From Health Sciences to Canadian Climate Policy: Interview with Harshini Ramesh

Welcome to the Invite Health newsletter. This is a newsletter for those figuring out what to do with a life sciences / health sciences degree. We share stories of students pursuing careers in healthcare, and the paid experiential learning opportunities they've had. From software engineering to biomedical engineering to global health, my goal with this newsletter is to introduce you to the various pathways that students can pursue in healthcare (and beyond)!

Whether you’re reading this on a commute, during your study break, or from the comfort of your own home, I hope you enjoy reading today’s newsletter.

- Sachi

This week, I invited Harshini Ramesh to share her story of breaking into climate change policy from a health sciences background. Harshini and I connected through mutual friends (thanks Paris!), and come from the same undergrad program. Today’s highlights include:

• Inside look into Harshini’s role as a Policy Analyst at the Government of Canada (as part of Environment and Climate Change Canada)

• Harshini’s experience as a Master of Public Policy (MPP) graduate from McGill University

• Why Harshini believes that youth should be involved in policy making (and how they can break into it with Youth Policy Advocates’ Policy Corner)

From Health Sciences to Canadian Climate Policy: Interview with Harshini Ramesh

*disclaimer: all views are entirely my own

First off, tell us about your journey so far. Where do you study, what inspired you to pursue this, and what’s next? What else do you like to do outside of studying?

Hi folks! I’m Harshini and I use she/her pronouns. I am currently out of school! I just graduated last November from the Max Bell School of Public Policy at McGill University with a Master of Public Policy. I currently work in the Government of Canada, as a Policy Analyst, in the International Affairs Branch of Environment and Climate Change Canada. More on that later.

I had a bit of an odd path out of the Bachelor of Health Sciences (BHSc) program at McMaster University to get to my current position. I started BHSc wanting to be a scientist and/or doctor. When I worked in a lab in my first year, I couldn’t see myself working in pure science research for the rest of my career. After I wrote the MCAT in my second year, I couldn’t articulate why I wanted to be a doctor. I entered third year feeling very lost - what was I supposed to do with a science degree? 

When I took the third Health Systems and Health Policy course (scroll down to HTHSCI 3GG3), I answered that question. I knew I wanted to pursue a career in policy. On the first day of class, our professor talked about how the way you design a healthcare insurance policy could determine who got access to healthcare. That changed my whole point of view in terms of what kind of work I wanted to do in my life; I became much more concerned about how we can design policies or programs to deal with community-level challenges. 

I spent the next four years working in public health, conducting climate research, engaging in youth advocacy, and completing a Master’s degree. After all that, I landed in the federal government.

Outside of work, I volunteer on projects that make space for youth to shape the policies that impact their lives and futures. I am the Founder and Executive Director of the Youth Policy Advocates’ Policy Corner, which provides young people with policy publishing and skill building opportunities. I am also an Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Coordinator (volunteer) for the Young Diplomats of Canada which gets youth in Canada to international policy-making spaces (e.g., the G7 Youth Summit aka the Y7 or the United Nations High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development). Other than that, I enjoy reading, spending time with loved ones, baking or cooking, and working-out.

Tell us about your experience as a MPP Candidate at McGill’s Max Bell School of Public Policy. Can you talk about what the application process/timeline was like, what the program format was like, and some highlights from the course? Did you apply to any other grad schools?

I loved my MPP program for many reasons. First, the people were incredible. We were a cohort of 36 people and so we became a really tight-knit community, helping each other through the way. I learned a lot from a diverse group of voices, all with different professional and personal experiences. People came from a wide range of career paths, some just out of undergrad and others who had spent more than 10 years working in policy. Second, Montreal was a very vibrant city, filled with a lot of things to do, places to eat, and sights to see. Finally, the program was tough, being only 11-months long, but it helped me get up to speed on a lot of things I missed out on as a science major. I didn’t have training in politics, government structures, or economics; getting a chance to learn those subjects and sharpen my skill set made me a better policy practitioner.

In terms of the program format, you have core courses that are six weeks long (e.g. economics, law and policy, etc.). Once you complete those you have 1 week case study courses, followed by a 1 week complexity seminar. Case studies break down policy issues, like the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement, so you can learn about all the aspects that influence how a policy is developed or implemented. A complexity seminar teaches you policy skills like communications or budgeting in government.  Once you hit December, you have a capstone project, called the Policy Lab, to complete. It’s basically an extended group project until July in which you are partnered with an organization (government, corporation, non-profit, etc.) who have a policy problem you need to solve. You spend the next seven months working through the problem with your group and coming up with a final report and public-facing presentation. The program is very hands-on and focused on practical skills that you can take to your work beyond. I did apply to and got into the University of Toronto and Simon Fraser University’s MPP programs, but I picked this one because of its focus on experiential learning opportunities, like the Policy Lab and Case studies. 

If you’re interested in going to the Max Bell School, the timeline can be found here. Applications are due around February and you need a personal statement, transcripts, a CV, and two reference letters. For personal statements, tell your story and be honest about why you care about public policy and what you’ll gain being at McGill University. The Max Bell School is interested in diverse and interesting life experiences.

You currently work as a policy analyst at Environment and Climate Change Canada. Can you talk about what your role entails and the impact your work has? What do policy analysts do? How did you also come across this opportunity and obtain the position? 

I currently work as a Policy Analyst in the International Affairs Branch of Environment and Climate Change Canada. In other words, I work on representing Canada’s climate interests on the global stage. My job has a lot of responsibilities but the best way to describe my work is as follows: 

• I help prepare the Minister, Ambassadors, or senior civil servants to engage with other countries, international organizations, etc. on climate and energy related issues. 

• I coordinate with other countries bilaterally (country-to-country) or multilaterally (countries talking together) to pursue shared interests. 

This all sounds a bit vague so I’ll give an example of how this work plays out in real life. Let’s take the United Nations Climate Change Conference. It is the largest climate conference in the world featuring events and a negotiation where countries deliberate and agree on a shared global vision of how to tackle climate change. There are a lot of things to prepare including, 

• Getting the national delegation (a group of people who represent Canada and Canada’s interests at the international level) to the conference;

• Supporting their participation in events and meetings with other countries; and 

• Making sure countries come to a final agreement on ambitious actions to address climate change in the final negotiations. 

I am a part of a large team of public servants that supports all those actions for Canada. The impact of my work can be seen when countries agree to ambitious climate goals at multilateral events or when countries join forces to figure out how we actually meet our climate targets. It’s an honour and a privilege to take part in work that has a direct impact on the world. Learn more about these climate conferences in general and what came out of COP28, the UN climate conference from 2023. You can also learn about Canada’s impact at COP28, here.

I found this job through networking. I met an alum from my MPP program who sent me this job after we connected because they thought it would be an interesting opportunity given my previous work in climate and environmental policy. Networking is a great way to learn about different jobs and gain access to jobs that may not be shared on formal job boards. 

In terms of what policy analysts do in general, that’s a hard one to answer. Policy work is dependent on the file and the task (e.g. writing a new employment law vs. implementing a vaccine program). Policy analysts are asked to have a similar skillset: 

• The ability to communicate well, especially in writing. Communicating informative and succinct commentary in clear language is key to any policy job. 

• Research, analysis and critical reasoning. To do good policy work, you have to be able to back up your recommendations. Being able to lay out specific problems and how to solve them will be a big part of your job.

• Data literacy. Deriving information from raw data or at least being able to interpret data is critical for “evidence-based policy”. Evidence-based policy is the ability to ground policy in facts and rigorous evidence. 

• Synthesizing information. Policy requires you to look at different pieces of information from different fields (arts, philosophy, economics, science, etc.) and synthesize them into a cohesive story about what needs to be done. 

There might be other things people ask for like being subject matter expertise, but with these four buckets, you will be well on your way to being a good policy analyst.  

You’re the founder of Youth Policy Advocates’ Policy Corner. Can you tell us a bit more about this, and why you specifically believe that getting youth involved in policy is important to you? How can interested readers get involved with Youth Policy Advocates’ Policy Corner?

The YPA Policy Corner is an award-winning organization dedicated to providing policy publishing and skill-building opportunities for young people in Canada. Currently, we engage a community of more than 700 people across Canada and the world.

I co-created this organization in 2021 with a bunch of young people I met in the Youth Policy-Makers Hub, a program to help people pursue policy advocacy opportunities. We created this organization after recognizing and experiencing barriers that youth face when looking to enter and engage in the policy space. For those of us without a Political Science education and a policy job, opportunities to develop policy writing skills and publish our ideas are scarce. There’s a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation where policy employers want to see policy experience before they give you a job, but you kind of need the policy job to show that experience. We decided to close this gap a bit and offer young people an opportunity to gain policy experience that they can show off on their resume or to a potential employer.

Youth are leaders in their community and are currently on the frontlines of many crises, be it affordability or climate. I think it’s crucial that young people have the space and tools to advocate for their needs to decision-makers at any level of government. As a youth, I’m invested in supporting others so that they can bring change in their own communities. 

Interested readers can get involved by following our socials (see our website), contributing to our yearly Call for Papers to get published, or participate in training workshops (e.g. writing, research in policy, etc.). If you have other ideas for getting involved, reach out! We’re always happy to chat. 

What types of experiential learning opportunities did you have in undergrad that were the most pivotal in getting you to where you are today?

For extracurriculars, I would say the MacChangers program was pivotal in my shift to policy. The MacChangers program is an experiential program, available exclusively to McMaster students, where students are put into multidisciplinary teams to solve community-based challenges in Hamilton city. When I did this in my fourth year, my team and I worked to address opioid related overdoses in restaurants. Working with community partners and learning about policy sparked an interest in exploring how I can integrate community voices into policy implementation. When I graduated, I was lucky enough to work with the MacChangers program in 2020 to design an initiative that connected student-innovations to COVID-19 challenges faced by the Hamilton community. I learned a lot about what it takes to design a program that meets community needs and implement it; these are lessons I still carry forward for policy work. 

I was also a peer support volunteer at McMaster’s Student Health Education Centre, and volunteered on the Research and Advocacy Committee. Researching and working on public health campaigns for students helped me understand how to communicate with different members of the public and make an impact in the community. I learned how to listen to community needs and work with compassion, a necessary element for doing meaningful policy work.

Where can students go if they want to learn more about your experiences?

Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn! Always happy to chat: https://www.linkedin.com/in/harshiniramesh23/ 

Is there anything else that you would like to add for Invite Health readers?

Don’t feel pressured to figure things out. I am four years out of BHSc and still figuring out what my career will look like and what places I will work in. I think using my undergraduate degree to rule out what I didn’t like was a great way to define where my interest actually lay and figure out what I wanted to be good at, i.e., be a strong policy professional. Having an open mind to taking tangents in your education or jobs will make life richer and give you diverse experiences. 

Next Week on Invite Health 💌 

I interview Subaita Rahman, a trailblazer in the biotech field. She gives insight into her experiences as the co-founder of Nucleate Dojo, working as a student at one of Boston’s top Venture Capital Firms, and advice for students who want to break into the competitive VC field. Plus, learn about how she wants to solve the biggest problems in female reproductive health.

This interview will be available next week on Invite Health.

In the Community 👩🏻‍💻

• Follow Invite Health’s new Instagram page! @readinvitehealth

• Research Coordinator at Knowledge Institute on Child and Youth Mental Health and Addictions (paid)

• 2024 NHP Summer Research and Training Program (paid)

• Indigenous Internship Program at Ontario Government (paid)

• Education Program Postings (paid)

• UNICEF Leading Minds Fellowship on Climate (paid)

• BMO Capital Markets Canada Diversity Scholarship Summer 2025 (paid)

• Indus Summer Student Employment Opportunities (paid)

• Co-op Student, UX Analyst at CIHI (paid)

• Summer Positions at Public Health Ontario (paid)

• Kate McInturff Fellowship in Gender Justice – Summer 2024 (paid)

• Read last week’s interview with Ana Han:

How can you get the most out of Invite Health? 🫶

Invite Health is an invitation to build a network, learn a new skill, or find your next opportunity. Here’s how you can get the most out of Invite Health:

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3. Bet on yourself: Apply to the opportunities that are shared in the newsletters. You have nothing to lose, and so much to gain. And circling back to point #1 - always reach out to the interviewees if you want advice!

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