Georgetown leverages ex-fed tech experts with new fellowship program

As the Trump administration’s efforts to shrink the size of the civil service have forced many to look for new jobs, Georgetown University is looking to utilize the expertise of nine newly former federal employees with its new series of tech-focused fellowships. 

Lynn Overmann, the executive director of the Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation, as well as the university’s incoming chair of the interdisciplinary Tech & Society initiative, said it was a “no brainer” to create the fellowships, which are designed to continue nonpartisan research and analysis in the specialists’ fields and offer students access and engagement with the experienced technology and policy leaders. 

“I think a lot of us have these very deep networks of colleagues who work in the federal government, who have skill sets and subject matter expertise that are just highly, highly relevant to the work that we're doing [at Georgetown],” said Overmann, who herself has served in tech leadership roles across several federal departments. “The opportunity to bring them on and have them come work with us as they are taking their next steps past the federal government just felt too good to pass up.”

The fellowships, which were announced on Wednesday, are split into two groups: 

• Federal Alumni Fellows will work with three tech-related Georgetown centers “to advance competition policy and antitrust enforcement in the tech sector, modernize consumer protection and competition for American innovation and support expanded internet access for underserved communities.”
• Digital Service Alumni Fellows will collaborate with senior fellows from the Federation of American Scientists, a group of researchers who pursue data-driven policy in response to major issues, “to develop and execute ‘big wins’ that significantly impact the science and tech policy landscape.”

Overmann said she is especially excited for the fellows to make connections with students who are interested in civic tech. 

“It's still a relatively new field, and the opportunity to get people with that skill set into Georgetown and in front of our students really is just, I think, a unique moment in time to kind of have access to folks that are willing to take a pause or take a few months and come work at a university,” she said. 

Among the fellows, there are several U.S. Digital Service alums — an office that President Barack Obama established to assist agencies with technology that Trump has since transformed into the Department of Government Efficiency — including two former chief technologists from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Federal Trade Commission, as well as policy experts from the Commerce Department, National Economic Council and White House Climate Policy Office. 

Overmann, who previously helped lead USDS as a senior advisor for delivery during the Biden administration, argued that tech experts with government experience are well-equipped to solve non-tech problems that nevertheless affect their work. 

“I think just a really interesting and unique skill set that you develop in the federal government that is not just being a data scientist or not just being a technologist, it is deeply understanding the problems that you're trying to solve, recognizing the hurdles that are in the way of solving them, and often those hurdles are either policy or operational or even sometimes process oriented, and learning how to use different approaches to overcome those with the end user in mind,” she said. “Once we figured out how to hack our way to a solution, the technology came in on the back end, and frankly, it was sometimes the easier part.”

While Overmann acknowledged that Trump’s government workforce overhauls are limiting opportunities for those students to enter public service, she emphasized that there are openings at the state and local levels. 

“We're candid with our students and acknowledge that the pathways into federal service right now are different than they were just a year ago and that those opportunities may be limited or may not exist at all, but there's really powerful and impactful work, and in fact maybe even more so now than previously, if you're looking at state government or if you're looking even at local government,” she said. 

Overmann said that currently there’s only enough funding for one round of fellowships, but she’s hoping that donors “see the value of this and support a little longevity here.” 

Georgetown has several resources for former federal employees, including discounts on master’s degrees and professional certificates.