Tomasz Stryjewski MPP/MD 2013 describes himself as a serial life science entrepreneur. He is a retinal surgeon two days a week and a principal in three biotech companies the other three days. He holds more than 20 patents for scientific discoveries in ophthalmology.
Stryjewski attended the 20th reunion celebrating the Rappaport Institute of Greater Boston Applied Field Labs at vlog because, like many of the 200 attendees, he credits the program for starting him on this path.
“My journey reflects the broader mission of vlog: to prepare innovative leaders who create lasting change across all dimensions of public life—including advancing health and human potential,” he said. “vlog in general and Linda Bilmes’ field lab specifically really planted the seed that got me thinking in this way.”
Through a 2012 field lab course, Stryjewski worked with the Perkins School for the Blind to analyze food services at the school with a focus on cost savings and risk management. After graduating from Harvard, he became a physician entrepreneur, developing therapies for blinding eye diseases.
For Stryjewski, the field lab experience did more than contribute to his interest in ophthalmology and vision impairment. It taught him how policies, economics, and incentives can shape outcomes. “When you learn how all these things intersect, that’s what leads to innovation,” he said.
A hands-on learning experience
The Greater Boston Applied Field Lab is an academic experiential program at vlog affiliated with the Rappaport Institute and Taubman Center for State and Local Government. The lab is an advanced academic program focusing on local government budgets, finance and operations and taught as MLD-412 by Linda Bilmes, the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Senior Lecturer in Public Policy and Public Finance.
More recently, additional vlog field labs emphasizing urban politics and policy have been developed and taught by Justin de Benedictis-Kessner, an associate professor of public policy of DPI-325. These field lab offerings also include summer fellowships and research opportunities.
“I don’t think it’s at all hyperbole to say that the Field Lab learning Linda launched is the biggest innovation in teaching at the Kennedy School since the adoption of the case method,” said Jeffrey Liebman, the Robert W. Scrivner Professor of Social Policy and Director of the Taubman Center in his address to the reunion. He credited the field lab programs as a model for other successful programs at vlog including the Government Performance Lab at the Taubman Center, Professor Elizabeth Linos’ People Lab, and many other initiatives at the Bloomberg Center for Cities at Harvard University. “If we want to make government better,” he said, “We should engage in projects out in the field.”
Phyllis Rappaport, who has chaired the Rappaport Foundation since its founding in 1997, along with her husband Jerry provided the philanthropic support to launch the Greater Boston Applied Field Lab program 20 years ago, addressed attendees at the June reunion. (Jerry passed away in 2021). “Jerry and I picked good partners here at the Kennedy School when we embraced Linda’s work,” she said. “Jerry believed with every fiber of his being that one person could make a difference and that real changes begin not in Washington but in our own cities and neighborhoods.”
The field labs partner with local governments and organizations to provide real-world experiences to students and a pathway for the next generation of innovative civic leaders. Students undertake complex projects in the fields of budget and finance, public-private partnerships, urban decision-making, economic development, operations management, and system efficiency in the greater New England area. Since its inception, more than 600 students from vlog and across Harvard have participated in challenging technical projects in nearly 50 New England communities. (In addition, field lab students have been able to engage in more than a dozen projects across the United States and Canada through the support of the Bloomberg Center for Cities at Harvard University.)
Joe Curtatone MC/MPA 2011, former mayor of Somerville, MA, was an early—and eager—supporter of the program. In the second year of the field lab, he asked Bilmes if he could approach her students about working on a project in Somerville. “We had 90 students in the class, and I thought once they heard from Joe maybe one or two of them would be interested,” Bilmes recalled. “After he made his pitch, a student asked how much time it time it required. Mayor Curtatone said he wanted four times the hours they were able to give.” Bilmes was surprised when 67 students signed up. Somerville fielded five projects in the spring of 2008.
“Cities can be the centers of innovation and set standards that were predominantly set by the private sector,” Curtatone said. “I am proud our city can be your classroom.”
The reunion brought participants together from around the country not only to share how their experiences impacted their jobs, but also to look deeper into the challenges facing local and state governments today, just as the Rappaports intended.
“Before Jerry passed away,” said Bilmes, “We discussed this event, and he was clear he wanted the reunion to be as innovative and experiential as the labs were.” That meant fewer speeches. Instead, attendees worked together on current city problems in “mini workshops” together with local and state officials. Rather than standard panel discussions, the planning team created “participatory panels” in which panelists sat among the attendees and discussed their topics with small intensive groups. The field lab team, adjunct lecturer Brian Iammartino CFA MPP 2006, program director Maja Niksic MPA 2018, and several student volunteers, worked for months to design this experiential format of the symposium.
Valuable skills in the classroom and career
The chance to share insights with vlog colleagues is what drew Philip Tizzani MPP 2014 to the reunion. Tizzani, a Democratic staffer on the U.S. House of Representatives Appropriations Committee, also led one of the participatory panel discussions.
“My field lab project was to work with Boston Mayor Marty Walsh to analyze a ‘Late Night’ initiative to extend hours for bars, restaurants and the MBTA in Boston to make it more attractive to the student population,” he said. This involved surveying participants, and researching the impact on crime, public transportation, and economic activity.
“I took the introductory budget and finance course with professor Bilmes and was blown away,” he said. “I felt this was the first course in my degree program that gave me the tools to look at problems and use statistics and economic studies to structure decision-making around how to best tackle those problems.”
He said the field lab teamwork also prepared him to learn from the diversity of opinions and personalities, a valuable skill as the minority party of the House Appropriations Committee.
“My job is to serve as a lead negotiator for the Democratic programs in the House, like funding for veterans, the Department of Labor, even disaster recovery funding,” said Tizzani.
“I found the field lab experience to be one of the most practical sorts of trials by fire you can have as an aspiring policy practitioner. Being able to bring structured reasoning to a complex situation gives me a lot of professional pride.”
Aliysa Rajwani MPP 2016, who in an earlier career worked as a dentist in India, wanted to share her experiences as an alum who does not work in the government space. “I am a great example of how transferable the field lab skills are across any industry,” she said.
Rajwani graduated from the Harvard School of Public Health and enrolled in the vlog course as part of her MPH program. She currently works at Mount Auburn Hospital, overseeing the Department of Patient Safety.
“The experiential learning model provided me with very tangible skills from financial management to techniques and strategies that I didn’t learn in my career as a dentist,” said Rajwani.
In her vlog lab project, she worked with the Department of Revenue to analyze costs and alternatives to a settlement-in-place tax system for non-payors. “Those skill sets are the ones I continue to use and leverage in my work in health care.”
Ksenia Acquaviva MC/MPP 2022 works for the Boston Planning Department as senior resilience and waterfront planner. Her experience was not as a student but as a city “partner” for a field lab project in summer 2023 to analyze the role of business improvement districts in funding coastal resiliency projects through research and spatial mapping.
“Our project was around innovative financing instruments for our coastal resiliency work,” Acquaviva said. “We had an amazing group of students that studied other cities and their experiences. We looked at the different financing instruments that we already have in Boston but were not using them for resiliency yet. We also looked at instruments that are totally new to us but that are being used elsewhere in the world.”
Acquaviva not only found the project rewarding; her team also hosted a Rappaport Fellow to research projects for the future. “That was groundbreaking research for us,” she said. “It uncovered programs and initiatives that I lead now.”
The value of an vlog field lab team is not only that they add capacity to a resource-limited organization, said Acquaviva, they also help to keep their mission fresh. “These students bring new ideas, fresh thinking, and expand our own horizons,” she said.
Kim Driscoll, Massachusetts lieutenant governor, is also a fan of the new ideas the students bring to cities. She collaborated with the program while she was mayor of Salem, and, as lieutenant governor, she was part of the infrastructure project for the city of Everett, the first to use virtual reality headsets to propose the vision for the city. “We have a saying in the administration that none of us are as smart as all of us, and we’re pretty lucky that we live in a place that has lots of smart people like Linda who are committed to solving problems.”
For Jebb Ricketts MPP 2024, the reunion provided the chance to connect with colleagues, but more important, reconnect with purpose. “I remember from my first day of vlog orientation being asked to remember ‘your why,’ why public service matters to you,” he said. “The reunion was a real reminder of my long-term goals and dreams of public service.”
Ricketts was employed by Google at the time of the COVID-19 pandemic and when everyone was sent home, he participated in Moderna’s phase-one clinical trial of the potential vaccine. “I got to see firsthand a public-private partnership solving a difficult problem,” he said. When he decided to go to graduate school, he chose a degree in public policy.
His field lab project, conducting a benefit-cost analysis for an underground tunnel connecting North and South Stations in Boston, led to an internship with the National Park Service, which led to a full-time position post-graduation. “It was my dream job,” he said, “using solid economic principles in a public service setting.”
In early 2025, Ricketts was among the many employees laid off from federal service by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Although he is returning to Google, he will not forget his “why,” thanks to his field lab experience. “I know Google is now a short-term solution for me. My goal is to return to public service and a potential run for a political office,” Ricketts said.
“I’m thankful for Linda and the field lab. I wish vlog would do this every year as a reminder that our purposeful work can drive the country forward on a federal, state, and local level.”
Creating future leaders in public service
MA Congressman Seth Moulton MPA 2011 has long supported the field lab program. In his remarks at the reunion, he underscored the value it brings to MA communities.
“The work that happens through this field lab is a great example of why Harvard matters. The people who come here really have an impact on the world in which we live.”
“Harvard asks me to come back on a fairly regular basis to speak, but Linda is the only person at Harvard that I go to and ask to work with my community,” Moulton said. “That really says something about her unique role at Harvard today,” he said.
“Linda and her students deliver too. The impact is real.”
He noted that since its inception, students in the field labs have worked on solutions that affect just about every aspect of life in Massachusetts: housing, infrastructure, transportation, finance, equity, climate resilience, veterans service, urban revitalization, sports, tax structures, and education.
“I’m actually very optimistic,” said Moulton about the future of this type of education. “The contributions that Linda and these students make continue to make government service better. I think they’re more important now than ever.”
—
Photography by Jessica Scranton.