Future Leaders of Schools of Public Service
Mentors 2022-23
Matthew Auer, University of Georgia
Nisha Botchwey, University of Minnesota
Victoria DeFrancesco Soto, University of Arkansas
Susan Gooden, Virginia Commonwealth University
Carla Koppell, Georgetown University
Halima Leak Francis, Tulane University
Siân Mooney, Indiana University
Rosemary O'Leary, Kansas University
Sara Rinfret, Northern Arizona University
Carissa Slotterback, University of Pittsburgh
Ian Solomon, University of Virginia
Stacey Swearingen White, University of Illinois Chicago
Lois Takahashi, University of Southern California
David Van Slyke, Syracuse University
Susan Webb Yackee, University of Wisconsin- Madison
David Wilson, University of California, Berkeley
Matthew Auer Program Co-chair
School of
Public
and International
Affairs
University of Georgia
Matthew R. Auer is dean and arch professor of public and international affairs at the School of Public and International Affairs, University of Georgia (UGA). Prior to his appointment at UGA, Auer served as vice president for academic affairs and dean of the faculty at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine. Prior to Bates, Auer was dean of the Hutton Honors College at Indiana University (IU) and professor of international environmental affairs at the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at IU.
Auer has authored or co-authored more than 60 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters on environmental, energy, and foreign aid policy. He has served in a variety of public policy roles at national and international levels. Auer was senior adviser to the US Forest Service from 2001 to 2006, and during that time was a member of the US delegation to the United Nations Forum on Forests and to the International Tropical Timber Council. Auer has implemented and evaluated energy and environmental aid programs on behalf of US federal agencies or other governments in, among other countries, Azerbaijan, Bolivia, Chile, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Estonia, Georgia, Laos, Mexico, Poland, Thailand, and Vietnam.
Contact Matthew: matthew.auer@uga.edu
Nisha Botchwey
Program Co-chair
Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs
University of Minnesota
Nisha Botchwey, PhD, serves as the dean of the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at University of Minnesota. Previously, Botchwey served as associate dean for academic programs at Georgia Tech Professional Education. In that role she was responsible for developing academic programs, overseeing all academic offerings and curriculum, and leading outreach and student affairs. She played a key role in leading Georgia Tech’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Botchwey’s research and teaching have been at the nexus of environmental and health policy and the built environment, with a special focus on youth engagement and health equity. Over her career, she has been awarded more than $16 million from leading agencies and foundations as principal investigator or co-PI on more than 30 grant-funded projects. The impact of Botchwey’s public health and social justice work was recognized in 2021 with the prestigious Dale Prize for Excellence in Urban and Regional Planning, and in 2016 by the White House Council on Women and Girls. Botchwey also serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Planning Education and Research.
Victoria DeFrancesco Soto
Clinton School of Public Service
University of Arkansas
Contact Nisha: botchwey@umn.edu
Victoria DeFrancesco Soto is dean of the Clinton School of Public Service at the University of Arkansas and previously served as assistant dean at the LBJ School of Public Affairs. She is also a political analyst for NBC News and Telemundo. DeFrancesco Soto is the first Latina dean at a presidential institution, and she was named one of the top 12 scholars in the country by Diverse magazine. She previously taught at Northwestern University and Rutgers and received her PhD in political science from Duke University.
Her areas of expertise include civic engagement, women, immigration, Latinos and political psychology. Underlying all of her research interests is the applicability of high-quality, rigorous research to on-the-ground policy realities. DeFrancesco Soto has spent over two decades bridging academic, practitioner, community, and media realms in her quest to cultivate public service engagement across our national landscape. An awardwinning professor, she is deeply passionate about the intersection of curricular and community-based learning and cultivating dynamic classroom environments that are responsive to our realworld context.
Contact Victoria: dean.soto@clintonschool.uasys.edu
Susan Gooden
Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs
Virginia Commonwealth University
Susan Tinsley Gooden, PhD, is dean and professor at the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). She is an internationally renowned scholar in the area of social equity. She has received numerous awards including a Fulbright Specialist Award, the Charles H. Levine Memorial Award for Excellence in Public Administration, the Jewel Prestage Pioneer Award, and the Herbert Simon Best Book Award presented by the American Political Science Association.
Within the broader community, she serves on the executive boards of numerous nonprofit and public sector organizations. She is president of the Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs, and Administration (NASPAA), the world’s leading accreditor of master’s degree programs in public affairs, a past president of the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA), and a fellow of the congressionally chartered National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA). Within Virginia, her contributions include gubernatorial appointments to the boards of the Virginia Retirement System and the Virginia Community College System.
Carla Koppell
Walsh School of Foreign Service
Georgetown University
Contact Susan: stgooden@vcu.edu
Carla Koppell has a long and distinguished international affairs career. Prior to arriving at Georgetown, Koppell was a U.S. Institute for Peace vice president, leading the Center for Applied Conflict Tranformation. During the Obama Administration, Koppell was USAID chief strategy officer and senior coordinator for gender equality and women’s empowerment. In the Clinton Administration, she served as deputy assistant secretary for international affairs for the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. Outside of government, Koppell has directed the Institute for Inclusive Security, led the conflict prevention project at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and worked for the food and agriculture organizations of the United Nations. Koppell is widely published and an experienced public speaker. She has worked in over 30 conflict zones and developing nations in every region of the world.
Contact Carla: carla.koppell@georgetown.edu
Halima Leak Francis Siân Mooney
John Lewis Public Administration Program, School of Professional Advancement
Tulane University
Dr. Halima Leak Francis (she/her) is a nationally accomplished educator, practitioner, and scholar whose career-spanning more than 20 years has focused on strengthening capacity, sustainability, and equitable practices within nonprofits, philanthropy, and higher education administration. She joined Tulane SoPA in 2019 to lead the development of the school’s public administration program. As the program’s founding director and professor of practice, she worked with school leadership and advisors to steer curriculum design; recruit a nationally accomplished faculty; and secure Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges accreditation. Under her leadership, the program exceeded launch expectations by tripling initial enrollment projections and was later named in honor of the late US Congressman John Lewis –reinforcing its role as a contemporary voice for advancing inclusive public service and community leadership.
Leak Francis holds a BA in English from Hampton University, as well as an MA in sociology of education and a PhD in higher education administration from New York University. Leak Francis holds the Carnegie Corporation of NY Professorship in Social Entrepreneurship at Tulane’s Taylor Center for Social Innovation and Design Thinking.
Contact Halima: halima@tulane.edu
O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs
Indiana University
Siân Mooney became the fifth dean of the Indiana University Paul H.O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs on August 1, 2019. Her research interests lie in questions related to the use of natural resources and the environment. She is an economist that has worked for many years on topics related to water use in the western United States, endangered species and the impacts of climate change, and has secured more than $4 million in external grant funding. Recently, she has become interested in the incentives that scientists face to address complex problems as part of multidisciplinary teams and the role of science information in decision-making.
Dr. Mooney came to Indiana University from Arizona State University, where she served as associate dean for interdisciplinary programs and initiatives for the College of Public Service and Community Solutions and as a professor in the School of Public Affairs. At ASU, Mooney directed college-level graduate degree programs, oversaw curriculum, and facilitated the approval process for academic programs across the college. She also coordinated international programs including study abroad.
Contact Siân: simoon@iu.edu
Department of Politics and International Affairs
Northern Arizona University
Program Co-chair
Graduate School of Public and International Affairs
University of Pittsburgh
Dr. Sara Rinfret has more than a decade of higher education administrative experience and is a nationally recognized scholar in regulatory policy, environmental policy, and public administration. She previously served as the acting dean for the Alexander Blewett School of Law, chair of the department of public administration and policy, and the director of master of public administration at the University of Montana. To date, she has published 8 books, more than 40 peer reviewed articles, and several book chapters. She is the recipient of the Fulbright Specialist Program in public administration and studied with scholars at the University of Aarhus (Denmark, 2016). Additionally, she’s an award-winning teacher, most recently receiving Montana’s Educator of the Year Award. Currently, she serves on the executive council for NASPAA (the global accreditation body for MPA programs). She holds an MPA from the John Glenn College of Public Affairs (Ohio State), and PhD in political science from Northern Arizona University.
Dr. Carissa Slotterback is dean and professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh. Since arriving at the University of Pittsburgh in October 2020, she has led major efforts in the school around diversity, equity, and inclusion; development and alumni engagement; research capacity building; and enhancing student experience. She is a widely published scholar in the areas of stakeholder and public engagement and decision-making related to environmental and land use policy and planning. She has a particular interest in how stakeholders perceive impacts and use information in making decisions, focusing on impact assessment and collaborative decision-making approaches. She has received funding for her research from organizations such as the US Department of Agriculture, National Science Foundation, and Minnesota Department of Transportation.
Contact Sara: sara.rinfret@nau.edu Contact Carissa: cslotterback@pitt.edu
Ian Solomon
Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy
University of Virginia
Ian H. Solomon is a professor of practice and dean of the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy, where he leads a multidisciplinary faculty of scholars and practitioners who are committed to creating new knowledge, developing ethical effective leaders, and advancing solutions to humanity’s greatest policy challenges.
Trained as a lawyer, Solomon is a devoted student and teacher of both negotiation and conflict resolution. Over the course of his career, he has dedicated himself to improving the lives of people across the globe by integrating insights from his experiences in higher education, government, the private sector, and international organizations.
Originally from New York City, Solomon earned his AB from Harvard University and his JD from Yale Law School. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and has traveled and worked extensively in Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America. Today, he lives with his family on the Grounds of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.
Stacey Swearingen White
College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs
University of Illinois Chicago
Contact Ian: ihs8m@virginia.edu
Stacey Swearingen White is dean of the College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs (CUPPA) at UIC. She joined the college on July 1, 2022 coming from the University of Kansas (KU), where she began her career as an assistant professor of Urban Planning. At KU, she served as the chair of the Urban Planning Department, cofounder and director of academic programs for the KU Center for Sustainability, and associate director of the environmental studies program. Most recently, she served as director of the KU School of Public Affairs and Administration.
Swearingen White’s research focuses on sustainability innovation at the local level, including emphases on water quality and campus sustainability. She has also contributed to recent work on the role of emotions in planning. Her research and teaching interests reflect her interdisciplinary training. She received a BA in philosophy from Emory University, a MS in environmental studies from the University of Montana, and a PhD in land resources from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Contact Stacey: staceysw@uic.edu
Lois Takahashi
Price School of Public Policy
University of Southern California
David Van Slyke
Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs
Syracuse University
Lois Takahashi is the Houston I. Flournoy professor of state government and director of the USC Price School of Public Policy in Sacramento. Her research focuses on public and social service delivery to vulnerable populations in the U.S. and in Southeast Asian cities. Her research includes work on homelessness and HIV/AIDS in Los Angeles, community opposition toward social services in the U.S., social capital and health for vulnerable populations, and environmental governance in the US and Southeast Asian cities.
Dr. Takahashi is a past director of the University of California, Asian American and Pacific Islander, Policy Multi-campus Research Program (UC AAPI Policy MRP), where she worked with state elected officials and community organizations to develop policy relevant studies that highlight areas of importance for California’s AAPI population. She was president of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (2015-2017). And she served as interim dean of UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs from August 2015 through December 2016.
Contact Lois: lmtakaha@usc.edu
David M. Van Slyke is dean of the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University and the Louis A. Bantle chair in business-government policy. He is a tenured, full professor at the Maxwell School and a two-time recipient of the BirkheadBurkhead Award and Professorship for Teaching Excellence. Van Slyke is a leading international expert on public-private partnerships, public sector contracting and contract management, public and nonprofit management, and policy implementation. He is a member of the Defense Business Board (2020, 2021-Present), a former director (2015-2021) and fellow (2010-) of the National Academy of Public Administration, and a member of the National Academy of Public Administration’s Expert Advisory team for the Office of the Inspector General at the Department of Homeland Security (2021-2022). He is actively engaged in the Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs, and Administration (NASPAA) and co-chaired the 2021 annual conference, the Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs, and the University Leadership Council on Diversity and Inclusion in International Affairs Education. Van Slyke serves on the editorial boards of several top-ranked public affairs and nonprofit management journals including the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory.
Contact David: vanslyke@syr.edu
Susan Webb Yackee
La Follette School of Public Affairs
University of Wisconsin- Madison
David Wilson
Goldman School of Public Policy
University of California, Berkeley
Susan Webb Yackee is director of the La Follette School of Public Affairs and a Collins-Bascom professor of public affairs at UWMadison. Her research and teaching interests include the U.S. public policymaking process, public management, regulation, administrative law, and interest group politics. Yackee has published articles in a number of journals, including the American Political Science Review, Journal of Politics, Public Administration Review, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, British Journal of Political Science, and Journal of Policy Analysis and Management.
Yackee received the 2019 Herbert A. Simon Career Contribution Award from the Midwest Public Administration Caucus. It is the highest award in the field of political science for the study of bureaucracy and public administration. She also received the Kellett Mid-Career Award for her research from UW-Madison in 2019. Yackee’s article “Clerks or Kings? Partisan Alignment and Delegation to the U.S. Bureaucracy” (with Christine Palus) won the 2017 Beryl Radin Award for the best article published in the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory in the previous year.
Contact Susan: syackee@lafollette.wisc.edu
David C. Wilson, PhD was appointed dean of the Goldman School of Public Policy (GSPP) at University of California, Berkeley in July 2021. Prior to leading GSPP, he spent 15 years at the University of Delaware, where he served as a professor of political science and psychology, and spent eight years as an associate dean for the social sciences, in the College of Arts & Sciences. In 2018, he led the creation of the Joseph R. Biden Jr. School of Public Policy. Dean Wilson is an expert in public opinion and political psychology. His research incorporates survey-based experiments to study political behavior and policy preference on highly contentious social issues. He is also the co-author of Racial Resentment in the Political Mind (University of Chicago Press, 2022).
Prior to his time at University of Delaware, he worked as a senior researcher for the Gallup Polling Organization in Washington, DC. At Gallup, he led analytic consulting practice teams focused on employee engagement, performance measurement, and statistical reporting.
Contact David: dcwilson@berkeley.edu
Rosemary O'Leary
School of Public Affairs and Administration
University of Kansas
Rosemary O'Leary is the Edwin O. Stene distinguished professor emerita at the University of Kansas. Previously she worked at Indiana University-Bloomington (professor) and the Maxwell School of Syracuse University (inaugural Phanstiel distinguished professor of strategic management and leadership). Rosemary has been actively engaged in public policy formulation and public management from many different perspectives, including that of practitioner, analyst, scholar, teacher, consultant, and university administrator. She has led divisions, institutes, programs, and a school of public affairs. She remains attuned to and engaged in the particular problems and opportunities of higher education, especially in the social sciences. Rosemary was president of the Public Management Research Association 2017-2019. In 2019, the International Research Society for Public Management (IRSPM) established the “Rosemary O’Leary Prize” for excellence in scholarship on women and public administration. In 2021, the Academy of Management chose the 3rd edition of her book, "The Ethics of Dissent: Managing Guerrilla Government" (CQ Press 2021) as the winner of the "Best Book in Public Management" Award. In 2021 she was awarded the Duncombe Award for outstanding mentoring of PhD students, given by the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration.
Contact Rosemary: oleary@ku.edu
Future Leaders of Schools of Public Service
Mentees 2022-23
Domonic Bearfield, George Washington University
Brandi Blessett, University of Minnesota
Mary Bruce, Governors State University
Julia L. Carboni, Syracuse University
Niambi Carter, University of Maryland
Yingling Fan, University of Minnesota
Emmanuel Frimpong Boamah, University at Buffalo
Tia Sherèe Gaynor, University of Minnesota
Elsie Harper-Anderson, Virginia Commonwealth University
Gary Hollibaugh, University of Pittsburgh
Osamah F. Khalil, Syracuse University
Michael Lens, University of California, Los Angeles
Cathy Liu, Georgia State University
Elaine Lu, City University of New York- John Jay College
Cullen Merritt, Indiana University
Francisco Pedraza, Arizona State University
Saba Siddiki, Syracuse University
Candis Watts Smith, Duke University
Brian Williams, University of Virginia
Domonic Bearfield
Trachtenberg School of Public Policy & Public Administration
George Washington University
Dr. Domonic Bearfield’s research focuses on issues related to governance in public administration and on improving the understanding of public sector patronage. Dr. Bearfield’s work has appeared in Public Administration Review, Review of Public Personnel Administration and other leading journals. He is the coeditor, with Melvin Dubnick, of the Encyclopedia of Public Administration and Public Policy (Taylor & Francis, 2015). Dr. Bearfield was awarded the 2021 SPAA Faculty Service Award for outstanding service to SPAA’s students, faculty, and the greater SPAA community and the 2022 SPAA Faculty Teaching Award for significant contributions to SPAA students’ intellectual lives through superior teaching practices.
Contact Domonic: dbearfield@gwu.edu
Brandi Blessett
Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs
University of Minnesota
Brandi Blessett, PhD, is an associate professor in the leadership and management area in the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Blessett has developed a reputation as a socially conscious researcher, administrator, teacher, and community partner. Her personal ethic has always been to center the lived experience to offer more robust insights by those directly impacted by administrative decisions. Dr. Blessett earned a bachelor of science from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and holds a masters in educational leadership from Wayne State University in Detroit. After teaching as a high school health and life skills teacher at Highland Park Community High School, she decided to pursue her doctorate at Old Dominion University. Her dissertation was titled “Dispersion or Resegregation: A Spatial and Temporal Analysis of Public Policies and their Impact on Urban African American Mobility.” This work serves as the foundation for her research interests.
Mary Bruce
Public Administration Program
Governors State University
Contact Brandi: brandib@umn.edu
Dr. Mary D. Bruce is a full professor and a global educator who leads the public administration program and the not-for-profit and social entrepreneurship concentration at Governors State University in Illinois. Dr. Bruce’s publications center around four main research streams: public policy concerns, disaster readiness, human resource management, and framing in media, policy, and politics. She has also published collaboratively on research that investigates leadership and stress as well as workplace violence policies. Dr. Bruce teaches strategic planning and human resource management both in-person and online. She is the chair of strategic planning efforts and a board member on the Consortium for International Management, Policy. Dr. Bruce traveled to China with graduate students from Governors State University’s College of Business and Public Administration. She served as a visiting professor at the Makerere University School of Business in Kampala, Uganda. She has presented research papers in the United States, Senegal, Uganda, Namibia, and Zambia. Dr. Bruce was awarded a certificate of appreciation for exemplary service for her role in chairing the Pi Alpha Alpha Steering Committee/The Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs, and Administration (NASPAA) from 2019-2022.
Contact Mary: mclark@govst.edu
Julia L. Carboni
Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs
Syracuse University
Julia L. Carboni is an associate professor in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, where she teaches courses on nonprofit management and fund development. Her research focuses on collaborative arrangements designed to address large-scale social issues and social media use and management by nonprofit organizations. She is a chair of the Citizenship and Civic Engagement Program.
Carboni serves on national committees for several professional associations including the Academy of Management, the American Society for Public Administration and the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action. She also serves on the advisory board for the Indy Food Council. Prior professional experience includes managing youth mentoring and graduate education programs and alumni fundraising for academic units. She was previously an assistant professor in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs and the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at Indiana University.
Contact Julia: jlcarbon@syr.edu
Niambi Carter
School of Public Policy
University of Maryland
Dr. Niambi M. Carter is an associate professor in the School of Social Policy at University of Maryland. She is the author of the award-winning text American While Black: African Americans, Immigration, and the Limits of Citizenship (Oxford University Press, 2019). Her research examines the public opinion and political behavior of African Americans, with a particular emphasis on immigration. Her next book-length project examines U.S. Haitian refugee policy from the Carter administration to the Biden administration. A former Woodrow Wilson Center Fellow, Dr. Carter is a recipient of an National Science Foundation grant as part of the Build and Broaden initiative. Her work has appeared in a number of outlets, such as the DuBois Review; Politics, Groups and Identities; and the National Review of Black Politics.
Contact Niambi: nmcarter@umd.edu
Yingling Fan
Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs
University of Minnesota
Yingling Fan is professor of urban and regional planning at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota. Her research centers on human well-being and people’s lived experience in urban environments for building healthy and just communities. As a community-engaged and interdisciplinary scholar, she has advanced the broader institutional efforts in higher education for promoting research that is the most relevant to the interests of communities and the challenges facing society. Her collaborative scholarship has attracted more than 20 million US dollars in research grants either as the principal investigator (PI) or co-PI. Her academic leadership includes serving as the founding director of the university-wide Global Transit Innovations program (2015-2020), the PhD program director at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs (2019-2022), editor-in-chief at Urban Studies (2022), and co-chair of the Global Planning Education Committee at the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (2019-2022). She is also co-founder and chief scientific officer at Daynamica, Inc. a start-up company developing digital health tools for capturing human activity and well-being data.
Contact Yingling: yingling@umn.edu
Emmanuel Frimpong Boamah Department of Urban and Regional Planning University at Buffalo
Dr. Emmanuel Frimpong Boamah is an associate professor and the interim chair of the urban and regional planning department at The State University of New York at Buffalo. His work seeks to understand and reform the planning processes and institutional structures that impede and ‘weaponize’ planning interventions against historically marginalized communities. He has published in some of the leading planning and cross-disciplinary journals, including Planning Theory, Journal of the American Planning Association, Urban Studies, Food Policy, and World Development. Emmanuel currently advises the World Health Organization’s Urban Health Unit to develop an implementation toolkit for communities and governments as part of the WHO Housing and Health Guidelines. Some of his ongoing research projects are funded by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the National Science Foundation, the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research, and the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. He co-directs the university’s Community for Global Health Equity, and is a board member of the Buffalo Niagara Waterkeeper, and the UB Community Health Equity Research Institute.
Contact Emmanuel: efrimpon@buffalo.edu
Tia Sherèe Gaynor
Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs
University of Minnesota
Tia Sherèe Gaynor, PhD, is an associate professor in leadership and management at the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs at University of Minnesota. Prior to joining the UMN faculty, Dr. Gaynor was an associate professor of political science and founding director of the Center for Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation at the University of Cincinnati.
Tia is a community-engaged scholar immersed in equity and inclusion. Her work explores the intersection of social justice, local government, and identity. More specifically, focusing on the ways identity-based narratives, negative social constructions, and decision-making lead to inequitable outcomes for people of color, those who identify as LGBTQIA, and people at the intersections of these and other identities. Her most recent work sits at the nexus of mindfulness, intergroup dialogue, and racial healing to explore avenues toward equity and justice.
In its entirety, Dr. Gaynor’s scholarship offers a critical analysis of hegemony and argues against the normative assumptions embedded in the traditional theory and practice of public and nonprofit administration.
Contact Tia: tsgaynor@umn.edu
Elsie Harper-Anderson
Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs, Virginia Commonwealth University
Dr. Elsie Harper-Anderson’s research examines the impact of macroeconomic transformation on regional economies and urban labor markets with a focus on social equity and sustainability concerns. Her recent work focuses on understanding entrepreneurial ecosystems and their impact on building inclusive economies. Her other scholarship has focused on understanding and enhancing the connection between workforce development and economic development. She serves on the advisory board for the City of Richmond’s Office of Community Wealth Building. Prior to academia, her work included significant experience evaluating economic development, workforce development and housing programs for local, state and federal agencies such as Department of Labor, Economic Development Administration, and Housing and Urban Development. Dr. Harper-Anderson has also worked as a practitioner administering federal housing and economic development programs at the local level. She teaches courses related to economic development, labor markets and urban development policy. Harper-Anderson is the recipient of the 2016 Wilder School Excellence in Teaching Award.
Contact Elsie: elharperande@vcu.edu
Gary Hollibaugh
Graduate School of Public and International Affairs
University of Pittsburgh
Gary E. Hollibaugh, Jr. is an associate professor and director of the program in public administration in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh. He teaches courses in public administration, public policy, and quantitative methods, and his research investigates how executives and legislators respond to electoral and institutional constraints, how public administrators respond to decisions made by political elites, and the roles of personality and other psychological traits within these processes.
Contact Gary: gary.hollibaugh@pitt.edu
Osamah F. Khalil
Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs
Syracuse University
Osamah Khalil is an associate professor of history and chair of the undergraduate international relations program at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship of Public Affairs. He received his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. Khalil is the author of America’s Dream Palace: Middle East Expertise and the Rise of the National Security State (Harvard University Press, 2016) and the editor of United States Relations with China and Iran: Toward the Asian Century (Bloomsbury, 2019).
Contact Osamah: ofkhalil@syr.edu
Michael Lens
Luskin School of Public Affairs
University of California, Los Angeles
Michael Lens is associate professor of urban planning and public policy, and associate faculty director of the Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies. Dr. Lens’ research and teaching explore the potential of public policy to address housing market inequities that lead to negative outcomes for low-income families and communities of color. This research involves housing interventions such as subsidies, tenant protections, and production. Professor Lens regularly publishes this work in leading academic journals and his research has won awards from the Journal of the American Planning Association and Housing Policy Debate.
In ongoing research, Lens is studying the neighborhood context of eviction and the role of charter schools in neighborhood change. He is engaged in multiple projects (with Mike Manville and Paavo Monkkonen) concerning housing supply in California. Lens is also working on a book project that examines fifty years of neighborhood change in Black neighborhoods following the 1968 Fair Housing Act.
Cathy Liu
Andrew Young School of Policy Studies
Georgia State University
Contact Michael: mlens@ucla.edu
Cathy Yang Liu is a professor and chair of the department of public management and policy at the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University. Dr. Liu conducts research and publishes widely on topics related to community and economic development. She addresses urban policy and economic development issues in the context of changing urban spatial form, demographic dynamics and economic processes with attention to social equity. Recent topics include urban labor market and inequality, job and service access, contingent workforce, the creative economy, ethnic entrepreneurship, immigration policy, as well as international urban development. Her edited book titled Immigrant Entrepreneurship in Cities: Global Perspectives was published by Springer in 2021. Her research has been supported by many funding agencies and organizations.
Dr. Liu currently serves as a senior associate editor for Journal of Urban Affairs, an associate editor for Economic Development Quarterly, and an associate editor for Regional Studies, Regional Science. She received her PhD in urban planning from the University of Southern California and master of public policy from the University of Chicago.
Contact Cathy: cyliu@gsu.edu
Elaine Lu
Department of Public Management
City University of New YorkJohn Jay College
Elaine Lu is a professor and director in the department of public management at the City University of New York-John Jay College. 2021 marks the 21st year of her involvement in the field of public policy and administration. Her primary field of study is fiscal policy and performance accountability. Her book, Public Performance Budgeting: Principles and Practice (2019), is published by Taylor and Francis with co-author, Dr. Katherine Willoughby. She engages with professional associations in various capacities on numerous occasions, including but not limited to: a commissioner of NASPAA’s Commission on Peer Review and Accreditation (COPRA), board member of the Center for Accountability and Performance, executive committee member of the Section of Public Performance and Management (SPPM), the chair of section of Chinese Public Administration of American Society for Public Administration (ASPA), the board member for the Section for Women in Public Administration (SWPA) and a member of the government agility network of National Academy of Public Administration. She sits on the editorial boards of three journals (two in the US and one international).
Contact Elaine: ylu@jjay.cuny.edu
O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs
Indiana University
Dr. Cullen C. Merritt is an associate professor in the O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) and an associate editor at Public Administration Review. He studies the implications of an organization's publicness on its management strategy and performance. Additionally, he illuminates the management competencies integral to addressing public service challenges and the strategies that enable organizations to develop these competencies. Dr. Merritt’s research appears in Public Administration Review, The American Review of Public Administration, Public Administration, Perspectives on Public Management and Governance, Public Personnel Management, and numerous other outlets. His research has been nationally recognized by the American Society for Public Administration (2021 Article of the Year Award, Section on Democracy and Social Justice) and the American Political Science Association (2014 Paul Volcker Award, Public Administration Section). He earned his PhD in public administration and master of public administration from the University of Kansas and a bachelor of arts in political science from Texas A&M University.
Contact Cullen: merritt1@iupui.edu
Francisco Pedraza
School of Politics and Global Studies
Arizona State University
Francisco I. Pedraza (PhD University of Washington, 2010) is a political scientist at Arizona State University in the School of Politics and Global Studies. He is associate director of the Center for Latina/os and American Politics Research at ASU, and the coordinator of the Politics of Race, Immigration, and Ethnicity Consortium. Francisco’s research centers on political attitude formation and political behavior, with a special emphasis on the attitudes and behaviors of racial and ethnic minorities in the US. His research draws on sociological, psychological, and policy processes theoretical frameworks to better understand individuallevel policy preferences, electoral candidate preferences, political knowledge, and other political orientations like trust in government. His substantive research interests also include the relationship between immigration policy and health policy. From 2012-2014 Francisco was in residence at the University of Michigan as part of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Scholars in Health Policy Research Program. Methodologically, he specializes in the design and deployment of surveys, including survey-embedded experiments, designed to investigate aspects of racial and ethnic minority politics. His specialization in surveys includes the development of survey items in English and Spanish.
Contact Francisco: fpedraz2@asu.edu
Saba Siddiki
Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs
Syracuse University
Saba Siddiki is an associate professor of public administration and international affairs in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. She also serves as director of the Maxwell School’s Center for Policy Design and Governance and MPA program director. Her research expertise is in policy design, collaborative policymaking, institutional theory and analysis, and regulatory implementation and compliance. She has studied these topics primarily in the contexts of food and environmental policy. Her research has been published in leading public affairs journals, including the Policy Studies Journal, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Public Administration Review, Public Administration, among others. She is also the author or editor of multiple books, including Understanding and Analyzing Public Policy Design (Cambridge University Press) and Institutional Grammar: Foundations and Applications for Institutional Analysis (Palgrave Macmillan).
Contact Saba: ssiddiki@syr.edu
Candis Watts Smith
Department of Political Science
Duke University
Candis Watts Smith is associate professor of political science at Duke University, where she also received her BA, MA, and PhD Professor Smith’s expertise highlights the role race, racism, and structural inequality play in shaping the American political landscape. Smith is the author of dozens of articles as well as three books: Black Mosaic: The Politics of Black Pan-Ethnic Identity (2014), Stay Woke: A People’s Guide to Making Black Lives Matter (2019), and Racial Stasis: The Millennial Generation and the Stagnation of Racial Attitudes in American Politics (2020). Smith has translated her research for wider audiences, such as writing for the Washington Post, recording an Audible Original on the history of politics & race in America, and presenting a TED Talk on three myths about racism that has been viewed over 2 million times. She is a faculty-in-residence on Duke’s 1st year campus, and the faculty director of the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship, a program designed to diversify the pipeline in humanities and social sciences graduate programs.
Contact Candis: cw.smith@duke.edu
Brian Williams
Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy
University of Virginia
Brian Williams is an associate professor of public policy in the Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia, after previous faculty appointments at Florida State University, Vanderbilt University and the University of Georgia (UGA), as well as administrative appointments at UGA and Vanderbilt. William’s research centers on issues related to demographic diversity, local law enforcement, and public governance, with special attention devoted to the co-production of public safety and public order. He is interested in understanding how the assorted experiences and perceptions of officers and members of the public affect the formation and functioning of their working partnerships to understand and mitigate or address community problems. Williams is currently involved in research projects that study how law enforcement professionals experience and manage work-related trauma that they encounter during their daily routine.
Contact Brian: bnw9q@virginia.edu