Greater Boston Applied Field Lab
Welcome to Greater Boston Field Lab
For two decades, the Greater Boston Applied Field Lab has pioneered experiential learning in public policy, connecting Harvard Kennedy School students with local governments to tackle their most pressing challenges.
"The purpose of the Greater Boston Field Lab is twofold. First, to train the future leaders of local and regional government in the US and worldwide. And second, to do that training using an experiential pedagogy that benefits our partner cities directly. We work on technically complex projects where our advanced students can learn how to apply skills they’ve learned in graduate school to real urban challenges. So they’re highly motivated to apply this skill set in a real world setting and to learn by doing."
Our Impact
600+
Students trained in applied public finance and urban governance
200+
Projects completed for government partners
70+
Cities and organizations served
20
Years of continuous innovation in experiential education
Our Mission
The Greater Boston Applied Field Lab strengthens the connection between academic study and the practice of government. Our mission is to prepare the next generation of public leaders while delivering immediate value to cities, towns, and state agencies. We are guided by the belief that the most durable learning occurs when students confront real problems in real time, and that local governments benefit when they can draw on rigorous analytical support grounded in public purpose.
Our Approach
The Field Lab is organized around two complementary semester-long courses that place students at the center of applied problem solving in local government.
MLD-412: Greater Boston Advanced Applied Field Lab provides advanced training in public finance, budgeting, and operations. Under close faculty supervision, students construct financial models, analyze capital plans, evaluate service-delivery systems, and perform analysis that reflects fiscal and operational realities.
DPI-325: Urban Politics Field Lab, focuses on the political and institutional dimensions of policymaking. Students examine public opinion, assess political feasibility, conduct stakeholder interviews, and work with municipal partners to design strategies grounded in evidence and informed by the lived realities of local governance.
“Students do not just study government here—they practice what they will actually do once they graduate.”
- Professor Justin de Benedictis-Kessner
Each project is jointly scoped with mayors, senior staff, and agency leaders to ensure that the work addresses well-defined questions and produces tangible results. Students are expected to meet high analytical standards and to deliver materials that cities can immediately apply to fiscal, operational, and policy decisions.
“I came to the Kennedy School because I wanted to teach exactly like this - a field lab where students get the chance to work in the field for city and state government agencies, and practice what they’re going to do once they actually graduate.
We now have two Greater Boston Field Lab classes that work under the same model, creating projects, scoping them out with project partners, and then sending student teams out into the field to work on them.”
Our Legacy
What began as a pilot collaboration with the City of Somerville has developed into a distinctive model of experiential education in public finance and governance. For more than twenty years, Field Lab students have strengthened municipal budgeting, supported long-term capital planning, improved operational systems, and informed major policy decisions across the Commonwealth and throughout the region.
The Field Lab has also become a pipeline for public leadership. Alumni now serve in city halls, state agencies, federal offices, and nonprofit organizations, many returning to the very communities where they began their work as students.
A Living Curriculum
Government can be improved - and it must be - by the energy, insight, and intelligence of people who care. " Jerry Rappaport, MPA 1963
"We want to give the students a chance to go beyond what they learn in the classroom and actually experience what government is really like. The idea of the Rappaport Institute is to expose students to public service and encourage them to consider careers in public service. My own experience has been that when young people get that opportunity, it’s often transformative. It changes the way they think about their own careers, their own lives, and the impact they can have on the world. The best and the brightest find the challenge in local and state government because that’s where public policy meets the road.”
What Makes Us Different
Client Partnerships
We work with cities, towns, and state agencies through long-standing relationships that span multiple years. These partnerships ensure continuity, trust, and a deep understanding of local context, allowing students to contribute to substantive public-sector work.
Direct Engagement with Leadership
Students collaborate closely with mayors, senior officials, and department heads. This proximity to decision makers grounds the work in operational and political realities and exposes students to the complexities of governing.
Analytical and Technical Rigor
Projects draw on advanced tools and methods, including financial modeling, capital planning analysis, GIS mapping, survey research, and econometric techniques. Students receive close faculty supervision to ensure the work meets the standards required for real-world policy decisions.
Sustained Impact and Continuity
Many students continue their work through Rappaport Public Finance Summer Fellowships, enabling deeper analysis, implementation support, and follow-through for partner governments. This year-round engagement strengthens institutional capacity and advances long-term public goals.
Alumni Feature: Samantha Silverberg MPP 2012
After more than a decade away, Samantha Silverberg is back to school at HKS—this time as a Taubman Center Visiting Fellow. Samantha spent four years in the White House advising the President on infrastructure and transportation, a role she took on after serving as the Deputy Chief Administrative Officer for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. In a Q+A, Samantha shares what brought her back to HKS, lessons learned in government, and why she believes state and local government is crucial now more than ever.
The Harvard Kennedy School Applied Field Lab Experience
For more than 20 years, Professor Linda Bilmes has led the Harvard Kennedy School Applied Field Lab, a course in which Harvard graduate students partner with cities and local governments to tackle some of their most complex financial and operational challenges. Funded through the generous support of the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston, the Taubman Center for State and Local Government, and the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative, this program has introduced hundreds of Harvard University students to local and state government using the Kennedy School’s signature pedagogy of experiential learning.
Our Faculty
Linda Bilmes
Professor Linda J. Bilmes, the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Senior Lecturer in Public Policy, is a leading expert on budgetary and public financial issues. Her research focuses on budgeting and public administration in the public, private and non-profit...
Justin de Benedictis-Kessner
Justin de Benedictis-Kessner is an Associate Professor of Public Policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. His current research focuses on some of the most important policy areas that concern local governments, such as housing...
Brian Iammartino
Brian R. Iammartino, CFA is an Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, where he specializes in teaching and research on public and non-profit financial management, state and local budgeting, and urban policy.
Brian is also Co...
Through the Urban Politics Field Lab, Kennedy School students help shape a new vision for Belmont
Late last year, a small group of people gathered in front of the Belmont, Massachusetts Select Board to present possibilities for the future of an underdeveloped area of the town. The presenters were deeply invested in sharing the community-driven vision...
Harvard Presents Brighton Street Overlay Findings
Thursday afternoon, students from the Harvard Kennedy School Urban Politics Field Lab presented to town officials and members of the community the development priorities identified by key stakeholders in the Brighton Street corridor. The Harvard students...
“You Can Have Real Impact While You Are Still a Student” A Q&A with Mary Treacy, MPP ’24
When Mary Treacy arrived at the Harvard Kennedy School, she thought her future might lie in academic economics. Instead, two Greater Boston Field Labs—one studying Boston’s Open Newbury Street program, another modeling redevelopment options in Long Beach...
