Rising Star in Mexico: Roberto Velasco Álvarez, MPP'17

In late April, the United States and Mexico announced they had reached an agreement on sharing water from the Rio Grande basin to support Texas farmers in the region. Roberto Velasco Álvarez, MPP’17, played a crucial role.

As Head of the North American Unit at the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Velasco coordinates the government’s North American policy. Hours after the agreement was reached, Velasco traced his strategy in discussions with U.S. officials to a negotiations class he took at the Harris School of Public Policy.

“The readings the professor gave us have been very helpful,” he said from his office in Mexico City. “I’ve been going back to review them. I can say that about many, many classes at Harris.”

Velasco is the 2025 recipient of the Harris Rising Star Award, which acknowledges an alumnus within 15 years of graduation who distinguished themselves early in their career by creating a positive impact in public policy.

The water agreement is one example of multiple, high-level negotiations Velasco has managed since taking the role as Head of the North American Unit in 2020. Others include organizing a North American leaders summit in Mexico City with then-President Joe Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Velasco also has led negotiations with the U.S. on security issues and managed the donation of millions of COVID-19 vaccines from the U.S. and Canada.

In addition to honing negotiating skills, Velasco noted Harris’ well-known reputation for teaching students the importance of visualizing data to help illustrate important policy points. He said he has encountered “many, many situations” in which his ability to translate data into graphs or other figures helped shift someone’s perspective, leading to diplomatic solutions to complex challenges.

And working as editor in chief of the Chicago Policy Review during his time at Harris was critical for honing his language skills. That enhancement turned out to be crucial in his current role, in which he is required to speak English as often as Spanish.

“In general, there have been many different skills that have proven helpful over the years,” Velasco said. “Harris broadened my skill set and it certainly provided me an opportunity to get to understand much more about the United States, which has been fundamental for my job.”

‘A great match’

Velasco described his decision to enroll in the Master of Public Policy program as “deliberate and serendipitous.”

Raised in a family where politics was a frequent topic of discussion, Velasco attended Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City, became involved in left wing politics, interned at the Mexican Chamber of Deputies, and worked at the Mexico City Legislative Assembly. He graduated with a law degree in 2013.

Velasco worked as a political and policy consultant for nearly five years, during which time he perceived a lack of U.S. expertise among Mexico’s progressives. Velasco decided that a master’s in public policy—particularly one focused on quantitative analysis—at a U.S. institution would give him that expertise.

That was the deliberate aspect of his decision to enroll at Harris. The serendipitous part occurred when Velasco became bored at an event with mayors of Mexico municipalities.

“Some of the presentations were very long and very tedious,” Álvarez recalled. “That’s why I opened my laptop, alternating between paying attention to these very long speeches and looking at possible schools on my laptop.”

Also attending the event was Janet de Luna Jimenez, MPP’12, recipient of the 2024 Harris Rising Star Award. She noticed that Velasco was looking at public policy master’s programs. Jimenez suggested Harris.

“We had a nice chat and ended up scheduling a coffee to talk more about Harris,” Velasco said. She emphasized Harris’ strong quantitative curriculum and stellar faculty. Velasco was intrigued. He looked deeper into Harris, learned of a full-tuition scholarship, applied and won it.

“You don’t say no to that,” Velasco said, adding that he was excited to live in Chicago. “So, I felt it was a great match—from the perspective of the school, my budget and of, course Chicago.”

Learning U.S. policy, politics

Having visited the city only once before—on New Year’s Eve 2013—Velasco arrived in 2015, fell in love with the “gorgeous campus” and engaged with a diverse group of fellow students. He also relished the freedom to adapt and adjust his curriculum, singling out a Law School class on opera taught by Martha Nussbaum, the Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor.

Velasco recalled initially struggling through quantitative classes, then finding the approach transformative in analyzing policy problems. He particularly enjoyed classes on the philosophy of public policy, and the strategic use of surveying in public policy and a Booth finance course.

He “spent a lot of time” at the Institute of Politics, then directed by David Axelrod, political commentator, former chief strategist and senior advisor to former President Barack Obama. Velasco also absorbed the “super intensive course on U.S. politics” that was the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

“I achieved my goal of getting to know the U.S. and its policy and political thinking really, really well,” Velasco said. “Outside the classroom, the city provides a great environment to have fun, and I love that there’s a huge Mexican community there, which also served as a great opportunity to get to know more about how our own community thinks, where they live, and what their concerns are.”

Beyond the transformative nature of Harris’ quantitative policy analysis, Velasco said the people he met at the university brought an important and lasting change in his life.

“All the people who I got to know at the university—people from all over the world—was transformative,” Velasco said. “Chicago is a big, cosmopolitan city, at the crossroads of many different cultures and many different people from all over the world. Getting to know all these different perspectives was very, very valuable. Maybe you get a lot of that in any university, but in Chicago, I think it’s special.”