People
Working group co-chairs and team members leading Self-Governance 2050's research across its four tracks.
Service Delivery
Marina Nitze
Marina Nitze is a crisis engineer and partner at Layer Aleph, where she works with organizations navigating high-stakes operational breakdowns. She previously served as Chief Technology Officer of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and as a senior technology advisor in the Obama White House. She is co-author of Crisis Engineering and Hack Your Bureaucracy, and serves on the boards of Renaissance Philanthropy, Foster America, and Recoding America, among others.
Amira Boland
Amira Boland is Chief of Staff at New America’s New Practice Lab, where she works on family economic security policy and service delivery design. She previously served as the federal government’s first-ever Customer Experience Lead at the Office of Management and Budget, where she was chief architect of the White House’s Executive Order on Customer Experience. A founding member of the White House Social and Behavioral Sciences Team, she received the 2024 Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Award and teaches at Georgetown’s McCourt School of Public Policy.
David Wu
(bio pending)
Administrative Process & Public Participation
Kate Gage
(bio pending)
Joe Postell
(bio pending)
Sam Bagenstos
(bio pending)
Legislature & Legitimacy
Lee Drutman
Lee Drutman is a senior fellow in the Political Reform program at New America, where he focuses on electoral reform, Congress, and democratic health. He is the author of Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop: The Case for Multiparty Democracy in America and The Business of America is Lobbying, winner of the American Political Science Association’s Robert A. Dahl Award. He writes the newsletter Undercurrent Events and co-hosts the podcast Politics in Question.
James Wallner
(bio pending)
Justin Ouimette
(bio pending)
Matthew Green
Matthew Green is a professor of politics and department chair at the Catholic University of America, where he researches Congress, political leadership, and American political development. He is the author or co-author of several books on Congress, including Legislative Hardball and, most recently, Newt Gingrich: The Rise and Fall of a Party Entrepreneur. He co-edited Living in an Age of Mistrust and is co-editor of the journal Congress & the Presidency.
Jen Daulby
(bio pending)
Pennsylvania
Kevin Hawickhorst — Kevin Hawickhorst is a research fellow on the American Governance team at the Foundation for American Innovation, where his work focuses on state capacity and the machinery of implementation. His recent paper, Competent Bureaucracy: Rebuilding State Capacity, argues that decades of hollowing out state administrative capacity has left governments unable to translate federal programs into effective action, and makes the case for investing in dedicated policy and implementation units staffed with deep functional expertise. He also serves on Allegheny County's Government Review Commission.
Sarah Jacob — (bio pending)