Aaron Hertzberg, a student in the Taubman Center’s Master of Public Affairs program, has been named executive director of the Pawtucket Foundation, a nonprofit organization that advocates for downtown, riverfront, and transportation improvements for the city of Pawtucket. Hertzberg, who had been program director at the local nonprofit since 2008, was promoted to the executive director position by the organization’s board of directors this month. Hertzberg said the Pawtucket Foundation would continue to help the city identify funding for a number of improvement projects including a plan to redesign downtown traffic patterns to smooth the flow of Pawtucket’s tangle of one-way streets. The city is also in the midst of a plan to develop the Blackstone Valley riverfront corridor with neighboring Central Falls. Hertzberg also plans to work toward increasing support for the city’s efforts to attract more culinary businesses to Pawtucket. The city is already home to Farm Fresh Rhode Island and New Urban Farmers, local leaders in the urban farming and farm-to-table movements. Hertzberg will continue to juggle coursework and his new job until this May, when he expects to complete his master’s degree.