Category: Alumni Profile

When Arzu Jamilova first visited the United States in 2016, she and her husband were immediately drawn to the energy of the Pacific Northwest—the atmosphere, the natural beauty, and the thriving tech industry. It felt like a place where they could build something new. Back in Azerbaijan, Arzu had spent years working in HR and talent acquisition, eventually running her own recruiting and executive search business, helping tech companies find and hire the right talent. Her husband worked in project management within the telecom industry, but in Azerbaijan, opportunities in tech were limited. The main industry drivers were oil and gas, leaving little room for professionals like them to grow. After their visit, the couple started seriously considering business immigration, and soon, Arzu made the leap—expanding her business to Seattle and beginning the journey on an E-2 visa. 

As she settled into the U.S. and continued her work in talent strategy, Arzu discovered the Evans School’s Graduate Certificate in Leading Public Innovation. The program’s focus on human-centered design, addressing inequities and improving efficiency, and real-world project management immediately caught her attention. She had long been intrigued by human-centered design, the idea of putting people at the core of problem-solving but had never explored it in a structured way. The program felt like an opportunity to not just learn about these concepts, but to actively apply them. With years of experience in HR, she was particularly interested in how human-centered design could transform hiring practices, making them more inclusive, thoughtful, and responsive to the needs of both candidates and organizations. 

Through the certificate program, Arzu’s perspective on HR and recruiting shifted. Before, she had primarily focused on improving the candidate’s experience, assuming that gathering feedback from applicants would be enough. But she realized that meaningful change in hiring processes required understanding the experiences of everyone involved: candidates, hiring managers, recruiters, and HR professionals alike. Each had their own pain points and challenges. By embracing a co-design approach, she began incorporating diverse perspectives into the hiring process early on, ensuring that any changes were truly effective and equitable. 

Inspired by what she learned at the Evans School, Arzu launched Candidate Centric, a consultancy dedicated to improving hiring experiences through empathy, equity, and collaboration. She also developed a training course, Human-Centered Hiring: Foundations for Effective Recruitment, now available on Udemy, directly applying the principles she had studied. The program gave her not only the knowledge but also the structure to translate human-centered design into actionable tools that organizations could use to build more thoughtful and effective hiring systems. 

Looking ahead, Arzu hopes to expand Candidate Centric beyond hiring, applying human-centered design to other aspects of talent management, including onboarding, performance evaluation, and overall employee experience. She envisions a future where organizations move away from outdated, rigid hiring structures and toward approaches that are more inclusive, responsive, and human-centered. The lessons she gained at the Evans School continue to shape her work every day, reinforcing a mindset that puts people at the center of every decision. More than just a learning experience, the program connected her with a community of like-minded professionals, people who challenged and inspired her, and who continue to be part of her journey. 

For those considering the Graduate Certificate in Leading Public Innovation, Arzu offers simple advice: “Go for it. You will get so much more than you expect.” The program, she says, not only provides practical tools for rethinking how systems are designed but also fosters a network of supportive, creative, and passionate individuals. For Arzu, it was more than just professional development—it was a transformational experience that continues to influence her work and her vision for the future. 

For Joel Anderson, an MPA ’23 graduate, diving into public service has been all about understanding how our systems work and using that knowledge to make our democracy stronger. As the Assistant Director of External Affairs at the Washington Student Achievement Council (WSAC), Joel is on a mission to make higher education accessible for everyone in Washington state. His journey started as a young political campaigner, but his time at Evans helped open his eyes to the importance of democracy—showing him that creating policies and being accountable for them is just as crucial as making those policies happen.

Looking back, Joel admits he felt more comfortable pitching ideas than implementing them. But at Evans, he realized how important it is to pair a solid grasp of policy with clear communication. “Proactively sharing ideas with the communities, you serve is just as important as keeping track of your past decisions,” he points out, highlighting that both aspects are key to a healthy democracy. 

Joel’s drive to support higher education is deeply personal. As a caregiver for his dad, who battled a terminal illness, he witnessed firsthand how the financial strain of accessing and providing healthcare affected his family as well as his educational dreams. A merit scholarship opened the door for him to attend college, but he believes no one should have to rely on luck to get an education. Now at WSAC, he is working to create policies that ensure everyone has a fair shot at earning a degree or credential. 

For Joel, education is a vital community resource that helps strengthen democracy. “Our democracy gets a boost when everyone has equal access to information and basic needs,” he says. By helping students earn their degrees, schools and universities play a huge role in promoting economic mobility and social stability, laying the groundwork for engaged citizens. “If we want to safeguard our democracy, we have to improve access to education and help create well-informed students,” he insists. “Education is a right, not a privilege.” 

Joel believes that young people are central to this mission, and many of them are stepping up on critical issues like gun violence and healthcare access. For those who are new to civic engagement, he suggests getting involved with local organizations and keeping track of their advocacy efforts for future generations. “Knowledge is power and sharing that knowledge among young people can really make a difference in how we influence policy decisions,” he explains. 

Looking ahead, Joel sees misinformation as one of the biggest threats to democracy, whether it is falsehoods about public health or conspiracy theories around elections. He believes creating spaces for open conversations about different perspectives—and challenging ideas that jeopardize our democracy—will only make our democratic foundations stronger. 

With a passion for ensuring equitable access to education and a commitment to uplifting young voices, Joel is dedicated to shaping a vision of democracy that is all about opportunity, understanding, and resilience. We are grateful for his hard work and dedication to the future of democracy!

Like many public policy students, Tatiana Brown did not initially intend on studying public policy. Brown, this year’s Hubert G. Locke Diversity award recipient, grew up in Vienna, Virginia, a suburb of Washington D.C., and though she was raised in the shadow of the nation’s capital, she was not exposed to the important role public policy has to play in communities.

She instead pursued a degree in biomedical engineering from the Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia. It was there that she began noticing problems that weren’t present in her hometown.

“It was so hard to vote,” Brown said. “I had just voted the year prior at home and of course it was no problem at all. And now I’m going to three different polling places that are all closing, and I don’t know why. I also didn’t have access to a grocery store. I had to go to a corner market without fresh produce.”

Brown realized that pursuing a degree in biomedical engineering wouldn’t help reach her ultimate goal: helping people. So, she switched to studying medical anthropology and started doing public health research and working on the Virginia Medicaid Expansion project. While working with communities that, for various reasons, didn’t have access to health care, Brown grew frustrated with the lack of empathy in the system for these communities. She decided in her final year of her undergrad that she wanted to focus her post-grad career on public health.

“I definitely knew coming out of my final year in my undergrad that I wanted to get a master’s of public health, and I wanted a degree in public policy because I felt like that was the toolkit I had no idea about,” said Brown. “I knew that policy was really important to what I wanted to do, which was create long-lasting change and create better realities for communities of color, and I didn’t have the skill set to do it.”

In 2021, Brown found her way to the UW and pursued a dual master’s in public health and public policy. She was drawn to the Evans School because not many “programs are outspoken about the need to center justice.” While at Evans, she has held positions on the Equity and Inclusion Council and the Dean’s Council and has earned recognition from Evans faculty and fellow students. Additionally, Brown is the associate program director for the Campus Sustainability Fund and is the youth representative on the Washington State Environmental Justice Council.

Brown’s time spent at the Evans School and UW broadly has affirmed her belief in the role of policy to create a sustainable society and has prepared her to take her learnings outside the university. “I’ve actively been able to practice, and it has given me a lot more gratitude for what we actually learn,” Brown said. “Public policy is one of the few disciplines that is so pervasively connected to community well-being. Policy determines who is actively engaged in their governance, our built environment, who gains access to healthcare and a long life, the presence of public goods like mass transit, and how wealth is distributed in our nation. It determines our ability to build a sustainable society that promotes people over profit. We hold the power to determine our future and that begins with radically envisioning a different for our communities.”

Now that she has graduated with a Masters of Public Administration and a Masters of Public Health, Brown will remain in her role at the Campus Sustainability Fund and intends to continue working on ways for communities of color to engage in co-governance, developing models for localized regenerative economy, and other methods to improve community well-being.