Debbie Cheng is the Director of Fellowship Programs and the Office of Student Success at the Colin Powell School. She oversees a range of undergraduate and graduate fellowships, all of which support students working toward public service careers. These opportunities enable students from across the college to become leaders and gain expertise on pressing issues such as climate change, racial justice, LGBTQ+ rights, and inequality. In addition, she oversees the Office of Student Success, launched in Spring 2022, which supports students in their career and professional development. Prior to the Colin Powell School, Cheng was Program Officer of the Mellon Mays Graduate Initiatives Program, based at the Social Science Research Council. She has a PhD from UC Berkeley’s Energy and Resources Group, where her research focused on access to water and water privatization in her hometown of Manila, Philippines.
Education
- PhD, Energy and Resources Group, University of California Berkeley, 2013
- MS, Environmental Engineering, Stanford University, 2000
- SB, Environmental Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1998
Courses
- Colin Powell Fellowship Seminar I and II
- Cheng, Deborah. 2015. Contestations at the Last Mile: The Corporate-Community Delivery of Water in Manila. Geoforum. 59: 240-247.
- Cheng, Deborah. 2014. The Persistence of Informality: Small-scale Water Providers in Manila’s Post-Privatization Era. Water Alternatives. 7(1): 54-71.
- Cheng, Deborah. 2013. (In)visible Urban Water Networks: The Politics of Nonpayment in Manila’s Low-Income Communities. Environment and Urbanization. 25(1): 249-260.
