The late Herbert Roback encouraged talented and promising students to consider lifetime careers in the public service. To honor Mr. Roback, his family and friends established the Herbert Roback Scholarship Fund to perpetuate his work.
Eligibility and Award
The National Academy of Public Administration annually awards one scholarship up to $7,500 to a graduate student currently enrolled, or admitted for enrollment, in a full-time accredited master’s degree program in public administration, public and international affairs, public policy and/or political science.
Campus Application and Selection Process
Eligible graduate programs may submit up to two students to the Graduate School for consideration. The following materials, comprising each individual application, are due via email by the program via this form no later than Thursday, May 1, 2025. Self-nominations are not accepted. Interested students should check with their programs for earlier internal program deadlines.
- undergraduate and graduate transcripts (unofficial copies or photocopies of official transcripts can be submitted for the campus review)
- a biographical resume or curriculum vita
- two letters of recommendation from professors; recently admitted students may submit letters from undergraduate professors
- a 500 word statement describing the applicant’s professional interest
The application materials should be collated into one PDF document per student when submitted.
The two students selected as Georgetown’s institutional nominees will be notified by May 24, to allow time for honing of statements and securing official transcripts (if unofficial were provided for the campus review). Georgetown’s nominations are due to NAPA by May 31, 2025.
Questions relating to the fellowship program and/or campus application and selection process should be directed to Maria Snyder (Maria.Snyder@georgetown.edu).
Recipients
2023-24
Jada Fraser (G’24)
M.A. in Asian Studies
Jada Fraser is a Master of Arts of Asian Studies student. She is a Boren Fellow, as well as a Young Leader with Pacific Forum and a Fellow in their 2022 U.S.-Japan Next Generation Leaders Initiative. She studied international relations and global studies, with a focus on East Asia and security studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Jada has previously worked as a Fellow at U.S. Indo-Pacific Command Headquarters where she supported the portfolios on U.S.-Japan and U.S.-ROK alliance management and trilateral security cooperation. Prior to this role, she worked as a consultant for a trilateral academic and policy consortium that supports the U.S., UK, and Australian governments in advancing the trilateral security partnership AUKUS. Jada has also worked as a Policy Research Fellow with the Edwin O. Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies at Johns Hopkins SAIS and a Research Assistant with the Japan Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). At Georgetown, Jada served as the Editor-in-Chief of Volume 9 of the Georgetown Journal of Asian Studies, “Beyond Great Power Competition: Subregional Strategies and Priorities.”
Ignacio Albe (G’24)
M.S. in Foreign Service
Ignacio Albe is an international student from Argentina currently pursuing the Master of Science in Foreign Service, concentrating in Science, Technology and International Affairs (STIA). He also holds a Master’s of Law degree from Peking University in Beijing, China, and a BA in International Relations from the Universidad del Salvador in Buenos Aires, Argentina. His area of research at Georgetown lies at the intersection of inter-American integration, the energy transition, and democratic reform and governance. Professionally, Ignacio has worked at the Inter-American Development Bank, the Inter-American Dialogue, and in the Latin America practice of Blue Star Strategies in Washington, D.C. Back in Argentina, he served as the assistant to the mayor of his home town, Pilar, in the Greater Buenos Aires metro area for two years.
2019-20
Joaquin Taussig (G’20)
Master’s of Public Policy
Joaquin Taussig is a Fulbright Scholar, Master of Public Policy student and Research Assistant at Georgetown University. He studied Economics at the Catholic University of Argentina and worked six years in the public sector, mainly in programs aimed at the lowest income populations. He started working as a consultant at the National Congress and then at the Ministry of Education of Buenos Aires on the implementation of educational programs for people living in poverty. After that, he worked as Executive Director of a local political party in one of the most unequal municipalities of the country. In 2016, he took a position at the National Ministry of Social Development as Assistant to the Deputy Minister and worked in the design and implementation of a new national conditional cash transfer aimed at aiding people in situations of extreme poverty. At Georgetown, he is working at the Massive Data Institute promoting the use, linkage, and analysis of administrative data to improve public policies.