2018/2019 NLC Menino Fellow

The Initiative on Cities (IOC) is pleased to announce Adam Bieda (Boston University Class of 2019) as our 2018 – 2019 National League of Cities (NLC) Menino Fellow. Adam is a double major, pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and English. Through this Fellowship, Adam will spend the fall semester paired with IOC Director and Professor Graham Wilson and Professor of Economics Robert Margo in an on-campus Directed Study program. He will spend the 2019 spring semester in Boston University’s (BU) Washington, DC study abroad program, where he will take classes and participate in a paid internship in the National League of Cities’ Institute for Youth, Education and Families.

Through his Directed Study and his internship with the NLC, Adam will conduct an economic historical analysis of an emerging public finance mechanism called the social impact bond. This new social service funding stream is also called a “pay for success” contract. His study will illuminate urban public finance needs, current practices, and, ultimately, how social impact bonds present new alternatives to existing solutions for urban financial challenges.

Adam comes to this fellowship with both passion and experience for research and advocacy. As a high school student, Adam created a tutoring service for adolescents with learning disabilities, particularly those with attention deficit and anxiety disorders, after identifying a gap in available services in a remedial class at his high school. Since joining the BU Class of 2019, Adam has continued to pursue activities focused on educational inclusion, both as a mathematics tutor for Tutors for All, a service partnered with Boston Public Schools (BPS) in under-served communities, and as an education intern in the Museum of Fine Arts’ Community Programs office where he led educational activities for BPS youth at Camp Harborview.

On campus, Adam is a Research Assistant for the Social Learning Lab, where he assists postdoctoral students and faculty conducting research on children’s social development and behavioral learning patterns. He also serves as the Finance Director for Squinch Magazine, a student-run arts magazine, and was the Founder and Curator of the “Gallery for the Community,” a collaboration between Roca, Inc., Pavement Coffeehouse, and  artists to coordinate a philanthropic art show and raise money for participants in Roca’s Young Mothers program over the 2016 holiday season.

The National League of Cities Menino Fellowship is a joint effort by the Initiative on Cities and the National League of Cities Institute for Youth, Education and Families. It is named in honor of IOC Co-Founder and former Mayor of Boston, Thomas Menino. Mayor Menino was dedicated to serving the youngest members of urban populations and in 2000, he helped found the Institute for Youth, Education and Families. The NLC Menino Fellowship upholds that commitment.