Negotiating for a More Sustainable World
Over the last five years, Northwestern School of Professional Studies alumna Ryann Howard has seen her efforts influence and support environmental work within the Department of State and across U.S. federal government.
“It’s been really amazing to see everyone—not just the State Department or the U.S. government, but the whole world—recognize these issues and try to work together to move them along,” Howard says.
Previously, Howard was working at a Chicago law firm when she decided her commitment to sustainability should drive her career. Galvanized by a deep passion for the environment and a desire to put that passion to work, Howard chose the Northwestern School of Professional Studies’(SPS) flexible Master’s in Public Policy and Administration program as a pivot point to transition from her legal job to a career in environmental policies in the federal government.
During her time at Northwestern, Howard joined the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs (OES) as a graduate student intern in OES’s Office of Policy and Public Outreach—a role that she’d applied to almost on a whim.
“Sure enough, I found my career, and this is what I'm going to do for the rest of my life,” Howard says.
With her three bachelor’s degrees in Spanish, Sociology, and Anthropology from Loyola University of Chicago, the Department of State seemed to be a perfect fit for her new objective: leveraging her global mindset to fight the world’s most pressing environmental issues. Now, the bulk of her day-to-day role focuses on tracking and negotiating multilateral environmental agreements to progress international attention and commitment to protecting the environment and fostering sustainability.
When Howard’s State Department internship ended, she transitioned into a full-time role in OES’s Office of Environmental Quality. She also embraced the opportunity to work in public messaging and engagement related to the Department’s efforts to address climate change. She has gone on to support the Office of Global Change and the Office of the Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, climbing to the coveted Foreign Affairs Officer position by her third year in the Department. Now, she is currently serving as an Advisor for Plastic Pollution at the Council on Environmental Quality.
Most recently, she’s contributing to federal government efforts to negotiate a future, global instrument on plastic pollution. As a member of the U.S. delegation, Howard has attended several of the United Nations Environment Programme’s Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Plastic Pollution (INC), alongside more than 2,300 fellow delegates representing 160 countries. The INC negotiates the instrument’s text and is expected to conclude at the end of 2024.
“Being part of the team negotiating [the instrument] has been really challenging, since we’re trying to create a brand-new instrument in an extremely short amount of time,” Howard says.
While at Northwestern, Howard capitalized on courses like the Global Policy Laboratory, which allows students to study and work in hands-on roles with nonprofit or research organizations in fields that interest them, pairing forward-looking career path exploration with real-world application of classroom topics. Howard used the opportunity to undertake a research project on public housing with the Urban Institute, as well as pursue an externship role at the Government Finance Officers Association which exposed her to budgeting best practices and research to support local governments, including more sustainable practices in their operations. Outside of work and school, Howard regularly volunteered for environmental non-profits in Chicago, such as the Sierra Club. Howard partly credits program-organized opportunities like these for her post-graduate inspiration and eventual direction.
“My Master’s program gave me a lot of flexibility; it allowed me to understand what I wanted to do in terms of my future career while still working to support myself,” Howard says.
Students still searching for their ‘why’ on their career journey may benefit from taking a page out of Howard’s book: stay flexible, because you never know what's going to come your way.