Spotlight Series: National Leadership Council member and STS alumna, Michelle Hackman
Name: Michelle Hackman (STS 2011)
Job Title: Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
About Michelle: Michelle is a reporter in The Wall Street Journal鈥檚 Washington, D.C. bureau, where she covers immigration policy. Past beats have included education policy, health policy and campaign finance. Her work has appeared in many news outlets, including Neiman Reports, Vox and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Michelle first joined the Wall Street Journal in 2016.
Education: Michelle received her B.A. in Political Science and Psychology from Yale University.
Q. What does leadership mean to you?
A. To me, leadership means having any sort of public influence. Leadership can be a solitary thing 鈥� it could be a scientist working at a lab bench to develop the next life-saving vaccine or an engineer leading us to Mars. It could be a policymaker leading the direction of our country or a journalist (yes, I鈥檓 biased) shaping what we know to be true. That鈥檚 just a smattering. Obviously society needs to be led in all sorts of ways, and I consider anyone a leader if they are looking to have a public impact through their work.
Q. What is the most fulfilling aspect of your job?
A. As a journalist, I can walk up to anyone, call anyone and ask almost anything I want. I don鈥檛 always get the answer I want, but often I do, and the seeking itself can be a thrill. Add to that that my own curiosity is done in service of informing the public, and then try to tell me who has a better job.
Q. What鈥檚 the best advice you鈥檝e ever received?
A. I鈥檓 not answering this question exactly because I can鈥檛 think of one pithy bit of advice. But as a blind person, it鈥檚 occurred to me that I need to be a lot more trusting of strangers than the average person 鈥� and I鈥檓 really glad I am. Often, I鈥檒l stop strangers on the street to ask them for directions or just to see how many seconds there are left to cross. I don鈥檛 always feel dignified needing to ask; I鈥檇 much prefer to feel independent. But that sort of forced trust has definitely shaped my outlook in undoubtedly good ways. It has made it easier for me to talk to strangers and more curious about and empathic toward their points of view. So, if there鈥檚 a bit of advice I could give, it would be: approach the world with more trust.
Q. Is there a book that has had an impact on your life?
A. Just recently, in the depths of the pandemic winter, I picked up And the Band Played On on a whim. It is about the government鈥檚 failure in the 1980鈥檚 to fully reckon with the AIDS epidemic, which of course also became a deadly pandemic. It made me think about the consequences of not taking something unfamiliar seriously and, more broadly, the types of leaders we elect and who they bring with them. On a personal note, it drove home the importance of diverse perspectives in journalism. It鈥檚 likely the book would never have been written, and that history not known, if a young gay journalist hadn鈥檛 been so outraged by the collective apathy of newspapers across the country.
Q. How did the Society鈥檚 competitions impact you?
A. It鈥檚 tough to answer this question succinctly because the process of designing and carrying out my own science experiment in high school 鈥� not to mention the actual competition 鈥� influenced me so profoundly. The process of science, when done well, teaches you grit and collaboration; patience in working through problems as they come up and perseverance when it feels like the work ahead of you is incomprehensibly vast.
I learned so much about explaining my own reasoning just in the process of preparing for the questions the Science Talent Search judges asked me 鈥� like, ‘How many permutations could you make using the letters of the alphabet?’ I learned science concepts my STS week, through my friends鈥� projects, that I still think about today. I started thinking about an area relevant to me now鈥攖he impact of federal policy on scientific advancement 鈥� through our lobbying day on Capitol Hill. And, it must be said, that delicious STS food they served us definitely gave me a taste for the finer things in life.
