New America
Education Policy

Announcing New America's 2025 Future of Work & Innovation Economy Initiative Fellows

New America welcomes new experts to support public problem-solving at the intersection of science, workforce, and industrial policies and their implementation.
Blog Post
New America Future of Work & Innovation Economy initiative Fellows
Photo Credit: Natalya Brill, New America
By 

Shalin Jyotishi

Sept. 23, 2025

This article was produced as part of New America’s Future of Work and the Innovation Economy Initiative's ongoing research on science & tech, workforce, and economic development policy and implementation innovation. Subscribe to our Future of Work Bulletin newsletter to stay current on our latest research, events, and writing.

How can we ensure that technological innovation and scientific progress drive economic growth and improve the lives of all Americans?

What policies, implementation approaches, and enabling conditions are needed to effectively harness public and private investments in technological innovation, the workforce, and economic development to accelerate the renewal of the American middle class?

Unearthing the answers to this broad constellation of questions was the driving motivation for establishing the Future of Work & Innovation Economy (FOWIE) initiative at New America.

FOWIE is a nonpartisan research & storytelling, technical assistance, and policy incubator. Our mission is to catalyze policies and practices that promote and steer science- and technology-based economic development in a manner that strengthens its linkage to economic mobility for working and middle-class families.

We aim to ensure that the innovation economy creates good jobs, reliable pathways into those jobs, and that emerging technologies enhance the quality and experience of human work.

To accomplish that mission, we advance an improved and harmonized approach to federal science, workforce, and industrial policies and their implementation locally in states and communities. We work directly with communities and local institutions to hone our policy agenda, learn about implementation opportunities and challenges, and expand public awareness of the many strategies to grow America's innovation economy.

Over the past two years alone, our work has included:

Above all, we have sought to ensure that we learn, share, and collaborate with those closest to the problems we seek to solve. With intention and focus, we have centered student and worker voices across our writing, events, and Capitol Hill engagements.

Our work has appeared in international outlets including Forbes, USA Today, Fast Company, U.S. News and World Report, Politico, NPR, Chronicle of Higher Education, and Financial Times, as well as a variety of professional podcasts, Substack newsletters, and radio shows.

We have not built this work alone. Last year, we welcomed our inaugural class of FOWIE Fellows–Kay Firth-Butterfield, Antonio Delgado Fornaguera, and Joanna Mikulski– who bring decades of experience and expertise spanning government, industry, and academic leadership.

Today, we’re excited to welcome our 2025 class of FOWIE Fellows, who will help us advance scholarship, policy entrepreneurship, and technical assistance across a range of FOWIE mission pillars for the important work ahead.

We are just getting started, and we are honored to continue working with a diverse group of thinkers and doers in the year ahead.

Meet New America’s 2025 FOWIE Cohort of Fellows

V. Celeste Carter most recently served as Program Director of the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF)’s Advanced Technological Education program from 2009 to 2025, leading one of the most significant skilled technical workforce grantmaking programs in the federal government. From 2001 to 2003 and 2007 to 2008, she served as a program director in the NSF’s Division on Undergraduate Education. She served on the faculty and as director of the biotechnology and bioinformatics program at Foothill College. Learn more.

Carter will help advance FOWIE’s work on skilled technical workforce training at community colleges, including our ongoing research to strengthen the NSF’s contribution to the skilled technical workforce in emerging and critical technology areas.

Francie Genz is the CEO of the Institute for Networked Communities and a nationally recognized expert in regional economic and workforce development strategy. She has worked with regional teams and state system leaders across the country to build durable partnerships with industry and align institutions in service to inclusive growth. Her work spans hands-on facilitation, strategic advising, and the design of implementation frameworks that integrate economic and workforce development systems. Learn more.

Genz will help advance FOWIE’s work on workforce development strategies for place-based innovation ecosystems, and tech-based economic development.

Adam P. Fagen has spent his career working at the interface of science and society with a focus on science policy, science education, communications, workforce and training, and non-profit society management. He most recently served as Director of External Affairs for the Association of Science and Technology Centers, where he made the case for science and technology centers and museums and the importance of public engagement with science. He spent five years as executive director of the Genetics Society of America, Director of Public Affairs for the American Society of Plant Biologists, and as Senior Program Officer at the U.S. National Academies. Learn more.

Fagen will support FOWIE’s work examining scientific professional associations and their present role and future potential in supporting the STEM workforce.

Phillip A. Singerman is a recognized national innovator in public-private partnerships that promote economic development, job creation, and national security through technology development, transfer, and deployment. His five-decade career includes senior executive positions in the private and public sectors at the local, state, and federal levels, including serving as Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Economic Development and Associate Director for Innovation and Industry Services at the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology. Learn more.

Singerman will help advance FOWIE’s work on new models for science, innovation, industrial policy and tech-based economic development implementation.

Jeffrey M. Alexander has over 30 years of experience in policy, strategy, and research on national and regional efforts to advance science, technology, and innovation. His professional experience includes positions at SRI International (the former Stanford Research Institute) and the Research Triangle Institute (RTI International). His research and analysis in measuring and evaluating R&D and innovation programs have been funded by NASA, the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Departments of Energy, Commerce, and Defense, among other agencies. Learn more.

Alexander will help advance FOWIE’s work focused on strengthening science and industrial policy development and implementation, with a focus on new models and approaches for public-private partnerships.

Shalin Jyotishi is the Founder and Managing Director for New America's Future of Work and Innovation Economy initiative, Forbes contributor, and a Visiting Scholar in Science & Technology Policy at Arizona State University. Follow Shalin on BlueSky, X, and LinkedIn.