Polsky Policy Fellow, 2026
Kai Foster is a third year at the college studying Public Policy and Committee on Environment, Geography and Urbanization. Foster is interested in sustainable energy and transportation policy where he has previously done work with Nutter Consulting. Around campus, you can find him leading tours, helping out Phoenix Sustainability Initiative or acting as Vice President of University of Chicago Democrats.
As a Polsky Policy Fellow, he worked with Atlas Public Policy. His work focused on electric vehicle policy research and data collection, culminating in two publications on affordability in the electric vehicle market. Foster completed additional research in other areas like clean energy deployment and clean water and rivers.
“Finishing my final publication with the company was great. I wrote a 1600-word report on the used vehicle market that I did all the research and data analysis for. I was given a lot of independence on the project even though I ended up going through about 5 rounds of edits before I had a finished project, but the feedback really improved my writing and work.”