Daniel Bicknell: Reflections at Graduation

Bicknell, a 2020 Harvard Kennedy School graduate, was a Belfer International and Global Affairs Student Fellow

Daniel Bicknell graduated in May 2020 with a Master in Public Policy degree from Harvard Kennedy School. He was a Belfer International and Global Affairs Student Fellow while at the Kennedy School. He holds an A.B. in Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard College and previously worked for Marstel-Day LLC, an environmental consulting firm, crafting policy and programs that balanced national security and sustainability requirements for U.S. Department of Defense clients.

Before attending HKS, Bicknell served as a Peace Corps Response volunteer in Peru, where he strengthened natural protected area co-management between Servicio Nacional de Áreas Naturales Protegidas por el Estado (SERNANP) and indigenous community organizations. In the final year of the Obama administration, Bicknell also worked at the U.S. Department of Energy where he advanced scientific innovations through policy and partnerships.

While at HKS, Bicknell had the opportunity to take courses taught by esteemed professors such as David Keith's Policy for an Engineered Planet. In this class, he was able to learn more about the technology and policy of solar geo-engineering and its potential role in combating the climate crisis. He also researched gene drives for malaria eradication, pulling from theories and learnings from two other IGA courses: Professor Kathryn Sikkink's Global Governance and Professor Zoe Marks's Africa in Global Politics. In his final assignments, Bicknell combined the concepts he learned in each of these courses to explore gene drive accountability norms and standards, gene driving framing, and gene drive deployment decision-making processes.

Another class that stands out for Bicknell is IGA 224: Civil Resistance, in which Professor Erica Chenoweth emphasized the importance of having strategy decide campaign tactics, not the other way around. “I am grateful for having the opportunity to learn the strategy and frameworks in not only civil resistance but also in negotiations, political institutions, leadership, global governance, and sustainable development,” he says. “I have already applied new insights into the work that I am doing. Moving forward, I hope to put the work at the center and develop strategies that mobilize communities to combat the climate crisis and other social injustices.”

Bicknell also worked with Professor John Holdren and became involved in the Arctic Initiative. As part of the initiative, he served as a Course Assistant to IGA 671M: Social and Policy Innovations in the Changing Arctic. He explains that they were supposed to conduct a field experience in Greenland in collaboration with the University of Greenland. However, due to COVID-19, they switched to in-person collaboration online and conducted a virtual Greenland Policy Challenge. The program brought together 15 students from HKS and 10 students from the University of Greenland. Although the original plan had changed, Bicknell says that “the digital transition presented new opportunities to connect the global to the local (and ground Ivory Tower imaginations with experience-based knowledge), further enriching the IGA learning experience.”

After graduation, Bicknell has chosen to take advantage of a COVID-19 employment opportunity promoted through the Taubman Center for State and Local Government. “In light of the pandemic, I wanted to help the community respond to the crisis and prevent future waves of infection following graduation,” says Bicknell. “As a result, I joined Partners in Health as a Community Tracing Collaborative Contact Tracer Supervisor where I will support incredible colleagues working to keep Massachusetts residents healthy and slow the spread of COVID-19.”