While finishing her Maxwell School M.P.A. in the spring of 2007, Teena Curry was given the opportunity to stay in Washington, D.C., to complete her capstone project. She and a team of classmates spent six weeks in the capital, conducting an impact analysis for the nonprofit organization Emmaus Services for the Aging. “Despite it being May and hot and humid, it was then that I decided I wanted to live in D.C.,” she says. “I loved the energy there.”

Curry now lives in D.C. and is a private enterprise officer for USAID, an organization whose charge is ending extreme global poverty and enabling “resilient, democratic societies to realize their potential.” She says her Maxwell courses, paired with her humanitarian work with the Peace Corps in Madagascar after graduation, prepared her well for the public service role. “The courses I took at Maxwell helped develop skill sets for public service,” she says. “It was very relevant and useful. Maxwell made my journey to Washington, D.C., possible.”