Driven by service, Mason alum lands job at CDC through prestigious government fellowship

Mariam Aburdeineh — Fri, 12 Mar 2021 20:13:00 +0000

Driven by service, Mason alum lands job at CDC through prestigious government fellowship Mariam Aburdeineh Fri, 03/12/2021 - 15:13

In This Story

James K. Conant

Mason alumnus Louie Al-Hashimi is a Presidential Management Fellow, currently working at the CDC. Photo provided.

Louie Al-Hashimi is driven by service. It started in high school, he said, when his history teacher encouraged him to get involved in community service and he began volunteering at a local food pantry, supporting road cleanup projects, and organizing school concerts for charity.

“That, coupled with my studies, encouraged me to pursue public service,” said Al-Hashimi, who earned his master’s in public administration from ��AV in 2020. “Having the opportunity to build or facilitate a connection with other people—that’s what I’m drawn to.”

In November 2019, the Pittsburgh native learned he was a finalist for the prestigious Presidential Management Fellowship (PMF), administered by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Through the fellowship, he also secured a position with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in March 2020.

“It’s a great honor to be able to serve my country in this way, to be in a position of public service, and to be part of a program to grow within the federal government,” said Al-Hashimi, who works as a management and program analyst at the CDC, helping with staffing and human resources, data management, and process improvement efforts.

“The PMF is the premier fellowship program within the federal government and carries a lot of prestige with it,” said Duane Bradshaw, director of career development at Mason’s Schar School of Policy and Government.

The two-year program designed to mentor and bring graduate-level talent into federal service is also highly competitive. In 2019, nearly 8,000 people applied, with around 600 becoming finalists, Bradshaw said, adding that Mason had eight finalists.

“[The fellowship has] been really valuable, and Mason paved the way for me to be part of it,” Al-Hashimi said. “I don’t think I could have gotten to where I am now without the support of [the Career Development Office].”

In mid-December Al-Hashimi said he also had the chance to work on the CDC’s COVID-19 response, providing operational support for the Vaccine Task Force.

It was insightful and eye-opening, Al-Hashimi said, to see a pivotal response in action, and to witness how changes in presidential administrations influence the approach to the response.

“Having the chance to contribute to the broader efforts that are addressing the current pandemic and be a part of the solution to hopefully bring it to an end, that’s what was most appealing to me,” he said.

Al-Hashimi’s Mason experiences have also been influential.

“Since starting the MPA program, my understanding has grown both in the way government works and in my own approach to public service,” said Al-Hashimi, who has also worked for Fairfax County in the Department of Family Services and the Department of Neighborhood and Community Services.

In particular, he enjoyed courses by Schar School professor James Conant, with whom he partnered on policy research projects.

Conant said he was impressed by Al-Hashimi’s intellectual curiosity, and his diligent work collecting and analyzing data on their research regarding local governments and Virginia’s Medicaid expansion program.

“I had the pleasure of recommending Louie for a position in the CDC,” Conant said. “It is a good position for Louie, and I am confident he will be able to make important contributions.”

Topics

Alumni

Schar School of Policy and Government

graduate fellowships

Students

Graduate Education

Mason named a top-tier research university once more

Melanie Balog — Mon, 17 Dec 2018 23:23:28 +0000

Mason named a top-tier research university once more Melanie Balog Mon, 12/17/2018 - 18:23

��AV has once again been recognized as one of the nation’s top research universities by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education.

Institute for Advanced Biomedical Research at the Prince William campus. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Creative Services.

By earning the “very high research” (or R1) designation, Mason—the largest public research university in Virginia—is among an elite group of 120 institutions known for performing at the highest research level in terms of research productivity and impact. Mason, which first attained the tier one research ranking in 2016, is the youngest independent university listed.

Mason President Ángel Cabrera said the designation is “an affirmation of our commitment to excellence and recognition of the caliber of our faculty. It is an impressive achievement of our entire university community.”

The Carnegie evaluation, performed by the Center for Postsecondary Research at Indiana University, looked at university levels of research activity in 2016-17, and awards of research/scholarship doctorates and professional practice doctorates.

“The outstanding scholarship of our faculty and the vibrancy of our doctoral programs is really what carries the day, specifically in fields Mason is traditionally known for in the social sciences and humanities, and the strides we made in STEM and other fields,” Provost S. David Wu said. “Most importantly, this ranking doesn’t even take into account the momentum created by our faculty in 2018.”

Annual sponsored expenditures for research, scholarship and creative work rose 14 percent between 2017 and 2018, setting a Mason record. Sponsored awards increased by more than 30 percent over the same period, which puts Mason on pace to meet a strategic goal of $225 million in annual research expenditures by 2024.

Those gains reflect the confidence federal research agencies have in Mason faculty and expertise.

Mason was the eighth-highest recipient of funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities in the past decade, with $5.8 million. It was in the top 23 percent of universities in research and development expenditures from the National Science Foundation for fiscal year 2017.

“It is an honor to work with Mason’s talented faculty and student community, and to support an environment in which multidisciplinary research, scholarship and creative work is so highly prized,” said Deb Crawford, Mason’s vice president for research.

Virginia also continues to invest in Mason, helping fund state-of-the-art research facilities in each of the university’s Northern Virginia campuses, including $125 million to create the Institute for Digital InnovAtion (IDIA) and School of Computing in Arlington.

“Few institutions have grown in size and stature as rapidly as George Mason,” Cabrera said. “The Carnegie Tier 1 status sends an unequivocal signal to our partners and funders about our capabilities.”

Topics

Quality

Impact

Research

Carnegie Research Classification

R-1 University

Deb Crawford

World-class research

undergraduate research opportunities

graduate fellowships

National Endowment for the Humanities

Research

College of Visual and Performing Arts