Sydney Garfinkel

Sydney is joining Gates Ventures on the Exemplars in Global Health team as a Partnerships and Impact Senior Analyst. She was a Global Innovation Fellow from 2021 - 2022, and earned her Master of Public Administration at the Evans School in 2022. Prior to her graduate studies, Sydney worked at the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), a United States federal foreign aid agency. At MCC, Sydney built and implemented the monitoring and evaluation framework for a joint MCC-PEPFAR data capacity and health systems strengthening project in Cote d'Ivoire and Tanzania. Last year, Sydney was an intern at PATH where she translated data and evidence into policy recommendations for a maternal, newborn, and child health nutrition project. Most recently, she was an RA in the Department of Global Health on a neglected tropical disease project with the Global WACh team. Sydney is motivated by working with global health organizations and stakeholders in low- and middle-income countries, and translating data and evidence in to actionable, locally-driven policy, messaging and impact. Post MPA, Sydney intends to pursue a career focused on the intersection of policy, business and international development. She holds a BA double major in International Studies and French and a minor in Global Health from the University of Wisconsin - Madison.

Reflecting on her experience with START, Sydney said, “START was a particularly special opportunity that I feel grateful to have had the opportunity to be a part of for a year. I feel grateful for the relationships I made — both professionally and personally — with the staff and clients of START, and it helped me build community in Seattle. It was a joy to work with a group of students who feel equally passionate as me about improving social outcomes both domestically and abroad.”