a cohort with other Peace Corps volunteers and people experiencing that same period helped build that out even more.

This was also a community that I could fall back on later. You don't necessarily think about those connections as much when you're a student, but they become really important afterward. I've actually had more interaction with people in the career department, like Jamie Polliard and Rae Ann Bories-Easley, since I graduated than I did when I was a student. Those kinds of resources are really helpful when you're trying to figure out what the next steps are.

How did your Korbel coursework connect to your work in democracy promotion?

During my MPP, I became particularly interested in the relationship between democracy promotion abroad and the tools we could potentially use here in the United States. My capstone focused on U.S. democracy promotion abroad and what kinds of tools we have available to help other countries develop their democracies and improve their institutions. I looked at potential tools that could also be used domestically, tools we have the capacity to use but aren't necessarily using right now.

I also interned with the National Endowment for Democracy during my semester in Washington, D.C. That was a great experience because I got to learn more about what we do abroad and meet with people working across different country teams. It really helped drive my interest in democracy promotion and ultimately influenced my capstone.

There was an intentional gap in that work: organizations focused on democracy promotion abroad aren't designed to directly engage in U.S. politics. I started thinking about what resources and experience could potentially be brought back to domestic organizations. I didn't necessarily think at the time about the human-capital side of it—that people go work for these organizations, develop that experience, and then eventually bring it home. But that's part of the cycle I'm now part of.

What led you from international democracy promotion to founding the Alliance for Competitive Elections?

After Korbel, I worked for the International Republican Institute, doing political party development and election observation work in Eastern Europe, including Moldova, where I had served in the Peace Corps.

That job was the right job at the right time. I always knew that at some point I would leave, but I knew it wouldn't necessarily be my decision. Something would have to trigger it. When USAID cuts disrupted so much of the international development space, that became the moment for me to turn back domestically and apply everything I had learned through my MPP and my international work to building democracy here.

I was sitting in the office during the closeout process, reading The Two-Party Doom Loop by Lee Drutman under my desk and thinking about how we could develop a multiparty democracy in the United States. What tools do we already have? How do we build a system that gives people more choices? That's where ACE came in.

What is the Alliance for Competitive Elections (ACE), and what gap are you trying to address?

ACE is a nonprofit focused on building a multiparty democracy in the United States by strengthening political parties and helping develop the institutional capacity needed for a more competitive system. At the end of the day, we want to give people more choice and agency by creating more opportunities for parties and ideas to compete.

There’s a lot of work happening in electoral reform, but I think there’s a gap in how we approach it. If you implement something like ranked-choice voting or proportional representation, the existing power brokers are going to adapt to that new structure. We flip that question around and ask: Who has the most at risk? Who is most likely to benefit from these changes?

That’s where some of my Korbel learning comes in, particularly the idea of having “skin in the game.” Minor parties and independent movements have the most to gain from electoral reform because, without those reforms, they may not have a meaningful opportunity to participate or compete.

From our perspective, one of the best ways to advance electoral reform is to build the parties that will ultimately participate in those new systems. We're intentionally piloting a lot of our programming in Colorado because it's such a great policy laboratory. The United States is a great experiment, and states like Colorado can be front-runners for policy innovation and institutional change. Colorado also has places like Korbel that are willing to question the status quo and people who are willing to be uncomfortable.

How has your career prepared you to navigate a shifting job market?

When you think about your life and different periods in your life, they can feel fragmented. But if you look back, you often find connections in places and times you didn't expect. Having a graduate degree and those connections and that community to fall back on has been really helpful. I think it's important to take time to reflect on where you've been and where opportunities might exist to reconnect with those experiences. You can't necessarily predict what the next disruption is going to be. We're living through wars, famine, COVID and who knows what else. At this point, unprecedented times are almost expected. You need to be ready to be resilient.

There have been a lot of people from USAID who were cut, and Colorado is one of the largest states for people affected by those cuts. Korbel has been interacting with the Posner Center and the Tuesday Group, which has been a great resource for me. Through Korbel, I've been able to reconnect with people and meet people I had never met before who have similar backgrounds.

What advice would you give to Korbel students entering an uncertain world?

I think sometimes we look at our lives and think that each experience has to directly lead to the next one. But it doesn't always work that way. You don't know which connections are going to become important later. You don't know which experience is going to give you a skill that you eventually need.

My own career is a pretty good example. I couldn't have necessarily predicted that my experience in Moldova would eventually lead me to working on democracy in the United States. You have to be willing to be uncomfortable, too. Things are uncomfortable all the time, and you have to be ready to be uncomfortable if you're going to make change. If you're only willing to work within what's comfortable or what's already been done, it's much harder to create something new. You have to be the change that you see in the world. You have to create that vision now so that in 20 years you can live in the world that you want to see.

After nearly 40 years at the Korbel School, Professor Frank Laird is retiring, closing a chapter defined by intellectual curiosity, institutional growth, and a deep commitment to students and scholarship. 

Professor Laird’s path to Denver was anything but linear. Raised in a small industrial town in Ohio, he began his academic journey studying physics at Middlebury College before continuing to graduate work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Along the way, a formative year in Edinburgh and early research in astrophysics gave way to a broader set of questions about technology, society, and policy. That shift would define his career. 

“I was trying to understand how big systems change,” Professor Laird reflected. “Technology was always the through line.”  

That curiosity led him to political science and, eventually, to Korbel in 1987, where he would shape generations of students and scholars. At the time, the school was a fraction of its current size. Professor Laird recalls being one of roughly a dozen faculty members; today, that number has quadrupled. With that growth came not just scale but transformation. 

“Both the undergrad and master’s programs have grown so much,” he noted. The Korbel School now reflects a faster-paced, professionally oriented environment, one where students arrive with ambition and depart quickly to make their mark in the world. 

Throughout his tenure, Professor Laird’s early research interests on environmental policy and risk assessment evolved into historically grounded analyses of energy systems and public policy. Influenced in part by Deborah Stone’s Policy Paradox, Professor Laird developed a perspective that blended theory, history, and practice, an approach that resonated with students navigating complex global challenges. 

Beyond his own scholarship, Professor Laird played a key role in building academic communities. He was a co-founder of a section within the American Political Science Association focused on science, technology, and environmental politics, helping to connect and mentor emerging scholars across the field. 

In the classroom, Professor Laird found one of the most rewarding aspects of his career. “I remember one particular policy class,” he said. “We didn’t even get through a quarter of my notes. We got these discussions going, and we just roared ahead. The students were engaged, and they said interesting things. It was one of those moments where I thought, ‘Wow, this teaching stuff is really fun.’” 

Professor Laird also served in leadership roles, including multiple terms as associate dean. Those experiences, while challenging, offered a valuable perspective. “I learned my strengths and weaknesses,” he reflected, emphasizing how administrative work deepened his appreciation for the complexity of running an academic institution.  

As he prepares to retire, Professor Laird remains intellectually engaged. He is already working on a book manuscript on renewable energy policy and looks forward to exploring new writing projects. He envisions spending time in a local coffee shop, writing without distraction and revisiting ideas long set aside during the demands of academic life. 

His advice to emerging scholars is both timely and optimistic. In an era of disruption, particularly in fields like climate and science policy, Professor Laird sees opportunity. “It’s a challenging time,” he acknowledged, “but also a chance to rethink assumptions and build something better.”  

As the Korbel community celebrates his retirement, Professor Laird leaves behind not just a body of work, but a legacy of mentorship, curiosity, and thoughtful engagement with the world’s most pressing challenges. Korbel has been his home to develop those sides of himself, even as it has changed alongside him, too. “We shape institutions, but they also shape us,” he said. “I’ll always be really grateful for that.”

Students at Korbel often describe their community as more than just a shared academic space. It’s also a deliberate choice, a place where students arrive with intention. For Matthew Krieger (BA, International Studies, 2028), that sense of purpose is what ultimately drew them back to the classroom after years of professional and military experience. 

Matt is an undergraduate international studies major who brings a depth of experience shaped by their time in the workforce and military, perspectives that distinguish their path to Korbel from others who start their bachelor's right after undergrad. Prior to moving to Denver, Matt spent four years in the U.S. Navy, followed by several years working in cybersecurity roles across federal agencies, including positions at the Pentagon, the Senate, and the State Department. While their career offered stability, “it wasn’t something that I was ever going to be passionate about,” Krieger said.  

That realization, paired with the opportunity to use GI Bill benefits, prompted a turning point. After relocating to Colorado in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic, Krieger began reconsidering their future. Their longstanding interests in politics, travel, and global perspectives led them to explore programs at the University of Denver and ultimately to Korbel. “DU just made the most sense, and then I learned more about Korbel specifically, and saw how well regarded the international relations school was,” they said.  

Krieger’s decision to pursue international studies was also shaped by their desire to better understand perspectives beyond the U.S. “It’s really easy to live in a bubble,” they noted. “I started feeling that way in my old cybersecurity career, and I really want to pursue a career that helps me understand different perspectives around the world.”  

That global curiosity is grounded in lived experience. While their time in the Navy involved limited international travel, their later work and life in D.C. exposed them to foreign service professionals and global policy environments. At the same time, Krieger credits their military service, particularly time spent in the American South, with broadening their understanding of domestic perspectives often overlooked in policy conversations. 

“If our laws and policies are exclusively written by people that have never known scarcity, we’re going to leave out the needs of people that know scarcity,” they said.  

At Korbel, Krieger has found a community that encourages exactly this kind of reflection. While they acknowledge that the broader university culture can mirror that of other predominantly affluent institutions, they see Korbel as distinct. “Korbel does feel like a group of people that aspire to be more introspective,” they said. “People here tend to want to understand the way things work… and the real-life implications of the systems we operate in.”  

That intentionality is what sets the school apart. “I don’t think people just find themselves in a place like Korbel. I think it is chosen,” Krieger added.  

For Krieger, community at Korbel isn’t defined by clubs or traditional undergraduate social life, but by meaningful classroom conversations and shared purpose. As someone returning to school after years of professional experience, they initially worried about standing out, but quickly realized those concerns were largely internal. “No one cares,” they said. “You may be acutely aware of what makes your journey different, but that just helps you in the long run.”  

Instead, their age and experience have become assets. Krieger feels more confident engaging with professors and contributing to discussions in a candid, informed way. “I’ve had a career. I’ve lived life, but I still recognize I have so much to learn,” they said.  

Looking ahead, Krieger plans to focus on global health and hopes to continue into a master’s program through Korbel’s JumpStart program. Their interests lie in understanding systemic health challenges in developing nations, though they remain critical of traditional international development frameworks. “There’s a lot of neo-colonialism there that needs to be broken down,” they said.  

Even as they describe themselves as “still new” to the Korbel space, Krieger points to alumni as a powerful reflection of the school’s impact. “An incredible example of the quality of a program is how alumni speak of it,” they said.  

For Krieger, that enthusiasm is contagious and reinforces their decision to be part of a community that values curiosity, perspective, and purpose. 

Learn more about what our undergraduate programs can offer here.

For Braxton Fuller (MA, International Studies, 2026), one of the defining moments of his graduate school journey took place far beyond Denver. In his first year, he traveled into the heart of Peru’s Amazon rainforest, working alongside Indigenous communities and international researchers in one of the most biodiverse places on Earth. 

The experience was part of an internship with the Tree Foundation, a research nonprofit operating in Maijuna territory. Braxton found the lead through the Explorer’s Club, a national organization of scientists and adventurers with whom he’d worked as a speleologist and editor of a cave science publication. After finding the lead, he turned to Korbel’s Office of Career and Professional Development (OCPD) to help prepare his application materials. “OCPD is extremely helpful in everything they do,” Braxton said. “Jamie and Rae Ann are so encouraging and make things possible.” 

Braxton ended up talking to Meg Lowman, the CEO and Founder of the Tree Foundation. She was going to the Amazon for work, and she offered Braxton the internship. Amongst his list of options, his reaction was immediate: “That one.” 

Life and Work in the Amazon 

Within weeks, Braxton found himself traveling upriver by boat from the city of Iquitos. “We sailed for four days,” he said. “I couldn’t believe it. We were in a boat in the middle of the Amazon.” 

The Tree Foundation operates in Maijuna territory, a region slightly larger than New Jersey and home to about 500 people across four settlements. The organization conducts canopy research while coordinating closely with local communities, medical teams, and eco-tourism organizations. 

A major initiative of the Tree Foundation is to aid Indigenous people as they navigate increased traffic on the Amazon, a side effect of the Iquitos-El Estrecho Highway’s construction and it ecological impacts. Braxton’s efforts to aid that mission were different every day: helping transport supplies, setting up blood drives, and mapping canopy walkways the Maijuna tribe uses in the forest are just a few examples. From fishing with local families and navigating language barriers, each day required adaptability.

“One of the most gratifying things happened with one family whose home I was staying at,” Braxton said. “They lived in an outdoor hut, and when it rained in the middle of the night, I woke up with the family. I helped them harvest a root for cooking, and once I was done, I noticed one of their boats was filled with rainwater. I discreetly bailed out the water so they could go into town later that day before they could stop me. It was a really gratifying moment. They paid me the kindness of letting a random guy stay in their house, and I paid them the small favor of getting them food and taking care of their boat.” 

Experiences like these reinforced a key lesson Braxton will carry into his career: the importance of building genuine relationships. 

Lessons in Leadership and Connection 

Through his day-to-day, Braxton met humanitarian leaders from around the world. “There’s a Peruvian version of the Red Cross that we worked with to help set up the blood drives,” he said. “There are the other medical teams and the eco-tourism groups, too. There was one intern, like me, who was traveling from Duke, and we worked together a lot.” 

These connections required Braxton to develop a new set of communication skills. “Caving prepared me for uncomfortable scenarios already,” Braxton said. “When you’re underground, it can get really cold and wet, and maybe you’re light on sleep. In that sort of state, a joke can really bring people together. But that’s not always appropriate when you’re working across cultures and language barriers.”

Meg taught him a different approach, but one that still built on his strengths. “I’m naturally good at being cheery and cooperative when things are hard. If you can make somebody laugh, you can make somebody feel that you’re having a genuine conversation with them, then you’ve done most of the work. Meg helped me tailor that for the international, humanitarian work we were doing together.” 

Carrying the Amazon’s Lessons into a Global Career 

Now nearing graduation, Braxton is exploring the next steps that build on his interests in communication, fieldwork, and global service. While his path may not be linear, his time in the Amazon has already shaped how he approaches both challenges and opportunities. 

And, of course, it delivered on a lifelong expectation. 

“I guess my whole life I have thought one day I’d see the Amazon,” he said. “But actually sticking my hand in the Amazon River was pretty crazy.” 

To learn more about the Maijuna People and humanitarian interventions, read Braxton’s article with the Tree Foundation here.

In Instructor Carla Canales’ Cultural Diplomacy class, students don’t just study diplomacy. They practice it.

Students learn about diplomacy from a world-renowned practitioner and create program proposals with budgets and full implementation plans. They leave not only with an understanding of the field but also a project portfolio, connections, and the confidence to start careers in diplomacy.

The course is offered through the Sié Chéou-Kang Center for International Security and Diplomacy’s Cultural Diplomacy Initiative, funded by a gift from the Bonfils Stanton Foundation. It is an intensive, 8-to-10 day class in the middle of the Spring Quarter, open to current Korbel students and influential community members. Together, Instructor Canales packages theory, practice, and networking into one experience.

A Practitioner’s Perspective

To kick off her course, Instructor Canales pulls from her wealth of experience doing cultural diplomacy programming for 20 years. She was initially trained as a classical opera singer, and her passion for entrepreneurship eventually led her to work as an arts envoy for the State Department. She served the Biden Administration at the National Endowment for the Arts and later at the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities, as Senior Advisor and Envoy for Cultural Exchange. Through collaboration with the Biden-Harris White House and other institutions, she promoted the arts and humanities as bridges to foster dialogue, connection, empathy, and change-making.

“There are three key components to the class,” Instructor Canales shared. “The first pillar is looking at definitions, looking at the theoretical. Let’s define culture.”

She goes on to explain how essential this is for diplomats. “When a politician or diplomat gets in front of a group, the audience senses that the speaker wants something. When an artist gets in front of a group, we expect them to give us something. They’re going to share a piece of their heart. The superpower of this class, and of cultural diplomacy, is learning how to make those work together.”

For the second pillar, students look at case studies, analyze historical and global examples of cultural diplomacy, and explore successful programs and lessons learned. This middle component helps put cultural programs in context, which is an important prerequisite for understanding diplomacy’s modern landscape.

“The third pillar,” Instructor Canales said, “is to look at current events and the future. Let’s look at modern technology, like AI, which is such a game-changer. Let’s understand the global ecosystem. Then, we can learn how to intervene and make a meaningful difference.”

Creating Programs in Community

The small, collaborative nature of the course is intentional. In past quarters, Instructor Canales has opened it to the public, allowing students to work directly with community members already well into their careers.

“Last year, we had high-level local art leaders,” Instructor Canales said. “These are people whom I consider my peers. They audit the class, and students get to work alongside them. That’s a huge networking opportunity.”

Instead of a final paper or an exam, students create a cultural diplomacy program in groups with industry leaders. “They’re given a very specific simulation,” Instructor Canales said. “That simulation includes a challenge in the real world that they can help solve. My goal is for every student’s solution to be an actionable program. They work with their group and make a PowerPoint with a spreadsheet, a budget, and projects that could be put into place and implemented the next day.”

The exercise pushes students to think beyond theory and toward real-world solutions they can carry into their careers, without sacrificing understanding of theory. “Denver is the perfect place for this sort of work,” Instructor Canales shared. “I spend a lot of time going back and forth between Cambridge and D.C., but it’s critical for folks in the Beltway to still have their ears to the ground with what’s going on in other parts of the country. Korbel gives you that distance and perspective, and I look forward to teaching here every year.”

Rethinking Culture’s Role in Global Affairs

For students interested in diplomacy, international development, or global cultural exchange, the course offers a rare chance to test ideas in a practical setting while learning from seasoned professionals.

Instructor Canales hopes students leave with the confidence to act. “If you're looking to learn how to do this work in under a week, this is the course for you,” she said. “You'll come away with a full understanding of how to do cultural diplomacy.”

Read more about Instructor Carla Canales’ career here, and dive more into the Sié Center’s programming here.