Meet the Committee

Kirti Das

PhD Student Representative on the PhD Faculty Committee and Committee Member

Kirti Das is a PhD candidate in the Urban Planning and Policy area at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs. He has a Masters degree in Urban and Regional Planning from the Humphrey School of Public Affairs and a Bachelors degree in Architecture from India. His current work focuses on understanding the impacts of neighborhood environments on Subjective Well-Being to inform policy making and design more equitable living environments. Prior to the PhD program he worked as a Research Fellow at the University of Minnesota leading project evaluation and research projects with a number of local and regional government agencies.

AshLee Smith Garrett

HHH Student Senator, COGS Representative, Committee Member

AshLee is a doctoral student at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota specializing in domestic public policy. She received her BA in Anthropology from Louisiana State University (LSU - Geaux Tigers!). In addition, she is the recipient of the Diversity of Views and Experience (DOVE) fellowship at the University of Minnesota and the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (NSF GRFP). Her goal is to pursue a research career whether that be in academia, at a think tank, or with a government organization.

Her research interests focus on the social policy at the federal and state level, poverty, inequality, and the intersection between policy design, civic participation, and race. As a result of her life experiences, she is passionate about studying public policy and applying her research to the real world surrounding the lives of the vulnerable in the U.S.

AshLee was born and raised outside of Baton Rouge, Louisiana and currently lives in Minneapolis with her husband, Connor, and their two dogs, Charlie and Rory. In her spare time she enjoys reading fiction books, experimenting in the kitchen, playing board games, and spending time outdoors through hiking and biking.

Dana Boyer

Committee Member

Dana Boyer holds a Masters degree in Engineering (MPhil) from the University of Cambridge and Bachelor degrees in Environmental Engineering (BS) and German Studies (BA) from the University of Connecticut. She is currently a PhD student in the Sustainable Cities Group in the Center for Science Technology and Environmental Policy at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs. Pursuing an interdisciplinary degree combining policy, engineering, and industrial ecology, her work explores food provisioning in the context of urban development in India, China, and the United States. Her research analyzes urban food flows and the associated system-wide water and energy/greenhouse gas impacts from production all the way to consumption and waste management. The objective is to help cities ensure a sufficient supply of food, while minimizing environmental impact in the face of water and energy resource scarcity and concerns of greenhouse gas mitigation. Prior to Minnesota, Dana spent time working in India, Nicaragua, and Guatemala.

Catherine (Cate) McKay

Committee Member

Catherine McKay (Cate) earned her Master of Social Work (MSW) specializing in direct practice with children, youth, and families and her Master of Public Administration (MPA) from Arizona State University in 2014. She obtained her BA from University of Colorado – Boulder in psychology and integrative physiology. Cate worked as a community behavioral health case manager in Colorado prior to beginning her MSW and MPA education, experiencing frontline human service, behavioral health, and child welfare policy and practice. As a research associate at the Center for Applied Behavioral Health Policy at Arizona State University, she worked on child protection policy initiatives, a criminal justice facilitated implementation study, and conducted program evaluations of two peer-recovery behavioral health programs (an ex-offender peer reentry program and a severe mental illness [SMI] peer run organization). Cate's research interests and activities focus on organizational practices and policy implementation in public and nonprofit institutions and partnerships, specifically in human service delivery. Cate grew up in the Twin Cities and currently lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota with her husband and dog. Outside of her work, she enjoys spending as much time enjoying the rich arts and music scene in the Cities, and the outdoors with fishing, camping and hiking throughout Minnesota.

Yunlei Qi

Committee Member

Yunlei Qi, a native of China, has an undergraduate degree in Urban and Regional Management (minor in Economics) and a master’s degree in Regional Economics in Peking University in China and has won the Outstanding Graduates twice. Her diverse academic background supports her interdisciplinary research and teaching interests. Qi has participated in a lot of urban planning projects of metropolis in China like Beijing and Tianjin, and also wrote some chapters in the books related to the development of metropolis in China, like “Coordinated Development and Regional Governance: Practice of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Regions” “Research on Development Strategy of Regional Sciences and Technologies among Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei”. She used to focus on population development in China, and participating in the writing of two books – “The Balanced Development of Population” and “Population Distributions in China”. Recently Qi’s research concentrated on the spatial mismatch and spatial interaction between job opportunities and residence in Beijing, China, and she has published two articles. Qi hopes to compare the spatial mismatch issues in China and that in the US, with the consideration of public transit system with her supervisor Prof. Yingling Fan. They also co-teach the course PA5271 Geographic Information Systems: Applications in Planning and Policy Analysis.

Danbi Seo

Committee Member

Danbi Seo is a PhD student in the Public and Nonprofit Leadership Center at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs. Danbi has an undergraduate degree in Ethics Education (summa cum laude) and a master’s degree in Public Administration, both from Seoul National University. Danbi developed a general interest in public affairs in her undergraduate courses where she studied public values and political philosophy in general, which led her to pursue advanced study in Public Affairs. Before joining the Humphrey School, Danbi spent one year as a research assistant at the Asia Development Institute in Seoul National University, working with scholars from various Southeast Asian countries on development management.

Her research interest involves two lines of inquiry. The first is the diffusion of international norms and their local implementation. In her master’s thesis, which was published in Korean Policy Studies Review, Danbi examined the process by which the international anti-ocean dumping regime has been adopted and implemented in South Korea. The second is collaboration and governance. Danbi is currently working on research projects around cross-sector collaboration and organizational change, with her advisor, Dr. John Bryson.

Alejandra Diaz

Committee Member

Alejandra is a doctoral student at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota specializing in public policy. Alejandra obtained her undergraduate degree in Sociology and Spanish from Bowdoin College in 2010. Her Master's of Foreign Language Teaching (Spanish and English) is from the Universitat Rovira i Virgili in Tarragona, Spain. After completing her master’s degree, she taught courses in the English Practice and Linguistics departments at the University of Wuerzburg in Germany and also had the opportunity to work in the nonprofit sector in the Twin Cities. Her research interests intersect the study of discourse, policy design, race, equity and social justice.

As a Texan living in Minnesota, Alejandra spends the winters indoors and takes full advantage of summers, going on walks or kayaking on the lakes.

Anna Bolgrien

PASA Representative and Committee Member

Anna Bolgrien is entering her second year as a PhD student in Public Policy. Her main interests are demography, international development, and research methods working with children. Her undergraduate background is in International Relations and Russian studies at Lawrence University. She also holds a Masters in Demography and Social Analysis from the University of California, Irvine. She is looking forward to representing the PhD students on PAS and further integrating the PhD students into the Humphrey Community.