Alumni Profile: Megan Sanders, MPP’24

Megan Sanders, MPP’24, is a Legislative Analyst with the Oregon Health Authority. “We work with state and federal lawmakers to pass health legislation in Oregon. Our work includes not only the typical health policy issues you might think of like Medicaid access, but also public and behavioral health.”

Sanders said her day-to-day work also includes analyzing ways her team can better engage community and partner organizations and communicate with them about the legislative process, and she credits work she did at Harris for her ability to do this important policy translation work.

"While at Harris, being a Teaching Assistant for David Chrisinger's Trauma-Informed Policy Writing class with the Harris Writing Program really showed me the importance of clear communication. In addition, I took a course with Jens Ludwig, and every week we had to distill complex research on crime policy into a two-page memo designed for a less familiar audience.”

Sanders earned her undergraduate degree at the University of Puget Sound, majoring in international political economy and politics & government with an emphasis on international relations and a minor in Spanish. "I planned to head to the State Department after graduation but was unsure if this was the best path." Instead, she returned to her home state of Colorado and began working in local politics. “The politicians in Colorado were working on bipartisan issues that were big but hyperlocal. It was a great opportunity to see how much gets done on the local level and explore the different facets of public sector work."

Sanders subsequently served as a Program Director at El Pomar Foundation. "That experience showed me where the philanthropic sector plays a role in filling needs not being met through other channels.” Then, in 2021, a shooting in Boulder, Colorado shook Sanders and her family. Gun violence had been a reality in Sanders’s community since the infamous 1999 Columbine shooting in her hometown, Littleton, but this incident felt even closer to home. “I remember waiting for confirmation that my sister was not inside the grocery store where ten people were killed by a semi-automatic pistol. It was my catalyst. Gun violence was no longer an abstract policy issue.”

Sanders’s passion to address gun violence led her to the Master of Public Policy program at The University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy. “The relationship between UChicago and Harris with organizations that study gun violence is what drew me to the MPP program. I explored opportunities outside the classroom—the Crime and Justice Policy Association and the Rural America Caucus—to apply what we learn to real-world issues and to learn from the community working on those issues." Sanders also worked part time during her second year at Harris with the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical School's public health research team doing gun violence prevention research—work which she has continued with them.

“Before coming to Harris, I had so many questions but no good answers: how do we know a program is reducing bad outcomes? How do we solve gun violence? How do we address residual trauma in communities? I wanted to come up with data- and trauma-informed answers to these questions, and Harris was the best place to learn how to do this.”

Sanders's work with the Oregon Health Authority, she said, connects her interest in health, community well-being, and gun violence prevention. "I'm motivated to help communities heal and recognize that the things that drive crime—in many ways—include people feeling unhealthy, unsafe, and disconnected. Health policy plays a valuable role in supporting people's overall well-being."