Maria Oviedo || Boston, Massachusetts

Master in Public Policy Candidate at Harvard Kennedy School

Hi everyone! My name is Maria Oviedo and I’m excited to serve as a facilitator for this class. I arrived to Notre Dame from Nicaragua in 2012 with little idea of what my professional interests were. Over those 4 years, I found a passion for international education and learned, through Steve Reifenberg and others, about the role of human-centered design in the field of development. After graduating, I found my dream job researching and writing about education policy issues in Latin America at a DC-based think tank, an opportunity that gave me the chance to travel the region and meet inspiring public sector leaders.  Confident that I wanted to make a difference in education policymaking, I started a Masters in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School last Fall. Here, I have and deepened my knowledge of social policy and have continued to learn about how we can make policymaking more human-centered and implementation more agile and iterative. I’m inspired by the idea that innovative problem-solving is key to improving lives. I’m looking forward to embarking on this LifeDesign journey with you all!