Last week our fellows found their placement in Congress, and we couldn’t be happier about where they’ve landed.
JC Cannon is serving with the Democratic office of the House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee (reporting to Ranking Member Levin and Ranking Member McDermott). He’ll be helping out on electronic health record privacy and interoperability and reviewing privacy standards for wellness program incentives that were expanded in the Affordable Care Act.
John Costello is serving with the Republican staff of the House Oversight and Government Reform IT Subcommittee (reporting to Chairman Chaffetz and Chairman Hurd). He is assisting the committee on all things cyber-security, and will be pitching in on encryption, the Office of Personnel Management breach and IT security standards across federal agencies.
Our placement process-- how the fellows found their homes on the Hill-- mirrored the methods of existing Congressional fellowship programs.
First, we organized a launch event on Capitol Hill on January 20th and invited staff and prospective offices to meet JC and John. It was a great way for the fellows to meet a lot of staff very quickly, and led to a number of informational interviews for each.
In addition, we spent a good portion of the orientation program brainstorming offices that might be good fits. The fellows thought through their expertise and skillsets, which we cross referenced with Committee jurisdiction in the House and the Senate. The fellows then conducted in-depth searches of their issue expertise, looking at recent action in each committee and the policy pages of the Members of Congress that served on each relevant committee.
After the scoping process, we had a list of 8 - 10 offices we thought could make for a good fit. We helped fellows connect with prospective offices, and spent two weeks setting up informational interviews.
JC and John both have some tangible projects that they are diving into head first. We’re excited to see how our first set of Congressional Innovation Fellows can contribute.