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Ofri Mantell, MPP ‘26
Paris, France – Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)
Ofri Mantell served as a research intern in the Health Division at the OECD, contributing to a project on strategic hospital planning across several countries. Her work involved conducting research on the legal, infrastructural and economic aspects of hospital systems and recent reforms. She analyzed OECD health data to produce visualizations on hospital capacity and health outcomes and helped develop a questionnaire for international health experts. She also participated in expert interviews and supported the development of a framework to identify innovative policy levers for improving equitable and efficient access to hospital care, whether through hospital payment mechanisms or service allocation. She shared that the internship built upon the skills she developed during her first year at GPS, particularly in transitioning from describing policy to making policy recommendations and using data-based indicators to inform policy discussions.
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Rio Namegaya, MPP ‘26
Washington, D.C. – International Finance Corporation (IFC), World Bank Group
Rio Namegaya worked as a consultant at IFC, part of the World Bank Group, where she was involved in launching a global eco-industrial park certification program. She shared that she was able to leverage her data management and analysis skills, as well as her knowledge of environmental policy to support this pioneering program aimed to set international standards for the environmental, social and economic performance of industrial parks. Through this project, she noted she gained invaluable experience in translating qualitative goals and targets into quantitative benchmarks and assessment indicators. She also broadened her technical skill set — learning about task automation, traditional and generative artificial intelligence, and geographic information systems (GIS) — by working with the extensive datasets available at the World Bank Group. The findings with such digital tools and data were presented internally and contributed to designing the eco-industrial park certification, and more. Namegaya said she was excited to further strengthen her quantitative research abilities and deepen her understanding of economics, environmental policy and social policy.
Summer Scholars
The fellowship program was established to assist students at GPS in conducting high-caliber summer internships related to research on economic growth, equality and market change in the Pacific region.
The center will help fund GPS students each year for work broadly related to economic analysis and policy research. Awards will range from partial to full support, which will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.