By Amarachi Okafor
Samiha Islam (MSPPM-DA '26) didn't follow a straight line to Heinz College for graduate school. She entered the University at Buffalo (UB) as a political science major, switched directions more than once, and ended up with dual bachelor's degrees in statistics and health and human services. For a while, Islam felt like those two fields were unrelated.
"When I added a statistics major during my junior year, I didn't see a clear career path," Islam said. "It was kind of a guess that maybe statistics could help me get to the macro level."
That guess paid off. Islam recently graduated from Heinz College’s Master of Science in Public Policy and Management - Data Analytics (MSPPM-DA) program and was selected by her classmates to deliver the student address at the Class of 2026 Commencement Ceremony. During her time at Heinz College, Islam completed an internship at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, watched recommendations she helped develop get implemented in the state of Maryland, and presented her capstone research at the ITE Mid-Colonial District Annual Meeting, where her team also won the first place prize in the student poster presentation.
Islam grew up in Rochester, New York, and has been involved in community service for most of her life. Since elementary school, she has volunteered with Barakah Muslim Charity, an organization that serves in one of Rochester's lowest-income neighborhoods.
"I always knew I wanted to work in a field where I could help people by closing equity gaps in racially segregated communities," she said.
Islam’s involvement at the organization has grown from volunteer to site coordinator; currently, she writes grants for the organization, including for a program that provides financial training, peer counseling, and support for people transitioning out of prison. These grants also help fund programs for refugees, including vocational training, English language classes, and health clinics.
That background shaped how she approached her undergraduate education at UB. Health and human services appealed to her because of its focus on trauma-informed care, which looks at the needs behind people's circumstances and designs interventions accordingly. Statistics came later, as a way to work at scale rather than one case at a time.
During college, Islam ran “Tough Topics,” a program at UB’s intercultural and diversity center, facilitating campus-wide dialogue on issues ranging from the college mental health crisis to historical events affecting marginalized communities. It was there that she realized she was more interested in managing and shaping programs than in direct social work.
Islam first came to Heinz College in 2023 through the Public Policy and International Affairs fellowship, a program that brought together college juniors interested in working at the intersection of policy and data. Over a summer of coursework and professional development, she heard from practitioners applying analytics to issues like racial equity, recidivism, and resource allocation for people experiencing homelessness.
"It was really exciting for me to actually see that these two very far-apart things that I was speculating about, public policy and data analysis, actually had an intersection," she said.
During her first year at Heinz College, Islam received an honorable mention in the Envisioning a Just Pittsburgh art competition and had one of her paintings on display in the Carnegie Museum of Art.
The fellowship also gave her a clearer sense of what kind of graduate program she wanted. Islam wasn't interested in specializing in a single policy area. She wanted to build methods that could apply across domains.
"I knew I wanted to focus on methods," Islam said. "I think Heinz is not really a policy school so much as it is a methods school. With classes like Python, Machine Learning for Public Policy Lab, and Data to Action, you could do your projects on whatever policy area has a data set that you're interested in."
Islam applied to Heinz College that fall.
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One course that had a lasting impact on Islam was Policy Innovation Lab, taught by Professor Christopher Goranson. Over seven weeks, her team worked with the National League of Cities on a problem with real-world stakes: Roughly 20% of eligible Americans fail to claim the Earned Income Tax Credit, and money was being left on the table.
That project opened a door. The following summer, Islam interned at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, where she worked on the same problem in the state of Maryland. The recommendations her team made were implemented in Maryland's outreach strategy during the most recent tax season.
Samiha Islam with her capstone team.
For her capstone project, a key part of the Heinz College experience, Islam was placed with the Washington, D.C., Department of Transportation, which served as her first exposure to the field of transportation policy. The project involved improving the accuracy of traffic and vehicle data being reported to the federal government, which is vital for states to demonstrate eligibility for federal funding. Islam applied the same user research approach she'd learned in Policy Innovation Lab. She served as the project manager. Her team presented their findings at the 2026 ITE mid-colonial District Annual Meeting in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, winning first place in the student poster competition.
Samiha Islam explains her team's capstone work.
"Policy Innovation Lab taught me how to scope very quickly," she said. "There's the scope that a client gives you, and then there's the scope of what you actually need to do. And those are usually very different things."
During her commencement remarks, Islam focused on the responsibilities that come with a master's degree from a school like CMU. The skills graduates leave with, she argued, are a form of power that comes with an obligation to use it on behalf of people who don't have access to the same rooms.
"When we look at statistics about how women are underpaid or people of color are underrepresented in leadership roles, these are not things that just happen," Islam said. "Somebody is actively making a choice. And it's probably a manager with a master's degree, which is going to be us."
Her goal, Islam said, was to make people stop and think about the downstream effects of their decisions.
Outside of her coursework, Islam is a visual artist. She has sketched, painted, and worked with ceramics and clay for most of her life. During her senior year at UB, she took painting courses and mounted her own exhibition. During her final semester at Heinz College, Islam took a drawing class through CMU's College of Fine Arts. She has shared her henna artwork at several Heinz College events.
Samiha Islam paints henna art at a Heinz College event.
After graduation, Islam plans to continue to make an impact where she can and apply her training in statistics, tax policy, and public-interest technology to improve how resources reach the communities that need them most.
For anyone considering Heinz College, Islam said that the program is challenging and that it rewards students who treat the coursework as a starting point rather than an endpoint.
"For example, for my Python project, what if instead of just making code, I think about making a prototype that could be developed to help the local department of human services?" she said. "Getting involved in our communities and incorporating the voices of people who are not necessarily in the room is something that I think allows us to make a difference in the process of doing the work."