CSPC Senior Fellow for Urban Policy
Sarah Ficenec serves as a CSPC Senior Fellow for Urban Policy. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Policy with a concentration on Urban Studies at the George Washington University Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration. As part of the Presidential Merit Fellowship she receives at the school, she also works as a Research Assistant with the George Washington Institute of Public Policy, where she is working on the Building Resilient Regions project.
In her most recent position, Sarah served as Associate Director for Policy and Communications at the Center for almost three years. She worked on many of the Center's policy initiatives, including Agenda 2008 and the Strengthening America's Future Initiative (SAFI), for which she directed expert policy working groups on U.S. geopolitical leadership and geo-economics in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and Middle East, which drafted policy recommendations for the President and Congress with regards to critical national concerns. She also directed the European Exchange Program (for which she co-authored "Whether it's Obama or McCain, the Top Priority Must Be Europe" for Europe's World) and worked on the initial stages of the Project on National Security Reform, Advancing Trust and Reconciliation in Israel and the Palestinian Territories, and the Afghanistan Study Group.
Sarah also coordinated the Center's external communication strategies, including managing new website launches and content; designing, writing and editing quarterly newsletters; supervising the production of publications; functioning as media contact for report launches; and staffing events. She served as Communications Director for the launch of Saving America's Future: A Challenge to the American People and as Associate or Assistant Editor for A Dialogue on Presidential Challenges and Leadership, an annual anthology of the best papers of the Center's Presidential Fellows Program. In addition, Sarah coordinated the Center's internship program. Sarah continues to serve as a mentor and counselor in the Presidential Fellows Program, where she works with Fellows on their original research papers on the Presidency.
Prior to joining the Center, Sarah worked as a research analyst at a national non-profit organization, evaluating charities according to standards of accountability and transparency. She has experience on Capitol Hill and with Washington, DC-based organizations focused on women's and girls' issues. Her research experience includes such subjects as media representation of U.S. foreign policy, international economic development, federal housing policy, workforce development programs, early childhood education and nonprofit organizations.
Sarah also directed the Combined Federal Campaign in Nebraska and part of Iowa for two years and worked as a historical consultant with small historical societies in the Midwest.
Sarah holds her Master's in Public Policy from Johns Hopkins University with a focus on policy communications. While at Hopkins, she served as a co-author and co-editor of a 2004 report entitled "Is Neighborhood Poverty a Good Marker of Neighborhood Quality?". She has a Bachelor's in economics and history specializing in international relations from Creighton University.
