PHILADELPHIA -- Christopher Patusky has been named deputy director of the University of Pennsylvania's Fels Center of Government and its master degree program.

Patusky, a founding partner of the Washington, D.C. law firm Mahon Patusky, Rothblatt & Fisher, will serve as the chief operating officer of Penn postgraduate education program for government leaders.

"Chris brings just the right combination of outstanding leadership talents and academic excellence to help consolidate and advance the growth of the Fels Center into a nationally prominent program," said Fels Center Director Lawrence W. Sherman.

A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Northwestern University and Harvard Law School, Patusky has just completed his Master of Government Administration degree at Fels. His specialty in legal practice was helping to manage start-up firms from inception to operation.

For the past year, Patusky served as the M.G.A. program intern in Philadelphia Office of the City Controller, working on plans for new tax policies in Philadelphia.

The 100-student Fels Center was founded in Penn Wharton School in 1937 to conduct and apply research on best practices in local and state government, as well as to educate future government leaders. In 1999 the Center was incorporated into Penn's School of Arts and Sciences to strengthen the link to the growing body of social science research on "what works, what doesn, and what promising in government practice," Sherman said. (See www.sas.upenn.edu/fels).