Student and Alumni Spotlights

Two Bloustein School graduates named Presidential Management Fellow finalists

Two recent Bloustein School graduates– Andrew Artz MCRP/MPP ’21 and Kermina Hanna, BS ’21, MPP ’22 – were selected as Presidential Management Fellows finalists by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, it was announced on Monday, February 13.

The Presidential Management Fellows (PMF) program is a highly selective and prestigious two-year paid government fellowship sponsored by the Office of Personnel Management for recent graduate students who seek a fellowship in a United States government agency. The fellowship includes leadership development, training, and rotations among various Federal agencies.

Andrew Artz’s military career in the U.S. Army spanned 10 years and included assignments both stateside and overseas. Honorably discharged in 2018, he earned a bachelor’s degree from Penn State and a graduate certificate in geographic information science from Penn State World Campus. He enrolled in the Bloustein School’s dual MCRP/MPP program, where he studied the intersection of government and technology and was a founding member of the school’s Public Informatics Student Group.

He currently works as a Data Scientist for the National Vulnerabilities Database (NVD) and also co-chairs a project team for the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE). He is on a mission to eliminate the gaps between information security, connected cities, and legislative decision-making which threaten national security, industrial competitiveness, and public health or safety.

Kermina Hanna earned a joint BS / Master of Public Policy from the Bloustein School, including completing a concentration on the intersection of education, economics, and labor. As a student, she worked in several different state and federal agencies including the New Jersey Office of the Secretary of Higher Education, the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the New Jersey Higher Education Restart Advisory Group, and the U.S. Department of Education. She worked as a graduate fellow for New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy’s policy office and was hired as a full-time policy analyst for the New Jersey Governor’s Office upon graduation.

In her current role, she supports the work of the budget process internally by drafting memos and presenting initiatives for senior officials, reviews budget language before external dissemination, and provides assistance on the creation of proposals for federal funding. Kermina also continues some of the work she began during her graduate fellowship, researching and presenting to the working groups of the Wealth Disparity Task Force on areas such as unproductive student loan debt, government-funded healthcare, and potential policy levers to consider in future recommendations.