April 26, 2018
Yuli Almozlino

 

HOMETOWN:

Newton, Massachusetts

 

UNDERGRADUATE DEGREE:

Economics and International Studies, Brandeis University

 

PREVIOUS EMPLOYER:

Abt Associates (Cambridge, MA)

 

Upon graduating Brandeis University with a double major in economics and international studies in 2011, Yuli Almozlino sought a position in social impact-related consulting and landed for the next four years with Abt Associates in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she rose from research assistant, to associate analyst, to analyst.

During her time at Abt, Almozlino focused heavily on criminal justice policy, leading a $500,000 study that provide key information to law enforcement about human trafficking, conducting an analysis on illegal drug use trends that contributed to a White House report on the subject, and mining 46 state Department of Corrections datasets to help governments recognize offender-level trends.

“The job turned me on to this whole industry of government program evaluation,” Almozlino says. “It was intellectually engaging and located in the heart of where people are thinking about these things.” As she moved into more of a leadership role at Abt, Almozlino thought more and more critically about connections among policy design, policy making and implementation. Eventually, she decided it was time to hone her skills and explore her passions in a more rigorous way.

A graduate program in public policy seemed like the most logical step, and Harris seemed like the right fit. “Harris, to me, stood out as a rigorous program, especially quantitatively,” Almozlino says. “I wanted to sharpen and build my analyst toolkit. It was not a values-based education. It was not whether I agreed with a policy. It was about learning to evaluate outcomes. I thought Harris would be the best place to get unbiased, evidence-based policy skills.”

Finally, Almozlino saw a unique opportunity in the joint degree program between Harris and the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. “The academics complement each other very well,” she says. “In both schools, you develop a mastery of subjects like economics. The way it operates in a business context is different, but some frameworks are pretty widely applicable. Doing the two degrees has given me time and space to explore different interests.”

During her three years pursuing her joint MBA/MPP at Harris and Booth, Almozlino has especially enjoyed the analytical politics sequence at Harris. She says those courses provided her with insights into game theory and the role of institutions in policy. “That is fundamental and complements the education in microeconomics and statistics really well,” she says. She’s also served as a teaching assistant at both Harris and Booth, and worked to support a Booth conference. “There have been so many opportunities, formally and informally.”

One of the greatest opportunities has been networking with a fantastic cohort of peers, Almozlino says. “From a personal perspective, I’ve grown a lot in these three years, as well,” she says. “I would attribute it to the quality of my classmates. Everyone here is thoughtful, impressive, and cares about policy. To see the jobs they’ve landed gives me great pride. I have no doubt that in 10 or 20 years, they’ll be some of the most influential policymakers worldwide.”

She also appreciated the experiential learning opportunities offered by Harris and Booth, including summer internships at the Cook County Bureau of Asset Management and the consulting firm Strategy&, which is part of the PWC Network and formerly known as Booz & Company.

The county internship provided experience working inside government that Almozlino says she found valuable. Her work involved redesigning a process to allocate capital across the county’s $1.4 billion physical portfolio and responding to budget requests from 14 agencies.

“It was important to get that experience to understand what elected and appointed officials are dealing with every day,” she says. “It was interesting to learn about what are all the agencies and jurisdictions around the county and what they’re responsible for, and to understand the magnitude of their needs and see how they operate.”

At Strategy&, a position she landed through Booth, Almozlino worked with a healthcare client to hone its business strategy. “I thought that experience was really awesome,” she says. “It was lived experience of things I am learning at Booth.”

Almozlino’s career ambition upon graduation is to lead business strategy at a mission-based organization or “non-market” strategy for a for-profit business. “The dual degree prepares me to do those things because they’re at the intersection of policy and business,” she says. “It’s a unique education that I’m grateful for, and being able to do it at the University of Chicago, where both schools are on the same campus, has been very useful. It has merits not only because of the quality of the schools themselves, but also because of how well they work together.”