Bela Walkin was born and raised in Lake Charles, LA. She graduated from Rice University in 2020 with a BA in Economics and a Certificate in Language and Intercultural Communication (French concentration). After college, Bela worked for two years as a management consultant in Houston in the financial and energy sectors. Her projects included crafting a biofuels-based energy transition strategy for an oil refinery and launching a route automation program for a waste disposal provider. Between consulting and graduate school, Bela taught English for a year in public middle schools near Lyon, France.
Having already lived in two very different large cities - Lyon and Houston - Bela arrived at Georgetown’s McCourt School of Public Policy interested in how cities can learn from one another’s policy successes and failures, particularly in the realms of transportation, housing, and infrastructure. To this end, she is working on a master’s thesis that seeks to explore the impact of neighborhood walkability on household transportation decisions. Bela is in her second and final year of her Master’s in Public Policy program, and following graduation, she hopes to make a career in creating more vibrant, more livable, and more sustainable communities across the U.S.
