05/05/2025
By Katharine Webster

 A member of New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s advance team, a state representative, a lawyer, a Ph.D. student and a researcher spoke to a room packed with political science students about their career paths, successes and challenges at a recent event.

The students listened intently as five political science alumni and John Bright, a program manager at the International Institute of New England, also shared advice and answered questions.

Although each alum pursued a different career, Sheila Angelo ’15, MacKenzie Mahoney ’16, Zayna Basma-Doyle ’18, Catherine Abou-Khalil ’20 and state Rep. Tara Hong ’22 all cited the importance of internships they completed while they were still undergraduates, as well as other hands-on experiences like Mock Trial and Model United Nations.

Angelo, who joined President Obama’s events advance team 16 months after graduation and worked on two Bernie Sanders campaigns and in the Biden administration before taking her current job with Hochul, admitted that she wasn’t the strongest student during her time at UML. But interning and campaigning for former U.S. Rep. Niki Tsongas proved transformative, she said.

“I got the confidence to know how to work those rooms where you have the real political types … and get what I want out of it, too,” she said. “And I got those contacts. It just really set me up for success.”

Prof. Ardeth Thawnghmung, who organized and moderated the panel discussion, is the co-founder and president of SayDaNar, a mutual aid organization in Lowell for Burmese refugees and immigrants. Abou-Khalil, now a Ph.D. student at Boston University, interned there, as did Basma-Doyle.

Abou-Khalil said she worked directly with students in the Lowell public schools and their families as they struggled with language and cultural differences. That practical experience informs her current work with BU’s Forced Migration and Human Trafficking Initiative and BU’s Citizenship Hub, helping and advocating for displaced people, she said.

At SayDaNar, “I began asking, ‘How can I address these issues?’” she said.

Image by K. Webster

Basma-Doyle, who went on to earn an MBA and a master’s in public policy at Brandeis University, now works as research director at the MassINC Polling Group and a senior research associate at The MassINC Policy Center. Her focus is education policy.

“SayDaNar is what stimulated my interest in education,” she said. “That really opened my eyes to how different communities interact with our educational systems, and a lot of times how they don’t work for certain communities of people. … Professors like Ardeth were able to connect us to the real world.”

Basma-Doyle said that she constantly uses the skills she learned as an undergrad at UMass Lowell, from critical thinking and the ability to synthesize large amounts of complex information to qualitative and quantitative research methods.

“Everything I’m doing in my current jobs, I learned in political science,” she said, adding that those skills apply to a wide range of political and policy jobs. “The skills you all are learning … are transferrable across sectors.”

Mahoney, a family law attorney specializing in cases involving domestic violence and mental health issues, previously provided free emergency legal services through nonprofit and government agencies. She also advocated for improved anti-violence legislation on Beacon Hill.

She encouraged students who want to go to law school to join the Mock Trial team, where she said she learned case analysis and the rules of evidence.

Image by K. Webster

“I show up to court, and I go up against men who are at least 30 years older than me,” she said. “I learned how to do that here.”

She also touted UML’s partnership with The Washington Center, which allows students to spend the summer or a semester in Washington, D.C., studying and interning for credit. Mahoney interned at the Department of Defense’s National Defense University, where she aided high-ranking foreign military officials who were in the U.S. for training.   

Hong, who ran for state representative in Lowell twice and won last fall, came to the U.S. from Cambodia with his family when he was 13 years old. He soon began volunteering and then working for the Cambodian Mutual Assistance Association. He also volunteered for political campaigns and interned for elected officials.

He urged students to get involved in their communities, work on campaigns, intern with elected officials and “be a part of something.”

“Speak up! We need more people like you to be out there … to be part of the democratic process,” he said to applause. “You can effect change if you put your heart and soul into it.”

But all of the panelists also talked about how they benefited from their classes, as did Scott Conway ’12, the university’s new director of alumni relations, whom Thawnghmung asked to introduce himself. Conway worked on Sen. Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign and as former Gov. Charlie Baker’s deputy director of operations, among other jobs, before joining the UMass system.

“You are receiving one of the greatest educations you can receive,” Conway said. “And this degree, whether you head into politics or head into law or head into policy … is going to give you the background and tools you need to succeed.”

Conway recommended that students to tap the university’s alumni network and reach out to the panelists with questions.

“They’re also here to support all of you,” he said.