BA Student Sami Shaikh Selected as 2025 New Jersey State Policy Lab Intern

Sami Shaikh, an undergraduate at Rutgers University-Newark, double-majoring in Public Administration and Economics, and a member of the Rutgers-Newark Debate Team, was selected as a 2025 summer intern at the New Jersey State Policy Lab, where he was tasked with evaluating economic policies at both the federal and state levels and examining their effects in New Jersey.

At the beginning of the summer, each NJSPL intern selected a public policy topic in order to research and study throughout their 10-week internship. At the end of the program, they presented on their respective areas of public policy research. These presentations served as a capstone to the internship, and represent a culmination of the work they accomplished in this time.

Shaikh's research project, "Innovation Districts and Their Effect on Urban Economies," examined how innovation districts positively and negatively impact cities and opportunities to enhance the relationship between them.  

About The New Jersey State Policy Lab
In April 2021, the New Jersey State Policy Lab began as the result of a grant from the New Jersey Office of the Secretary of Higher Education (OSHE), establishing a policy research center run as a partnership between the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers-New Brunswick and the School of Public Affairs and Administration at Rutgers-Newark.