Recent News

Darian Woods currently interns at NPR’s Planet Money, a biweekly American podcast and blog centered on the economy. He writes blog posts, pitches new story ideas, and “spends a surprising amount of time workshopping the perfect tweet.” Darian credits his first year at the Goldman School with preparing him for this internship: Professor Jesse Rothstein introduced him to the American tax and transfer system; The Economics & Public Policy class provided concrete examples of how people…

Netflix just announced it’s offering paid leave for new mothers and fathers for the first year after the birth or adoption of a child. Other high-tech firms are close behind. Some big law firms are also getting into the act. Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe is offering 22 paid weeks off for both male and female attorneys. Even Wall Street is taking baby steps in the direction of family-friendly work. Goldman Sachs just doubled paid parental leave…

An attendee gets an airbrushed tattoo during the Black Hat conference Thursday, Aug. 6, 2015, in Las Vegas. The annual computer security conference draws thousands of hackers and security professionals to Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher, Associated Press) Cyber attacks have opened eyes to the prospect that future wars may be waged in the shadows, relying on proxies using technological innovation to attack “soft” targets such as information networks, transportation systems, power plants, stock markets — and public confidence.…

A reading lesson last week in a summer program at the Baker-Ripley Neighborhood Center in Houston. (Michael Stravato for The New York Times) For decades, policy makers have treated poverty as a sign of helplessness and ineptitude. The worse off the neighborhood — the higher the rate of poverty, crime, and juvenile delinquency — the less influence it would have over its future. Social service agencies conducted “needs assessments” rather than asking residents what would strengthen their community.…

I used to chuckle when people claimed that voters make decisions based upon how much they like a candidate and not on a candidate's policies. But after last night's debate, I'm starting to think that the GOP candidates must believe that policies don't matter much to voters at all. These Republican candidates seemed hooked on the debate sugar-high -- touting radical positions to win the adoration of a base that does not represent the majority of…

This summer, GSPP student Trinetta Chong is working with Cambodian Child's Dream Organization, an non-governmental organization that builds wells and latrines for rural communities and supports local schools through an education and breakfast program. As a monitoring and evaluation intern, Trinetta is responsible for reviewing the effectiveness of existing programs and recommending new strategies for improvement. Her projects include creating a well maintenance database, developing surveys to find out students' meal habits and analyzing trends using school attendance, test…

PhD student Ralph Spinelli is in the last stages of terminal cancer, but his bucket list just got a little shorter. The 74-year-old doctoral student and advocate for criminal justice reform had dreamed of meeting Jack Nicklaus to thank him for being a long-time inspiration. Ralph wrote to the golf legend and was invited, with his son, on an all-expense paid trip to Dublin, Ohio for the Memorial Tournament, which Jack Nicklaus founded.  “I wanted to shake his…

Perhaps not surprisingly, grad students tend to take on more debt when going into fields where the pay is higher. Students studying medicine and law typically borrow more than $100,000 to get through school, and many go on to high-paying careers. At the other end of the spectrum, many Ph.D. students wind up in academia. Most get grants and subsidies — and the majority don't have to borrow any money at all to get through grad school. One striking…

Brian Chesky’s business, Airbnb, is the focus of renewed attempts to regulate the short-term rental market in S.F. On Tuesday, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors will for the second time this summer consider amendments to the Airbnb law regulating short-term rentals to fix the mess former Supervisor David Chiu’s industry-sponsored bill created last year. Unfortunately, the competing amendments and upcoming ballot measure present the public with options that are either unnecessarily restrictive or, like…

This summer, over ninety Goldman School students are interning in government, nonprofit and private agencies throughout the US and the world.  Cesar Manuel Zulaica is working in southeast Asia with the for-profit social enterprise agency Next Billion, which explores the connection between development and business. Cesar is piloting several data-gathering applications including a project in Indonesia that is using one such app to follow up on the sanitation conditions and community behavior around water use. He is also working…