Public policy has great power, both to improve people’s lives if it is planned and executed well and to cause significant suffering if it is not, says Harvard Kennedy School Dean Douglas Elmendorf, who will step back from his post this summer to rejoin the faculty. He joins PolicyCast host Ralph Ranalli in this episode to discuss the crucial role policy plays in everyday life, the often-imperfect ways it gets made, and the factors that shape it, including politics, values, education, and communication. He also addresses the issue of public distrust in policy advice and the vital role that values play in policy making and educating public leaders, even when those values—including economic justice and diversity and inclusion—are under attack by some in the political sphere. “Our job is to enunciate our values, and to explain how those values can help us serve the world,” he says. Elmendorf became dean of HKS in 2015 after a career steeped in policy research and formulation, mostly involving his chosen field of economics. He has worked as the director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a deputy assistant director of the U.S. Treasury, an assistant director of research at the Federal Reserve Board, and a senior economist at the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers. As dean, he’s seen the school through a campus expansion, the COVID-19 pandemic, increasing polarization and attacks on government and higher education in the public sphere, and the current domestic political fallout from the conflict between Gaza and Israel—all while diversifying the school’s community of students and scholars and affirming the important role of training public leaders and developing workable policy solutions to big public challenges.Doug Elmendorf’s Policy Recommendations:Experts should be humble, admit the limitations of their knowledge, and make sure that the policies they propose benefit all members of society.Policymakers should talk with experts in an appropriately constructive, critical manner, ask questions designed to get at the truth most effectively, and use that truth in what they do.Members of the public should prioritize interacting with other people in their societies and their communities who are different from them.The publish should have empathy for leaders given the difficulty of making good policy, but they should also be appropriately demanding and expect their leaders to be straight with them and to work hard on policies that can help improve people's lives.Douglas Elmendorf has been dean and Don K. Price Professor of Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School since 2016. He had been a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution after serving as the director of the Congressional Budget Office from January 2009 through March 2015. He had previously been a senior fellow at Brookings, assistant director of the Division of Research and Statistics at the Federal Reserve Board, deputy assistant secretary for economic policy at the Treasury Department, senior economist at the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers, and an assistant professor at Harvard University. In those policy roles, Doug worked on budget policy, health care issues, the macroeconomic effects of fiscal policy, Social Security, income security programs, financial markets, macroeconomic analysis and forecasting, and a range of other topics. He earned his PhD and AM in economics from Harvard University and his AB summa cum laude from Princeton University.Ralph Ranalli of the HKS Office of Communications and Public Affairs is the host, producer, and editor of HKS PolicyCast. A former journalist, public television producer, and entrepreneur, he holds an AB in Political Science from UCLA and an MS in Journalism from Columbia University.Editorial support for PolicyCast is provided by Nora Delaney, Robert O’Neil, and James Smith of the HKS Office of Communications and Public Affairs. Design and graphics support is provided by Lydia Rosenberg, Delane Meadows and the OCPA Design Team. Social media promotion and support is provided by Natalie Montaner and the OCPA Digital Team.  

HKS Senior Lecturer Linda Bilmes, an expert on public finance who has studied post-9/11 war costs for the past 20 years, says their staggering $5 trillion cost was enabled by what she calls “The Ghost Budget.” Using an unprecedented combination of borrowing, accounting tricks, and outsourcing, presidential administrations, Congress, and the Pentagon were able to circumvent traditional military budget processes in a way that kept war costs out of the public debate and resulted in trillions being spent with minimal oversight. The result: corporations and wealthy investors raking in huge profits, massive waste and fraud, and—combined with the Bush and Trump tax cuts—a shifting of the burden of the costs of war away from the wealthy and onto middle- and lower-income people and future generations. Of course by any metric, the United States-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were costly. Human life? At least 430,000 Iraqis, Afghans, and Pakistani civilians dead, along with more than 7,000 U.S. military personnel and thousands of civilian contractors. Democratic progress? Afghanistan is once again an authoritarian theocracy under the Taliban, and instead of transforming Iraq and the region, the U.S. invasion and occupation undermined popular sentiment toward democracy, unleashed sectarian violence, and strengthened autocratic regimes. But the budgetary problems are something we can address now, Bilmes says, with congressional reforms and planning prudently for the long-term costs of the wars, including caring for veterans. “The Ghost Budget” is also the title of Bilmes’ next book, which will be published next year.Linda Bilmes’ Policy RecommendationsCreate a veterans trust fund with an oversight board to pay for the long-term costs of caring for military personnel who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, costs which will not peak for as much as 50 years.Amend existing laws to automatically cover Iraq and Afghanistan veterans for toxic exposure to burn pits.Pass legislation requiring a set aside of a certain amount of funding long-term veterans care for every dollar appropriated for war spending.Restrict the ability of the White House and Congress to use the emergency and OCO (Overseas Contingency Operations) funding mechanisms to spend money on conflicts and to move war spending back into the main defense budget process.Address budgetary dysfunction in Congress by strengthening and empowering the House and Senate budget committees and streamlining their complicated and confusing budget subcommittee structures. Episode Contributors:Linda J. Bilmes, the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Senior Lecturer in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, is a leading expert on budgetary and public financial issues. Her research focuses on budgeting and public administration in the public, private and non-profit sectors. She is interested in how resources are allocated, particularly defense budgets, costs of war, veterans, sub-national budgeting and public lands. She is a full-time Harvard faculty member, teaching budgeting, cost accounting and public finance, and teaching workshops for newly-elected Mayors and Members of Congress. Since 2005, she has led the Greater Boston Applied Field Lab, an advanced academic program in which teams of student volunteers assist local communities in public finance and operations. She also leads field projects for the Bloomberg Cities program. She served as the Assistant Secretary and CFO of the U.S. Department of Commerce under President Bill Clinton.  She currently serves as the sole United States member of the United Nations Committee of Experts on Public Administration (CEPA), and as Vice-chair of Economists for Peace and Security. She serves on the Board of Directors of the Institute for Veterans and Military Families at Syracuse University. She was a member of the National Parks Second Century Commission and served on the U.S. National Parks Service Advisory Board for eight years. She has testified to Congress on numerous occasions and has authored or co-authored numerous books, including the New York Times bestseller “The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict” (with Joseph E. Stiglitz)  and “The People Factor: Strengthening America by Investing in Public Service” (with W. Scott Gould). She was also featured in the Academy-award nominated documentary "No End in Sight," and was the recipient of the 2008 Speaking Truth to Power Award from the American Friends Service Committee. A member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration, Bilmes earned a BA and an MBA from Harvard University and a PhD from Oxford University.Ralph Ranalli of the HKS Office of Communications and Public Affairs is the host, producer, and editor of HKS PolicyCast. A former journalist, public television producer, and entrepreneur, he holds an AB in Political Science from UCLA and an MS in Journalism from Columbia University.Design and graphics support for PolicyCast is provided by Lydia Rosenberg, Delane Meadows and the OCPA Design Team. Social media promotion and support is provided by Natalie Montaner and the OCPA Digital Team. Editorial support is provided by the OCPA Editorial Team: Nora Delaney, Robert O’Neill, and James Smith.

Experts discuss China's economic slowdown, debt challenges, and demographic shifts. They explore policy responses, potential protests in the pension system, and strategic messaging in US-China relations. Emphasis on fostering cross-cultural collaboration for economic growth and innovation.

Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Ed Djerejian says Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin once told him “There is no military solution to this conflict, only a political one.” Rabin was assassinated a few years later and today bullets are flying, bombs are falling, and 1,200 Israelis are dead after the Hamas terrorist attacks of October 7 and nearly 30,000 Gazans have been killed in the Israeli response. Yet Djerejain still believes that a breakthrough is possible even in the current moment, as horrible as it is. Djerejian, a senior fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Relations, says the crisis has shaken the regional status quo to the point where—if the United States pursues diplomacy that includes principled pragmatism, coalition-building, and good old- fashioned backbone—a breakthrough may finally be possible. But in a recent paper he argues that any breakthrough will have to be built around a two-state solution, which he says is the only path to peace and stability not only in Israel and Palestine, but the wider Middle East. Djerejian’s career as a diplomat spanned eight U.S. presidential administrations beginning with John F. Kennedy’s, and he also served as U.S. Ambassador to Syria and Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs. Ed Djerejian's Policy Recommendations:The U.S. should stake out a strong, principled position on a two-state solution based on land for peace.The U.S. should build a broad multinational coalition around its diplomacy in the region.U.S. leaders and diplomats should make American national security interests clear, both globally and in the region.Ambassador (Ret.) Edward P. Djerejian is a residential Senior Fellow at the Middle East Initiative in Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Relations. Djerejian joined the U.S. Foreign Service in 1962 and his 32-year diplomatic career spanned eight presidential administrations from John F. Kennedy to William J. Clinton. Djerejian is a leading expert on national security, foreign policy, public diplomacy, and the complex political, security, economic, religious, and ethnic issues of the broader Middle East. He is the author of “Danger and Opportunity: An American Ambassador's Journey Through the Middle East.” He recently completed a nearly 30-year tenure as founding director of Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy. Ambassador Djerejian graduated with a Bachelor of Science from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in 1960. He received an Honorary Doctorate in the Humanities from his alma mater in 1992 and a Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, from Middlebury College. He speaks Arabic, Russian, French, and Armenian. His many awards and honors include the Presidential Distinguished Service Award, the Department of State’s Distinguished Honor Award, the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, the Anti-Defamation League’s Moral Statesman Award, the Award for Humanitarian Diplomacy from Netanya Academic College in Israel, the National Order of the Cedar. Ralph Ranalli of the HKS Office of Communications and Public Affairs is the host, producer, and editor of HKS PolicyCast. A former journalist, public television producer, and entrepreneur, he holds an AB in Political Science from UCLA and an MS in Journalism from Columbia University.Editorial support is provided by Nora Delaney and Robert O’Neill. Design and graphics support is provided by Laura King, Delane Meadows and the OCPA Design Team. Social media promotion and support is provided by Natalie Montaner and the OCPA Digital Team. 

As our discourse and our politics have become both more polarized and paralyzed, Harvard Kennedy School faculty members Erica Chenoweth and Julia Minson say we need to refocus on listening to understand, instead of talking to win. In mid-2022, the School launched the Candid and Constructive Conversations initiative, based on the idea that frank yet productive discussions over differences are not only vital to democracy and a functioning society, but that the ability to have them was also an essential skill for students, staff, and faculty in the Harvard community and beyond to learn. The effort—which uses techniques and principles based on surveys and decision science—took on even greater urgency after the recent events in Israel and Gaza and their fallout in the U.S., including at Harvard and other universities. Erica Chenoweth is the Frank Stanton Professor of the First Amendment and the academic dean for faculty Engagement at HKS, as well as one of the world’s leading authorities on conflict and alternatives to political violence. Associate Professor of Public Policy Julia Minson is a decision scientist who studies the psychology of disagreement, and has developed research-based, practical methods that nearly anyone can use to make difficult conversations into productive ones.Policy Recommendations:Erica Chenoweth’s Policy Recommendations:Have local governments invest more in creating opportunities for bridging divides in civil societyMaking election day a national holiday and supporting activities that are about participating in the political process and so it feels like something we all do togetherUse the Chatham House Rule and other tools to create conversational spaces that encourage open and inclusive dialogue.Julia Minson’s Policy Recommendations:Create a curriculum for teenagers to learn the skills of constructive conversation across differencesTeach HEAR and other easy-to-understand conversational receptiveness training methods widely to enable candid and constructive conversations between individuals.Erica Chenoweth is the Academic Dean for Faculty Engagement and the Frank Stanton Professor of the First Amendment at Harvard Kennedy School, Faculty Dean at Pforzheimer House at Harvard College, and Susan S. and Kenneth L. Wallach Professor at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute. They study political violence and its alternatives. At Harvard, Chenoweth directs the Nonviolent Action Lab, an innovation hub that provides empirical evidence in support of movement-led political transformation. Chenoweth has authored or edited nine books on mass movements, nonviolent resistance, terrorism, political violence, revolutions, and state repression. Their recent book, “Civil Resistance: What Everyone Needs to Know,” explores what civil resistance is, how it works, why it sometimes fails, how violence and repression affect it, and the long-term impacts of such resistance. Their next book with HKS Lecturer in Public Policy Zoe Marks, “Bread and Roses: Women on the Frontlines of Revolution,” investigates the impact of women’s participation on revolutionary outcomes and democratization. Chenoweth maintains the NAVCO Data Project, one of the world’s leading datasets on historical and contemporary mass mobilizations around the globe. Along with Jeremy Pressman, Chenoweth also co-directs the Crowd Counting Consortium, a public interest and scholarly project that documents political mobilization in the U.S. since January 2017.Associate Professor of Public Policy Julia Minson is a decision scientist with research interests in conflict, negotiations and judgment and decision making. Her primary line of research addresses the “psychology of disagreement” – How do people engage with opinions, judgments and decisions that are different from their own? She is particularly interested in simple, scalable interventions to help people be more receptive to views and opinions they strongly oppose. Much of Julia’s research is conducted in collaboration with the graduate and post-doctoral members of MC² – the Minson Conflict and Collaboration Lab. At the Kennedy School Julia is affiliated with the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, the Center for Public Leadership, and the Taubman Center for State and Local Government. Julia teaches courses on negotiations and decision-making as part of the Management, Leadership and Decision Science area, as well as through HKS Executive Education. Prior to coming to the Kennedy School, Julia served as an Adjunct Lecturer at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, where she taught Negotiations at both the MBA and the undergraduate levels. She received her PhD in Social Psychology from Stanford University and her BA in Psychology from Harvard University.Ralph Ranalli of the HKS Office of Communications and Public Affairs is the host, producer, and editor of HKS PolicyCast. A former journalist, public television producer, and entrepreneur, he holds an AB in Political Science from UCLA and an MS in Journalism from Columbia University.Social media promotion and support is provided by Natalie Montaner and the OCPA Digital Team. Editorial support is provided by Nora Delaney. Design and graphics support is provided by Delane Meadows, Laura King, and the OCPA Design Team. 

Harvard Kennedy School Professor Kathryn Sikkink and former longtime Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth have spent years both studying the transformational effects of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and have worked on the ground to make its vision of a more just, equal world a reality. On December 10th, the world celebrated not only the annual Human Rights Day, but also the 75th anniversary of the UDHR, which some historians and social scientists consider to be the greatest achievement in the history of humankind. It was the first time representatives of the world community declared that every human person on earth was entitled to the same rights as every other, without discrimination, and no matter the circumstances. It was an achievement that was both historically radical—legal slavery in the United States had ended just 80 years earlier—and yet one which made perfect, urgent sense in the post-World-War-II context of a humanity whose collective conscience was still reeling at the horrors and inhumanity of conflict. Appalled by the dehumanization and mass slaughter of human beings in the Holocaust, where 6 million Jews were exterminated by the Nazis along with Poles, Roma, homosexuals and other groups, by Japanese atrocities including 2.7 million people murdered in Northern China alone, by the first use of atomic weapons, and by other acts of mass civilian killing, the world’s nations gathered to write a new definition of what it means to be human. The result was the UDHR, which was drafted by a committee led by former U.S. first lady Eleanor Roosevelt. It was radical not just because it was so universal, but also because it was remarkably comprehensive—going far beyond basics like life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness to enumerating human rights to privacy, health, adequate housing, freedom from torture and slavery, the right to nationality, to take part in government, to work for equal pay, to have protection against unemployment, to unionize, to a decent standard of living, to rest and leisure, to enjoy culture, art, and science, and finally to a social and international order where the rights in the Declaration could be fully realized. ikkink is a faculty affiliate of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at HKS, where Roth just finished a senior fellowship. They join PolicyCast host Ralph Ranalli to explain how the UDHR has forever changed the way we think about our fellow human beings, and to suggest policies that will keep pushing the global community toward a more just, fair, and compassionate world.Policy Recommendations:Kathryn Sikkink’s Policy Recommendations:Make teaching about the global origins and transformative impact of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights a core component of studying civics and human rights.Renew the global campaign for democracy and authoritarianism, because history has shown that democracy and human rights complement and help promote one another.Renew the international community’s diplomatic efforts to prevent and stop wars, particularly civil wars and intra-country armed conflicts, which are a major source of human rights violations.Ken Roth’s Policy Recommendations:Use the celebrations of the UDHR’s 75th anniversary to underscore the idea that the UDHR is not a collection of platitudes but a set of international norms that individual world governments must be held accountable to.Strengthen international protections for human rights nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), which play an important role in investigating, and identifying human rights abuses and holding responsible parties to account in the public sphere.Encourage world governments to adopt foreign policy positions that hold their allies accountable for human rights as well as their adversaries.Kathryn Sikkink is the Ryan Family Professor of Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and a faculty affiliate of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy. Sikkink’s work centers on international norms and institutions, transnational advocacy networks, the impact of human rights law and policies, transitional justice, and the laws of war. She has written numerous books, including “The Hidden Face of Rights: Toward a Politics of Responsibilies,” “Evidence for Hope: Making Human Rights Work in the 21st Century,” and “The Justice Cascade: How Human Rights Prosecutions are Changing World Politics,” which was awarded the Robert F. Kennedy Center Book Award and the Washington Office on Latin America/Duke University Human Rights Book Award. She holds an MA and a PhD from Columbia University and has been a Fulbright Scholar in Argentina and a Guggenheim fellow. She is a member of the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Council on Foreign Relations.Kenneth Roth is the former executive director of Human Rights Watch, one of the world's leading international human rights organizations, which operates in more than 90 countries. Roth has been called  “the godfather of the human rights” for his dedication to the cause and for helping change the way rights violations were covered in the international media. He first learned about human rights abuses from his father, whose Jewish family ran a butchery near Frankfurt in Hitler’s Germany. Prior to joining Human Rights Watch in 1987, Roth served as a federal prosecutor in New York and for the Iran-Contra investigation in Washington, DC. A graduate of Yale Law School and Brown University, Roth has conducted numerous human rights investigations and missions around the world. He has written extensively on a wide range of human rights abuses, devoting special attention to issues of international justice, counterterrorism, the foreign policies of the major powers, and the work of the United Nations. He was most recently a senior fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at HKS.Ralph Ranalli of the HKS Office of Communications and Public Affairs is the host, producer, and editor of HKS PolicyCast. A former journalist, public television producer, and entrepreneur, he holds an AB in Political Science from UCLA and an MS in Journalism from Columbia University.The co-producer of PolicyCast is Susan Hughes. Design and graphics support is provided by Lydia Rosenberg, Delane Meadows, Laura King, and the OCPA Design Team. Social media promotion and support is provided by Natalie Montaner and the OCPA Digital Team. 

David Deming and Raj Chetty discuss their research on legacy admissions at elite colleges, highlighting how these policies favor wealthy students and perpetuate power and prestige. They explore the implications for social mobility, the disparity in admissions based on parental wealth, and the importance of diversity. They also reflect on their personal backgrounds and the role of education in providing opportunities.

Jorrit de Jong and Amy Edmondson discuss the challenges of collaborative governing to solve intractable problems. They highlight the importance of building trust, creating a culture of safety, and being empowered to try, fail, and learn from mistakes. Finding an entry point is key, as shown by a group in Manchester that tackled homelessness and opioid abuse. They explore the applicability of cross-boundary collaborations in different contexts and provide recommendations for encouraging such collaborations.

Harvard Kennedy School Professor Todd Rogers and Lecturer in Public Policy Lauren Brodsky say trying too hard to sound intelligent—even when communicating complex or nuanced ideas—isn't a smart strategy. Because today’s overburdened information consumers are as much skimmers as readers, Rogers and Brodsky teach people how to put readers first and use tools like simplification, formatting, and storytelling for maximum engagement. They say you can have the most brilliant, well-researched ideas in the policy world, but you can’t communicate them, they’ll never reach the ultimate goal—making an impact. Rogers is the faculty chair of the Behavioral Insights Group at the Kennedy School and the author of “Writing for Busy Readers: The Science of Writing Better.” Brodsky is senior director of the HKS Communications Program and the author of “Because Data Can’t Speak for Itself,” a book about how to more effectively communicate the data that supports groundbreaking research and evidence-based policy proposals. They say snarky millennials may be to something when they dismissively mocked your wordy social posts and text messages by replying “TLDR”—"too long; didn’t read”—because that’s how many busy readers feel about a lot of the writing that researchers, academics, and policy wonks do.Todd Rogers is a Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. He is a behavioral scientist who works to improve communication, increase student attendance, and strengthens democracy. At Harvard, he is the faculty director of the Behavioral Insights Group and faculty chair of the executive education program Behavioral Insights and Public Policy. He received a Ph.D. jointly from Harvard's department of Psychology and Harvard Business School, and received a B.A. from Williams College, majoring in both Religion and Psychology. He is also co-founded two social enterprises: the Analyst Institute which focuses on improving voter communications, and EveryDay Labs, which partners with school districts to reduce student absenteeism. He is the author of the book “Writing for Busy Readers: The Science of Writing Better.”Lauren Brodsky is the senior director of the HKS Communications Program and a lecturer in public policy who teaches courses on policy writing and persuasive communications. She is also faculty chair of the executive education program “Persuasive Communication: Narrative, Evidence, Impact.” A co-author of the book “Because Data Can’t Speak for Itself,” she also publishes the website Policy Memo Resource (www.policymemos.hks.harvard.edu) at HKS. Lauren lectures widely on policy communications and the use of evidence in writing for governmental agencies and non-profit organizations. She is a former Theodore Sorensen Research Fellow at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, where she conducted archival research on public diplomacy programs during the Kennedy administration. She holds a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania and an M.A.L.D. and Ph.D. from the Fletcher School at Tufts University.Ralph Ranalli of the HKS Office of Communications and Public Affairs is the host, producer, and editor of HKS PolicyCast. A former journalist, public television producer, and entrepreneur, he holds an AB in Political Science from UCLA and an MS in Journalism from Columbia University.The co-producer of PolicyCast is Susan Hughes. Design and graphics support is provided by Lydia Rosenberg, Delane Meadows and the OCPA Design Team. Social media promotion and support is provided by Natalie Montaner and the OCPA Digital Team. 

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, who served as CDC director from 2021 to 2023, calls the job “probably the hardest thing I will ever do.” But she also calls it “the honor of a lifetime.” When she was appointed by President Biden as the CDC’s 19th director, she was already used to politicized health care issues, having spent her formative years as a physician working on HIV and AIDS. But COVID thrust her into an unprecedented spotlight, forcing her to lead a demoralized agency through the challenges of implementing policy and informing the public while navigating a highly polarized and often toxic public sphere and rapidly changing scientific data. Walensky says she learned some hard and valuable lessons during her tenure.  After stepping down from the post this summer, Walensky is now a senior fellow at the Women and Public Policy Program at Harvard Kennedy School, studying the topic of women’s leadership in the health care field. She is also exploring health care policy issues in concurrent fellowships at both Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School.Dr. Rochelle Walensky is a renowned expert exploring the challenges and what it means for leaders, organizations, and the world to protect public health. Dr. Walensky was the chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital and served as the 19th director of the CDC and the ninth administrator of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. Having received an M.D. from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, she also trained in internal medicine and earned an MPH in clinical effectiveness from the Harvard School of Public Health in 2001. In the earliest part of the pandemic, Dr. Walensky served on the front lines, taking care of patients, serving on the Massachusetts General Hospital incident management team, and conducting research on vaccine delivery and strategies to reach underserved communities. Dr. Walensky’s tenure at the CDC began on January 20th, 2021, when she led the nation—and the world—through unprecedented times, facing the largest density of infectious threats likely ever seen in the United States. Dr. Walensky has also worked to improve HIV screening and care in South Africa, led health policy initiatives, and researched clinical trial design and evaluation in a variety of settings. She was chair of the Office of AIDS Research Advisory Council at the National Institutes of Health from 2014 to 2015. She has also been a member of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Panel on Antiretroviral Guidelines for Adults and Adolescents and served as co-director of the Medical Practice Evaluation Center at Massachusetts General Hospital since 2011 before assuming the position of CDC director.Ralph Ranalli of the HKS Office of Communications and Public Affairs is the host, producer, and editor of HKS PolicyCast. A former journalist, public television producer, and entrepreneur, he holds an AB in Political Science from UCLA and an MS in Journalism from Columbia University.The co-producer of PolicyCast is Susan Hughes. Design and graphics support is provided by Lydia Rosenberg, Delane Meadows and the OCPA Design Team. Social media promotion and support is provided by Natalie Montaner and the OCPA Digital Team.