Student Advisory Board

Student Advisory Board members for the academic year 2024/2025: 

Christine Cepelak is a second year in the MPP program at the Hertie School. She has a background in sustainable development and experience working with data in the private sector. Focused on building communities, Christine also leads the ‘Work, Economy & Social Policy Club’ at Hertie. She is interested in the impacts of emerging technologies on democracy.

Corbin Cerny is a Master's of Public Policy and a Master's of Data Science student. He is a graduate student associate with a Washington, D.C. based international development firm, assisting the digital and SME portfolios. Previously, he worked with the Slovenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs at their US embassy, where he coordinated the visit of a delegation from the Ministry of Digital Transformation. He is interested in the role digital services can play in addressing challenges faced by rural communities.

Theodor Grau is a Master’s of Public Policy (MPP) student and holds a bachelor’s degree in Sociology and Business Administration from Copenhagen Business School. He has prior experience in change management at a global software firm and is currently a working student at PD, the in-house consultancy of the German public sector. Theodor is interested in the digital transformation of government and collaborative governance.

Apurba Kundu is a tech lawyer from India with a background in engineering and intellectual property law. She has experience across rights-based organisations, consulting, and health tech non-profits. Apurba is an EMPA candidate at the Hertie School and is interested in tech policy focusing on Responsible AI, Data Privacy, and Intellectual Property Laws.

Sophia Longwe is a Master’s of Public Policy (MPP) student. She is active in the German Internet Governance Forum, to advance youth’s voices in multi-stakeholder forums. Sophia coordinated a workshop on digital transformation at the UN youth conference at the German Federal Foreign Office and was part of the multi-stakeholder planning team of the 14th German Internet Governance Forum. She is interested in digital cooperation between the European Union and African countries.

Puja Raghavan is an Indian lawyer with a political science background who is currently working as a Young Professional on the GovStack project with the Digital Transformation team at GIZ. She has previously worked with a Berlin based GovTech startup that works in the intersection of Government and Technology. Prior to that,  she practiced law on the policy and government relations team of a leading law practice in New Delhi, India before joining the Master of Public Policy cohort at the Hertie School.