Maxwell Zhu is an MPP candidate at the Jackson School of Global Affairs specializing in space policy. He believes that U.S. space exploration should serve the public interest, not just private actors, and he leverages his interdisciplinary expertise to drive U.S. space policy toward that goal.
 
Before Yale, Maxwell served as a public sector consultant supporting the U.S. Space Force, where he led policy analysis workshops, proposed policy recommendations, and provided expertise on Congressional legislation to implement digital transformation projects. Additionally, Maxwell evaluated hundreds of space, quantum, and AI/ML commercial solutions to help the federal government identify and validate public-private partnership opportunities. Previously, Maxwell worked with the government relations team at Blue Origin and volunteered with the non-profit Space Generation Advisory Council.
 
Maxwell holds a joint bachelor’s degree in physics and government from Harvard, where his senior thesis on the political and economic governance of asteroid mining received the Bennett Prize for best undergraduate thesis on U.S. public policy.