The Public Service Project

Mayor Lauren Simpson is the first directly elected female Mayor of the City of Arvada, Colorado. She’s also a Mom to a human daughter and countless foster kittens, all of whom benefit from her unique brand of curiosity and compassion. An international relations and comms expert by training and a true diplomat by nature, Mayor Lauren sat down to talk with us about a life and career that took her fr...

Shifra Goldenberg is Chief Program Officer at Work for America, a nonpartisan nonprofit working to make public service a more desirable, accessible, and stable career path. Think matchmaker for aspiring public servants and city, state, and county employers. It's been their mission since 2024 to keep public servants in public service, and on this episode, Shifra makes an exciting ANNOUNCEMENT: WfA'...

Homegrown Mayor Zeb Smathers loves tending to his backyard in Canton, North Carolina. Before assuming office, he started as a community advocate at his family-run legal practice, Smathers & Smathers. Since 2013, he's represented Canton through numerous challenges, including a global pandemic, economic transition, and, more recently, Hurricane Helene. As we enter another hurricane season, we're...

Jess Anderson is Mayor of Chapel Hill. Many know her as a public policy analyst, a Professor, a Mom, a wife, a friend, etc. but she's also the child of two clinical psychologists. After her own little demi-rebellion in high school, she tapped into her innate curiosity about people (again, psychologist parents!) and decided to explore how systems make life better or worse. Listen in for highlights...

Nina Hachigian was the first U.S. Ambassador for City and State Diplomacy from 2022-2025, the first Deputy Mayor for International Affairs in the City of Los Angeles, and she currently leads the Alliance for Local Leaders International (ALLIES), which is a nonpartisan nonprofit that brings together professionals from the public, private, and nonprofit sectors to solve the big challenges facing our...

Gary Barker, PhD, is President, CEO and Co-Founder of Equimundo Center for Masculinities and Social Justice. A quick Google search reveals how wildly impressive Gary is, so we'll skip the recap and go right into the questions driving this conversation: Why and how is Gary Barker so compassionate, resilient, and deeply principled? Where did that come from? How did his childhood experience witnessin...

Maryum Saifee is living, becoming, rethinking and rewriting the American dream. She is her parents' greatest wish come to life, and she holds herself to the highest possible standard when it comes to serving the country that made her. She challenges herself, and all those around her, to face each day with conscience, courage, and moral clarity, and she does it with humanity and grace. Her credenti...

Jeffrey Levy served the public in the U.S. federal civil service for 31 years, through 21 years at EPA and 5 each at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the State Department. With a background in Physics and Environmental Policy, his digital communications career came as a surprise. His impulse to embrace the web as a powerful tool for connecting the American public with the agencies tha...

Uzra Zeya is President and CEO of Human Rights First, and former Under Secretary of State for Civilian Security, Human Rights, and Democracy - the pillar tasked with advancing human rights, strengthening the rule of law, supporting refugees, elevating the fight against corruption, and combatting transnational crime and human trafficking. Her distinguished diplomatic career has included assignments...

Sarah Sladen is a Senior global leader with 20+ years developing and implementing strategies at the intersection of social impact, youth and community development, economic opportunity and wellbeing across government, philanthropy, and civil society. As a current Senior Fellow at Georgetown University and the most recent Senior Advisor for Youth at USAID, Sarah knows what she's talking about when...

Christina is a powerhouse. She has spent over two decades tackling challenges in global development through an ever-sharpening focus on youth employment. She's here today to share the why and the how - from her father's improbable capture of the American dream, to her own journey as a co-founder and CEO. She believes with a fiery passion that identifying and upskilling young talent and aligning th...

Gil Gillenwater is the founder of the award-winning Rancho Feliz Charitable Foundation, which has reimagined border philanthropy, empowering communities through reciprocal giving and shared dignity since 1987. He is the recipient of several prestigious awards for volunteerism and philanthropy, and one of his projects was selected by former President Bill Clinton as a featured initiative at Clinton...

CJ Pine is an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University in Qatar, teaching about the United Naitons Security Council. He previously worked as a civil servant at the U.S. Mission to the UN, and at the State Department's Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations. CJ is here to dispel myths about peace studies, explain how (and why) countries negotiate at the UN, and tell us all about his chil...

Ambassador Barbara Leaf is a career public servant with over 3 decades of experience, most recently serving as Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, where she was responsible for the U.S. relationship with 18 countries from Morocco to the Arabian Peninsula. She's a frequent guest on media outlets as an expert on the Middle East, but she's here to speak candidly about her life and...

Dr. Corey Holmes is a diplomat, an academic, a father, an author, a friend. He is here to talk less about his achievements (there are many!) and more about the questions, observations, and new discoveries that are shaping this chapter in his life. We discuss male friendships and vulnerability, the divine (and exhausting) experience of fatherhood, the exercise of writing, and the moments that shift...

Jon Temin works across government, research and the non-profit sector to advance democracy, good governance, conflict resolution, and US-Africa relations. He is currently a Visiting Fellow at the Johns Hopkins University SNF Agora Institute, where he is researching the future of U.S. democracy assistance. Previously, he was the Director of the Africa programs at Freedom House and at the US Institu...

Amanda Van Dort is a McCain Institute American Democracy and Technology Fellow, and an Adjunct Professor for Johns Hopkins and GWU teaching undergraduate and graduate courses on issues related to Women, Peace, and Security. She's also a former diplomat, most recently serving the Department of State as Chief of Staff in the Secretary's Office of Global Women's Issues, building on her background adv...

Katrina "Kat" Fotovat is Co-Founder of Peace Pays, a global initiative that harnesses artificial intelligence to prevent violence, strengthen democratic resilience, and advance women-led peacebuilding worldwide. Kat is a former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues with over 30 years of experience in fragile settings, overseeing more than $5 billion in programs supporting democracy, h...

Russell York is the Founder and CEO of Cosmo Technologies - one of the fastest growing family tech brands, creating purpose-built, safe devices that help kids stay connected, while giving parents peace of mind. Russell joined me for a conversation about tech, parenting, and the public good. We discuss the pervasive techxiety that is driving our parenting strategies; the need for ethical tech leade...

Kristen Cordell serves as Grand Challenges Canada's inaugural Senior Director for Policy and Learning. Before joining GCC, she held senior roles at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, the Department of State, and USAID. Her commitment to service and support of U.S. geopolitical objectives has earned her awards from the Secretary of State, and USAID Administrator. She's a life member...

Alexa Dominique Pascual is a Sustainable Development Goals Global Ambassador with the UN Association of the United States of America, and the DMUN Foundation's Head Observer to the UN, World Bank, and IMF. That's a lot of acronyms. What does it mean? It means Alexa leads American youth delegations weighing in on topics like global governance, economic cooperation, and AI regulation. She's particip...

People have all kinds of reactions to a radical upset to their lives and careers, and they're all valid. But I'm always especially fascinated with people who not only find new avenues, but who create new paths, learning to pave as they go. Deborah Cook Kaliel is that kind of person. Following the dismantling of USAID and the abrupt end of that nearly 20 year chapter in her career, Debbie moved qui...

We're here as Ambassadors for the Normies. Just two sisters, from a working class family that celebrated wit and cultivated irreverence, and above all else, primed us to be as constructive as we are critical. We're talking about the American Dream (myth or not?); socioeconomic status, privilege, and opportunity; career pathways; odd jobs and big goals; idealism and practicality and the call to ser...

Elizabeth Kennedy Trudeau is a career diplomat, previously serving as Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, as Senior Advisor and Acting Deputy Chief of Mission at Embassy Kyiv, and in several other overseas postings. She has served on the National Security Council and NATO's international staff, and now she's the Bradford M. Freeman Managing Director of Global Policy at the Bush...

Annie Leverich is the Founder of First Light Coffee, a Maryland-based coffee company rooted in giving back. She also runs First Light Media, which offers Communications and Consulting services, drawing on her extensive experience leading the press team for USAID's Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance; in Comms roles with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and UN World Food Programme; and before that, as a...