My NC State Story: Logan Graham (Political Science ‘18, MIS ‘19)

The Presidential Management Fellowship (PMF) is the U.S. government’s premier leadership development program. Each year, the PMF program selects approximately 300 advanced degree graduates and places them in leadership positions within U.S. government agencies. Fellows serve for two years, where they take on different leadership tasks and rotate through a number of positions and agencies.

I’ll be starting my fellowship with the U.S. Forest Service, where I will be based out of South Lake Tahoe, California. There, I will help lead new policy efforts in the area, working with the California and Nevada state legislatures to help rethink and better manage the public lands surrounding one of the most visited natural areas in the United States. As a PMF fellow, I will also serve on a rotation during my second year, and I am excited thinking about the possibilities of working with the U.S. Forest Service’s international programs, USAID, the Department of State and other agencies. 

NC State’s Master of International Studies (MIS) program was instrumental in helping me be selected as a PMF fellow and jumpstarting my career in the U.S. government. Not only did the MIS program present me with tons of unique opportunities — like interning with the U.S. embassy in Bolivia and conducting in-depth research on the social impacts of de-glaciation in the Peruvian Andes — but I was also given the opportunity to work closely with and form relationships with faculty and other students in the program. In fact, it was professors in the MIS program who first told me about the PMF program and encouraged me to apply to it. 

Logan Graham was selected as a Presidential Management Fellow.