Chicago Tonight | WTTW Ameya Pawar: Alderman of the People
By Ash-har Quraishi
So far, Ameya Pawar appears to be bucking the political system in the way he appoints staff, deals with ward construction projects and runs his ward office. Some say the freshman alderman is the new face of… Read more
Crain’s Chicago Business: 40 Under 40 Class of 2011: Ameya Pawar
Ameya Pawar always wanted to work in government but didn’t have politics in mind until he found himself yelling at the TV during the 2004 presidential election. “I thought, ‘There’s a better way to talk about issues’ ” than mudslinging… Read more
About Ameya Pawar
Ameya is the Alderman of Chicago's 47th Ward. Prior to his election, Ameya was on staff at Northwestern University in the Office of Emergency Management. At Northwestern, Ameya was responsible for the development of a university-wide business continuity program.
While working at Northwestern, Ameya and two of his classmates from the University of Chicago were awarded a contract from Taylor and Francis to write a textbook based on their work in emergency management. The textbook is based on a model Ameya developed with Charna Epstein and Scott Simon at the University of Chicago's MSTRM program – the model is called Social Intelligence. Their work calls for the real-time aggregation of data to develop composite views of communities to better inform emergency preparedness, mitigation, response and recovery activities. Ameya and his co-authors have presented their work at annual FEMA conferences and other national conferences since 2008. Ameya holds a M.S. in Threat and Response Management from the University of Chicago and a M.P.A. in Public Administration from the Illinois Institute of Technology.
Ameya is currently enrolled in a third master's degree program at the University of Chicago in the school of Social Service Administration. In 2009, Ameya was a US State Department Scholar.
Ameya is also active in his community – he sits on the board of directors on the 47th Ward's Common Pantry and the state-wide advocacy organization, the Illinois Center for Violence Prevention. After taking office Governor Patrick Quinn appointed Ameya to serve on the Illinois Innovation Council (IIC) – Ameya will be working with IIC members and the Governor to help jump-start innovation and job creation in Illinois. Ameya is also an avid runner and hopes to one day learn to play the banjo.
