I spent several years as a caseworker for people with developmental disabilities in Baltimore city – a sprawling city rife with de facto segregation and underserved neighborhoods. When I think about that job, I think about my work with Alex*, a custodian with downs syndrome who worked at a university in the Baltimore suburbs. His primary way of getting to work was his retired neighbor, who would drive him to the start of his shift every day.

His neighbor did that for years, until one day, she didn’t answer the door or her phone. She had died unexpectedly, and Alex lost his job for lack of another sustainable way to get work.

Consequently, he was evicted from housing, starting a difficult cycle of insecurity.

Like Alex, many of my clients were low-income residents of Baltimore, living in neighborhoods remote from bus stops, grocery stores and any real employment options. The intersection of all these challenges had to be borne through the ownership and dependence on a car or a relationship with someone else who owned one.

It was clear to me that there was an inextricable link between communities being able to simultaneously live fully developed, capable lives and the forming of dynamic and sustainable societies. I want to explore and help find structural solutions that would fill in those types of dead zones in transportation and city services.

George Washington University’s Masters in Sustainable Urban Planning feels like a natural avenue to explore and further develop solutions to the types of systemic and structural problems that I saw plague the folks on my caseload. I’m particularly excited to work with Dr. John Carruthers, who has exhibited extensive research into different physical models of city form, specifically in density, political fragmentation, and economic geography, and its effect on city services and their availability. I’m inspired by the school’s overall program, too, as it marries the study of the increasing challenges of rapid urbanization and the realities of anthropogenic climate change. It has a holistic and interdisciplinary structure — taking the best of a pragmatic, data-driven and scientifically sound approach in researching city design and integrating it with a mastery of policy, economics and the social sciences.

My multidisciplinary academic background, combined with my varied career pursuits, has prepared me to tackle the rigor and breadth of knowledge required to become an effective city planner. My undergraduate training is in writing, sociology, and geographic information systems (GIS). It has equipped me with the skills to creatively seek out data and resources; utilize both quantitative and qualitative research methods; and clearly communicate complex information between a wide variety of stakeholders in both professional and public speaking capacities. Professionally, and in addition to my time as a caseworker, I have also done project management and coordination at NASA and the Discovery Channel.

I’m ready to take my real-world experience and integrate it with the solid theoretical and practical applications that George Washington University is poised to provide to the next generation of city planners — so we can make better cities where, the next time things happen to Alex that are out of his control, he won’t stand to lose everything, again and again.

*Name changed to protect identity.