The Ford School is pleased to announce our 2025 David Bohnett Foundation Leadership and Public Service Fellows: Anneke Craig (MPP ’27), Madeleine Gibbons-Shapiro (MPP ‘27), and Emma Schwartz (MPP ‘27). The prestigious David Bohnett Foundation Leadership and Public Service Fellowship, provides two years of tuition support and a paid summer internship in the City of Detroit mayor's office. For the past 15 years, Bohnett Fellows have applied their policy training to a wide variety of public service improvements in the city, including the expansion of curbside recycling programs, improving public lighting, developing plans to streamline the small business application process, and more.
Anneke Craig (MPP ‘27) grew up in Richmond, VA with strong family connections to greater Detroit and northern Michigan. She studied at Mount Holyoke College, earning a B.A. in Critical Social Thought and in Spanish, and a Nexus in Law, Public Policy, and Human Rights. Her undergraduate research on local educational politics in Central Virginia—including in her own K-12 school district—sparked a strong interest in local-level activism, democratic practices, and policy implementation. Through internships with Boston-based nonprofits, she also gained professional experience with a wide range of social issues, including food justice, housing, and labor rights. After graduation, she spent a year in the North American Language and Culture Assistants Program, where she supported English language education in two public elementary schools in Córdoba, Spain. She then accepted a position as program coordinator at the Massachusetts Municipal Association in Boston, organizing professional development and educational opportunities for appointed and elected local officials across the state. At Ford, Craig hopes to pursue community-based policy research methodologies that elevate marginalized voices, expand local democratic decision-making, and help communities thrive. She supports her own thriving through her passions for fencing, cooking, and Queer community activism.
Madeleine Gibbons-Shapiro (MPP ‘27) grew up in San Jose, California and earned her B.A. in sociology from Georgetown University. During her undergraduate years, she served as a G.U. Impacts fellow conducting disability rights research in Kazakhstan and was awarded the C. Margaret Hall Senior Thesis Award for her investigation into gender and self-presentation in dating app profile curation. After graduating, Gibbons-Shapiro worked as the project coordinator on an NIH-funded Columbia University study on people with physical disabilities’ trust in precision medical research. In the three years following, she was the program manager for Northern Manhattan Improvement Corporation’s Housing department, managing a HUD eviction prevention grant and developing improved referral processes for Northern Manhattan and the Southern Bronx’s low-income community to access no-cost legal services. At the Ford School and beyond, Gibbons-Shapiro aims to work in local disability, health and housing policy with a focus on accessibility and advocacy for marginalized groups. In her free time, she enjoys reading, running, and baking.
Emma Schwartz (MPP ‘27) works at the intersection of policy research and community engagement. She spent the past three years in applied policy research at the University of Southern Maine, partnering with state agencies and nonprofits to use data to improve how they serve their communities. Across multiple projects, she convened key interest groups to address systemic barriers that impact Maine youth who come into contact with the criminal legal system. In November 2024, she presented her team’s work using asset mapping in rural Maine to identify community-led solutions for resource investments at the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention National Conference on Youth Justice. Schwartz brings a collaborative mindset and genuine curiosity about new ways to collect and interpret data to improve public systems. She aims to use her MPP to gain a deeper understanding of how state and local governments can partner with communities to foster growth, equity, and quality of life. Before she began her career in policy, Schwartz earned her BA in World Literatures and Jewish Studies from Smith College. Outside the classroom, she enjoys exploring urban trails on her bike or in her running shoes, cooking meals to share with friends, and getting lost in a good book.
David Bohnett is a University of Michigan alumnus (MBA '80) and entrepreneur. The foundation that bears his name generously funds career development opportunities for three incoming master’s students each year. Through the fellowship, the Bohnett Foundation seeks to improve society through social activism and advance a spirit of community and justice. Read more about David Bohnett in the State & Hill feature, "To the City and the World."