Kessely Hong is a Senior Lecturer in Public Policy and the Faculty Chair of the MPA Programs and the Mid-Career MPA Summer Program at the Harvard Kennedy School. She teaches both Degree Program as well as Executive Education students in the areas of negotiation and decision-making. Kessely was presented with the Manuel C. Carballo Award for Excellence in Teaching by the graduating class of 2015. She was also awarded the 2018 Holly Taylor Sargent Prize by the Women and Public Policy Program, for her work to advance the opportunities, situation and status of women within the HKS community. Kessely is interested in exploring strategies low-power or low-status parties can use to influence others through negotiation. She worked with a team of colleagues funded by the Hewlett Foundation Madison Initiative to develop teaching materials that demonstrate tools to make progress in partisan legislative negotiations. Before coming to the Kennedy School, Kessely worked for the management consulting firm McKinsey and Company and taught English in Ecuador. She earned her PhD in Public Policy and MPA from the Harvard Kennedy School, where she won the Dean's Award for Excellence in Student Teaching; her BA is from Harvard College.
