Daniel Kennedy graduated from Washington University in St. Louis in 2015 with a BA in Anthropology and Latin American Studies, where he wrote his thesis on the unintended consequences of international development through child sponsorship. Before entering the MSTP Social Sciences Track at UCLA in August 2018, he worked as a community mental health worker in his hometown of Topeka, Kansas and at Advocates for Children of New York, an education advocacy non-profit, in New York City.