- For Students
- Degree Programs
- Focus Fields
- Faculty and Staff
- Research
- Public Service and Outreach
- Career Development
- For Alumni and Friends
- Calendar
- News
- Contact Us
- Sitemap
Prospective Students: Visit Days 2008
These La Follette School alumni and students planned to speak to prospective students at the La Follette School Visit Days, March 31 and April 1, 2008.
Alumni
Shawn Pfaff earned a master's degree in public affairs in 2002. He is a senior associate with Capitol Consultants, a firm specializing in government relations, public affairs and issues-based grassroots advocacy. Before joining Capitol Consultants, Shawn was the deputy political director for Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle’s 2006 gubernatorial campaign. In addition Shawn worked for three and a half years in the Office of Governor Jim Doyle as an agency affairs advisor, focusing on agriculture and renewable fuels, and as an external affairs manager working with community and municipal and business leaders all across the state. Before joining the Doyle administration, Shawn worked spent three years in Washington, D.C. as a legislative aide for U.S. Representative Earl Pomeroy (D-N.D.) and U.S. Senator Tim Johnson (D-S.D.) working on agricultural and trade issues.
Jeff Sartin earned a master's degree in international public affairs from La Follette in 2006. He works as a program and planning analyst for the Wisconsin Justice Information Sharing project at the Wisconsin Office of Justice Assistance. Jeff serves as the principal liaison between the WIJIS program and Wisconsin’s law enforcement community. He manages a variety of information-sharing projects housed in the WIJIS program, such as the WIJIS Justice Gateway, a web-based tool that provides criminal justice professionals with a single, secure point of read-only access to information stored in disparate justice-related data resources throughout the state. While at the La Follette School of Public Affairs, Jeff served as an economic intern at the U.S. Embassy in Colombo, Sri Lanka. He was a Peace Corps volunteer in Nepal from 2000-2002.
Students
Bill Harford is the acting center director at Vera Court Neighborhood Center, a nonprofit organization offering a full range of services for neighborhood youth and adults. He oversees many aspects of the agency, including staff and volunteer management, grant-writing, accounting, and the development and maintenance of the strategic vision. When not at work, Bill attends La Follette School of Public Affairs courses as a part-time student pursuing a degree in international public affairs. During the summer of 2007, Bill served as a management intern with the U.S. Department of State in Dhaka, Bangladesh. He participated on an analysis team on two large embassy projects.
Katie Davis is in her final semester of the double-degree program with the La Follette School of Public Affairs and the Department of Urban and Regional Planning. Prior to graduate school, Katie earned her bachelor of arts degree in sociology and worked for several years in the nonprofit sector. With an interest in social change and public policy, Katie returned to school to focus on social policy and community development and developed an interest in policy analysis. While in graduate school, Katie completed two planning internships, one at the City of Monona and one at Vandewalle & Associates. She also works as a project assistant for the Wisconsin Center for Education Research, helping with the evaluation of a community trust’s education initiative in Chicago. After graduation, Katie will work as a legislative program analyst with the Wisconsin Legislative Audit Bureau.
Jerrett Jones is a senior at the the University of Wisconsin–Madison majoring in political science and economics and an accelerated student in the La Follette School’s master of public affairs program. He is interested in domestic and economic policy. He is a program and planning analyst at the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development, where he is researching how job centers can be modernized to make them accessible to taxpayers.
Melissa Swearingen is a second-year student in the master's degree in public affairs program at La Follette. Melissa interned with the U.S. Government Accountability Office in Washington, D.C., in summer 2007. As an undergraduate University of Wisconsin–Madison, she participated in Wisconsin Women = Prosperity, a non-partisan, statewide initiative directed by Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton to improve the status of women and to drive economic growth for Wisconsin by increasing the success of women.
Visit Days 2008 schedule