ZAKAREYA HAMED

I'm Zakareya Hamed, a Washington, D.C.-area student at Carnegie Mellon University pursuing a B.S. in Economics and Politics with a minor in Societal and Human Impacts of Future Technologies (SHIFT). My work sits at the crossroads of policy, strategy, and capital, with a focus on how institutions make decisions, allocate resources, and operate in regulated environments.

At Carnegie Mellon, I founded and lead Carnegie Strategy Group, a student-run consultancy that advises political campaigns and startups on strategy, legislative analysis, and government relations. I serve as an undergraduate student senator for Dietrich College and as U.S. Public Policy Editor of the Carnegie Mellon Policy and Law Review. I also consult with CMU’s 180 Degrees Consulting, where I worked with Riverlife, a Pittsburgh nonprofit, on its waterfront revitalization plan, and I am a student ambassador for the Scott Institute for Energy Innovation.

My professional experience spans consulting, venture capital, and government. I worked as a summer analyst at Mezoui Consulting Group, advising NGO clients on board development, compliance, and business development. I was a venture capital analyst at 99 Tartans, Carnegie Mellon's angel alumni investment syndicate, where I evaluated seed-stage startups and helped close a term sheet on an airline baggage automation startup. I also interned at the IRS on an AI-assisted tool for taxpayers, as part of the agency's modernization effort, and was a fellow at the Babel Institute, where I researched European AI governance and education policy.

In 2021, I co-founded Saphron Initiative, an education nonprofit that has grown to 12 states. Its work includes advocacy campaigns with national teachers' unions and Edisco, its news and analysis platform, where my writing has covered public school funding, voting rights, and education technology policy.