Emma Parrott

Emma Parrott is from the small town of Mont Vernon, New Hampshire. She graduated from Harvard College with a concentration in Social Studies, focusing on politics, class dynamics, and constitutional narratives in modern America.

Her senior thesis, “The City That Trees Abandoned,” was an interview-based study of the formerly thriving mill town of Berlin, New Hampshire. The project examined the causes and consequences of rightward political shifts in working-class communities following the 1990s closure of the city’s largest employer, a paper mill. Her work explored how geographic sorting and the migration of certain populations in and out of the region shaped political worldviews and contributed to the rise of conservative identity in the Androscoggin Valley.

She is passionate about using history and qualitative study to understand the present day. At Harvard, she researched constitutional law and the Reconstruction Era under faculty at the Law School and the Radcliffe Institute, worked as a research assistant at Harvard Business School, and was a member of the Harvard Undergraduate Law Review.

Emma rowed for the Radcliffe Heavyweight Crew Team and founded the Athlete Coalition at the Institute of Politics to build lasting connections between public service and Harvard’s athletic community. She also served as a liaison to IOP Fellows and contributed to its Policy Program.

Her commitment to public service has shaped her summers. She interned for Congressman Chris Pappas in Washington, Chancellor Rachel Reeves in the U.K. Parliament, and for Elissa Slotkin during her successful U.S. Senate campaign in Michigan.

A photographer at heart, Emma holds a secondary in Studio Art. Her photography has taken her from the Yorkshire Dales to deep ranch land in the West to Weld Boathouse on the banks of the Charles River.

At Cambridge, she will pursue an MPhil in American History as the William Shirley Scholar at Pembroke College. She is always searching for good light, clear water, and a story worth telling.