Introducing Our 2022 MPP Cohort

"Our 2022 cohort is joining a passionate, dynamic, and extraordinarily bright group of students and a close-knit faculty and practitioner community," said Dr. Genevieve LeBaron, Director of the School of Public Policy. "We are delighted to welcome this amazing cohort of public policy leaders into our School."  

A wide variety of interests and experience 

The diversity of our students' backgrounds, policy interests, and experiences is one of the components that make our MPP program unique.

Our students have a broad range of educational backgrounds, including: 

Not only do our students have varied academic backgrounds, but so do their professional domains, such as: 

Although our students' backgrounds, policy interests, and experiences are diverse, they do share the same goal of desire to tackle society's most urgent and complex public policy issues and affect social change through policy initiatives to create a better society. 

The reasons our students choose the MPP program at SFU

Our students decided to join the MPP program at SFU in view of the fact that our program offers students practical experience on research they are interested in and enjoy. Such as the B.C. priorities project and Co-op program. Students see our MPP program as [a way] to pursue and develop the necessary skills and experience to achieve their goals in the field of public policy. 

Katelyn Poitras, an MPP student from the 2022 cohort, holds a bachelor's degree in Law and Society at the University of Calgary. She has experience volunteering at the Food Bank, the Public library, and with community associations. Poitras enters the MPP program with policy interests focused on social justice policy, including criminal justice and judicial reformation, and more specifically, drug and human trafficking, prison reformation, offender rehabilitation, terrorism, and similar areas of policy. "I chose to join the SFU MPP program as I wanted to be part of a cohort that applied practical and hands-on policy methods to real-world problems," said Poitras. "The B.C. priorities project, the capstone research project, and the co-op program are just some of the practical approaches I enjoy about this program." 

"I chose the Master of Public Policy program at SFU as I see it as a way to further my advocacy and activism work," said Mikayla Eastman, another MPP student from the 2022 cohort. "I see this program as the way for me to develop the practical skills necessary to make significant change in the lives of Canadians. The opportunities for conducting research, engaging in experiential learning, and collaborating with my fellow students and the MPP faculty are so incredibly exciting. From the very first day of orientation, it was clear that I was in the right room and I don't think I would've felt that in any other program. With the MPP program's changes to ground decolonial and antiracist approaches into the core curriculum, it really feels like I am in a place of learning that understands the future of public policy."

To learn more about our 2022 MPP cohort, explore their student profiles on our school's website. You will know more about our students' policy interests. 

Quotes from our 2022 MPP Cohort