Photo by Nick Caito
Haley Dougherty ’18 recently was awarded a New York City Urban Fellowship, a highly selective, nine-month program that combines work in city offices with volunteer service opportunities and a seminar series that explores current urban issues impacting public policy. Dougherty, one of 25 young individuals selected from approximately 300 applicants from around the nation, began her fellowship assignment in the Office of Citywide Health Insurance Access (part of the Human Resources Administration) in September.
The daughter of a retired New York City firefighter, Dougherty said she learned early on the principles of civic responsibility and public service. During her college search, she knew she was interested in majoring in public policy and law. “I ended up picking Trinity partly because of its location in a capital city,” she said. “I was interested in government and saw there would be a lot of opportunities in Hartford for studying public policy.”
Dougherty served as a legal intern at the downtown Hartford office of Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen during her sophomore year. She also spent summers at home on Long Island, completing internships with the office of U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer, at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, and at the Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center of Nassau County.
On campus, she joined Trinity’s residentially based volunteer community, Praxis, and became involved with the Trinity Homelessness Project, a group that volunteers at a city emergency shelter. While studying at England’s University of Oxford during her junior year, she volunteered as a researcher at the OxPolicy think tank, helping evaluate international trials of the Housing First approach to tackling long-term homelessness.
Dougherty also logged many hours of research work, as a research assistant to professors in the Political Science and History Departments and as a member of one of the first teams at Trinity’s Liberal Arts Action Lab in Constitution Plaza.