About From the Field

From the Field shares personal insights and stories from people working on some of the world's most pressing challenges.

The School for Moral Ambition

From the Field is a platform created and run by fellows at The School for Moral Ambition: professionals who left successful careers to work on challenges that are sizable, solvable, and sorely overlooked.

The fellowships fund this transition. Fellows receive salary support, training, and placement with leading organizations for at least a year. They work alongside experts who've been in these fights for decades, bringing fresh skills and perspectives to fields that need more people.

Right now, fellows are working on two crucial challenges: a tobacco-free future and the food transition. Fields where millions of lives hang in the balance, progress is possible, and far too few people are working on solutions that match the scale of the problem.

The Moral Ambition Fellowships Explained

Explaining The School for Moral Ambition’s Fellowships: what the model is, how it works, and why we built it. Consider it the context behind the stories you’re reading here.

From the FieldThe School for Moral Ambition

What You Can Expect

From the Field documents the reality of trying to change systems from the inside.

• First-person accounts: dispatches written while outcomes are still uncertain, before the polish of retrospective success stories.
• Insights from tobacco control and food system reform: what's happening at WHO negotiations, in Brussels policy rooms, and on the frontlines of these fights.
• Honest reflection on career transitions: what it actually feels like to leave a stable job and enter fields where moral ambition meets institutional friction.
• Updates on what's moving (and what's stuck): the small wins, the setbacks, and the moments when you understand why change is so hard.

So You Want To Fight The System?

Insights from the frontlines of moral ambition From the Field is a new writing platform where Moral Ambition Fellows share insights from the fields they’ve entered through our fellowships: the food transition and tobacco abolitionism. Think of it as a student newspaper, but for people taking on society’s

From the FieldLeon Postma

Behind From the Field

From the Field is edited and published by fellows at The School for Moral Ambition, with support from the organization's communications team.

This years editors are Rachel Gifford and Peter Halliwell.

The Fellows Behind From the Field

People who’ve spent years wanting to do more, meeting others who feel the same.

From the FieldPeter Halliwell

Get Involved

Ready to make the switch?
Our Fellowship programs fund professionals transitioning into high-impact work on tobacco control and the food transition. We provide salary support, training, and placement with leading organizations.

Have a story we should tell?
Know someone working through the friction between moral ambition and institutional reality? We want to hear from you.