2020 APPAM Mentors

Back by popular demand, the Mentor Matching Program connects a diverse group of policy academics and researchers with student members at our Fall 2020 Virtual Research Conference. Participants in the 2020 program are invited to connect virtually during the conference. We would like to thank our members who have volunteered to serve as a mentor for 2020. You may review the mentor biographies, by program area, below.

If you are an APPAM student member who is interested in receiving mentoring, you will need to review the list of mentors below and complete the mentor matching program application. You will be asked to provide your top four choices for mentors as well as area of interest and type of mentoring interested in. Pairing is done on a first come, first served basis and will begin the first week of September. If a mentor is marked as *MATCHED*, do not include them in your top four choices. In the event that one of your top four choices is not available, matching will be based on research interest and type of mentoring sought.

Interested in getting involved as a mentor? Follow us on twitter and check APPAM.org next summer for details on the 2021 Mentor Matching Program.

For more information, check the Mentor Matching Program page or contact Ryan Martz at rmartz@appam.org with any questions or concerns. Please note: the deadline to fill out a mentee application is October 16th 2020, and announcements will be made later in October.

Mentor Policy Areas

Crime, Justice & Drugs     Economics     Education     Employment & Training Programs     Family & Child Policy

Government & Politics     Health Policy     Housing & Community Development     Methodology/Analysis

Natural Resource, Environment, & Energy     Population & Migration     Poverty & Income Policy

Public & Nonprofit Management     Public Finance  Science & Technology     Social Equality & Race

Mentor Biographies by Policy Area

(Alphabetical by Last Name)

Crime, Justice & Drugs

Type of Mentoring: Overall Professional Development, Research Guidance

Economics

Elena Andreyeva, Assistant Professor, Texas A&M University *MATCHED*

Type of Mentoring: Research Guidance, Overall Professional Development, Job Document Review
Prefer to Mentor: Either

I'm a health economist who works on issues in U.S. health insurance market and rural health. I also have background in urban economics and spatial econometrics. I currently serve as an Assistant Professor at the Health Policy and Management Department at Texas A&M University’s School of Public Health. My research interests include disparities in geographic access to healthcare services, such as home health, hospitals, and maternal care; the effect of public policies on crime, housing, and health choices, such as risky behaviors and preventive care. I also study changes in organizational structure of healthcare providers, such as hospitals, including mergers and closures, and their effect on healthcare costs, health outcomes and utilization. I have expertise in working with large datasets including Medicare/Medicaid claims, commercial claims, home health datasets, human resources and timestamp datasets, Behavioral Risk Factors Surveillance System, and Census products such as the American Community Survey.

Daniel Litwok, Senior Scientist, Abt Associates *MATCHED*
Type of Mentoring: Job Document Review, Overall Professional Development, Research Guidance, Fellowship Application Assistance
Prefer to Mentor: Either

Daniel Litwok, Ph.D., is an economist with expertise in program evaluation and social policy. His work has specific focus on employment and education for low-income populations and individuals involved with the criminal justice system. Dr. Litwok has authored reports funded by the U.S. Department of Labor, Administration for Children & Families, Department of Education, and Bureau of Justice Statistics. His academic work has appeared in peer-reviewed journals such as the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Criminal Justice Review, and the American Journal of Evaluation. He earned his Ph.D. from Michigan State University in 2015. Dr. Litwok regularly teaches econometrics at the Krieger School of Arts & Sciences at Johns Hopkins University as well as an annual short course on implementing and evaluating randomized controlled trials in the School of Public Affairs Analytics & Management Institute at American University. He looks forward to learning about his mentee’s career aspirations and supporting them through whatever means are most useful (job doc review, research guidance, etc.).

Anthony Orlando, Assistant Professor of Finance, Real Estate, & Law, California State Polytechnic University, Pomona *MATCHED*
Type of Mentoring: Job Document Review, Research Guidance, Overall Professional Development
Prefer to Mentor: Either

I am entering my third year as a tenure-track assistant professor, so I cannot pretend to have longstanding expertise in academia. However, I can provide insight into the job market and the early years of professorship. Additionally, I served on my department's hiring committee last year, so I can share my observations from the other side of the interviewing table. Finally, as a graduate of a public policy school and a member of an interdisciplinary department, I can offer some perspective on the challenges of being a public policy researcher trying to brand oneself while straddling different methodologies and/or disciplines.

Maria Fernanda Rosales, Assistant Professor, Rutgers University *MATCHED*
Type of Mentoring: Research Guidance, Overall Professional Development
Prefer to Mentor: Ph.D. Students

Maria Fernanda is an applied microeconomist and her research fields include human capital, health, and development economics. Her main research area examines the impacts and interactions of different social interventions and family investments in the process of human capital formation in the short and long-term, and whether these effects translate to the next generation. Another area of her research studies the link between environmental factors and human capital outcomes across the life cycle. Professor Rosales is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Economics at Rutgers University-Newark. She received her PhD in Public Policy from the Harris School at the University of Chicago. Previously, she was an Assistant Professor at UC Irvine and a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Department of Economics and Center of Health and Wellbeing at Princeton University.

Abhishek Saurav, Economist, World Bank
Type of Mentoring: Job Document Review, Overall Professional Development, Research Guidance, Fellowship Application Assistance
Prefer to Mentor: Either

Dr. Abhishek Saurav, Economist - Private Sector Development and Investment Climate, The World Bank Group, Washington DC, USA.

Dr. Saurav is an international economist at the World Bank Group in Washington DC. He leads high-level policy advisory and research on foreign direct investment (FDI), industrial development, job creation, women’s economic empowerment, and productivity growth. To identify critical areas of timely public policy support to businesses, he is currently leading global research and advisory to investigate the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the private sector and identifying remedial public policy support to developing countries. His work uncovers the effects of demand and supply-side shocks triggered by the pandemic on global supply chains, firm liquidity, worker productivity, output, employment, and business performance. His more recent works focus on post-COVID-19 recovery, prioritizing building back greener (private sector growth that is environmental sustainability), smarter (leveraging digital platforms to deliver development), and fairer (to ensure that outcomes are attainable for all social groups). Dr. Saurav holds a doctorate from the George Washington University, where his work investigated the effect of entrepreneurship on economic development and the long-run effects of migration on source economies. He received his Master’s degree in public policy (with concentration in International Governance) from the George Mason University, and Bachelor’s degree in information technology from the University of Delhi. He is an Indian national and a resident of the United States.

William Wheeler, Economist, US EPA *MATCHED*
Type of Mentoring: Overall Professional Development
Prefer to Mentor: Either

Will Wheeler is an Economist in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s National Center for Environmental Economics where he works on a variety of projects but for the most part, he focuses evenly between water quality benefits and policy; and enforcement issues. He earned his PhD in Agricultural Economics from Penn State University. Prior to his current position, Will was in EPA’s Office of Research and Development, where he managed EPA’s Economics and Decision Sciences STAR grant program, and the Office of Water, where he conducted cost-benefit and other analyses for water regulations. He has recently published in a several journals, including the Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis, Land Economics, and the Review of Environmental Economics and Policy; he has also authored or co-authored numerous EPA publications including the Environmental Economics Research Strategy and the Ecological Benefits Assessment Strategic Plan. He is an occasional blogger at env-econ.net.

 

 

Education

Paul Bruno, Assistant Professor of Education Policy, Organization, and Leadership, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Type of Mentoring: Job Document Review, Overall Professional Development
Prefer to Mentor: Either

I am an assistant professor of education policy, organization, and leadership in the College of Education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I use quantitative methods to study school finance, school choice, resource allocation in schools, and teacher quality. In addition to working with - and writing policy briefs and reports for - policymakers and practitioners, my research has been published in a variety of peer-reviewed journals, including Educational Policy, Journal of Education Finance, American Educational Research Journal, and Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis. I completed a PhD in urban education policy and a MA in economics at the University of Southern California. Prior to enrolling at USC I earned a MA in science and math education and BAs in philosophy and molecular biology from the University of California, Berkeley and taught middle school science in Oakland and Los Angeles, California. I just completed a cycle on the job market and am just starting a tenure track faculty position. So those things are fresh in my mind these days and I’m more than happy to provide any advice that might be helpful to students expecting to do similar things in the near future.

Chris Curran, Associate Professor and Director of the Education Policy Research Center, University of Florida
Type of Mentoring: Job Document Review, Overall Professional Development, Research Guidance
Prefer to Mentor: Either

F. Chris Curran is an Associate Professor and Director of the Education Policy Research Center at the University of Florida. He was previously an Assistant Professor of Public Policy at the UMBC School of Public Policy. His research focuses on educational equity with a particular emphasis on school discipline and safety. He utilizes both quantitative methods for causal inference and qualitative fieldwork in his research. He is excited to share his experiences with mentees and work to develop the next generation of public policy scholars and practitioners.

Rajeev Darolia, Associate Professor, University of Kentucky *MATCHED*
Type of Mentoring: Overall Professional Development, Research Guidance
Prefer to Mentor: Ph.D. Students

Rajeev Darolia is an Associate Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the University of Kentucky. He serves as Associate Director of Martin School of Public Policy, where he is also Director of Graduate Studies for the PhD and MPA programs. Dr. Darolia is a Visiting Scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, a Research Fellow at the IZA Institute of Labor Economics, a Research Affiliate at the UK Center for Poverty Research, and a 2018 National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow. He serves as an Associate Editor for Education Finance & Policy and is on the editorial boards of Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, Journal of Higher Education, and Educational Researcher. Dr. Darolia’s current research interests include questions about how public policy affects economic mobility and financial security, especially related to education policy. Current research projects include studies of policy effects in higher education, student debt, and consumer credit markets.

Shaun Dougherty, Associate Professor of Public Policy & Education, Vanderbilt University *MATCHED*

Type of Mentoring: Overall Professional Development, Job Document Review
Prefer to Mentor: Either

Shaun M. Dougherty (Ed.D., quantitative policy analysis, Harvard University), is an Associate Professor of Public Policy & Education at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College of Education & Human Development. His research and teaching interests focus on education policy analysis, causal program evaluation and cost analysis, and the economics of education, with an emphasis on career and technical education, educational accountability policies, and the application of regression discontinuity research designs. Across these substantive areas, he emphasizes how education can address human capital development as well as issues of equity related to race, class, gender, and disability. Dougherty’s work has been published in leading journals and has been cited by major media outlets. He has received research funding from IES, the Smith Richardson Foundation, and the Institute for Research on Poverty, which also recognized him as an Early Career Scholar. In addition, he is a Strategic Data Project Faculty Adviser through the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard University, and has conducted applied policy analysis with several states and large districts, as well as the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, and the Manhattan Institute.

Margaret Hennessy, Research Analyst, MDRC *MATCHED*
Type of Mentoring: Overall Professional Development, Research Guidance
Prefer to Mentor: Masters Students

I am interested in offering professional development guidance to current policy Masters students having been one myself not too long ago. I would be happy to share useful information about the job application and search process, working in a non-profit research firm, and navigating the transfer of skills from school to work. Hennessy has worked as a project manager and qualitative researcher on several projects since joining MDRC in 2018. She is currently the project manager for Improving Engagement in Elementary School Selection, an intervention to help families navigate the kindergarten application process launched by MDRC’s Center for Applied Behavioral Science in partnership with the New York City Department of Education. She is also the implementation researcher on the evaluation of City Year’s whole school whole child model, and she oversees research operations on the Strategic Adolescent Reading Intervention. Before joining MDRC, Hennessy conducted qualitative research on an evaluation of Texas Court Appointed Special Advocates for the Child and Family Research Partnership and worked for the New America Foundation. Hennessy holds a Master of Public Affairs degree from the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas Austin and a BA in economics from Lake Forest College.

Agustina Laurito, Assistant Professor, University of Illinois at Chicago *MATCHED*
Type of Mentoring: Job Document Review, Overall Professional Development, Research Guidance, Fellowship Application Assistance
Prefer to Mentor: Either

Agustina Laurito is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Public Administration. She is an applied policy researcher who uses administrative and survey data and quasi experimental methods to answer questions at the intersection of social, education, and health policy. Agustina is broadly interested in how adverse experiences affect children and families and the role of public policy in ameliorating these effects. Among her current projects, she studies food assistance programs, and SNAP in particular, neighborhood crime and children, and more recently the effect of the opioid crisis on children and families. Agustina is also interested in immigrant families and children and her projects in this area investigate the role of non-school factors, including the home country, in shaping immigrant children academic success and well-being.

Dave Marcotte, Professor, American University, School of Public Affairs *MATCHED*
Type of Mentoring: Overall Professional Development, Fellowship Application Assistance, Research Guidance, Job Document Review
Prefer to Mentor: Ph.D. Students

Dave E. Marcotte, PhD, is Professor in the Department of Public Administration and Policy, and the Director of the Washington Institute for Public Affairs Research. His research interests are mainly in the areas of educational achievement in elementary and secondary education, and access and attainment in post-secondary education. He has been PI or co-PI on several large-scale studies of interventions to improve academic outcomes for students in K-12 and higher education settings. Dr. Marcotte was responsible for the research design and conduct of an assessment of outcomes from vocational and community college education carried out as part of the National Assessment of Vocational Education. He has also conducted numerous studies of determinants of postsecondary enrollment and sub-baccalaureate education. His training is in evaluation and applied research methods in education settings. He has published dozens of articles in the leading scholarly journals in public policy and evaluation, including Education Finance and Policy, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Educational Researcher, Economics of Education Review, and Education Evaluation and Policy Analysis and is co-editor of Journal of Policy Analysis and Management. He has also managed large research grants from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the Ford Foundation, among others.

Jay Plasman, Assistant Professor, The Ohio State University *MATCHED*
Type of Mentoring: Overall Professional Development, Job Document Review, Research Guidance
Prefer to Mentor: Ph.D. Students

Jay Plasman is an assistant professor in the Workforce Development and Education in the College of Education and Human Ecology at the Ohio State University. Prior to joining The Ohio State University, he was a postdoctoral fellow in the Institute of Education Policy at Johns Hopkins University. His research focuses broadly on education policy and explores the pipeline of career and technical education between high school and college along with the role this type of education has on high school dropout rates and college considerations. He formerly worked as a teacher at each of the elementary, middle and high school levels. Plasman also served as the Director of Education at a vocational training school for several years prior to pursuing his PhD.

Christopher Weiss, Principal Associate, Abt Associates
Type of Mentoring: Overall Professional Development, Research Guidance
Prefer to Mentor: Either

Christopher Weiss, Ph.D., has a wide range of experience and expertise in knowledge development through systematic evidence reviews and evaluations in federal agencies. That experience includes spearheading evidence-related initiatives with partners across government—both domestic and international—as well as foundations, professional associations, and nonprofit organizations. He also develops strategies for communication and knowledge dissemination to diverse audiences of stakeholders, including policy makers, practitioners, administrators, and researchers. Prior to joining Abt, Weiss served as Team Lead for the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) and oversaw all aspects of the U.S. Department of Education’s (ED) resource for evidence on education effectiveness. He led work on updating the WWC’s standards and procedures – and on conveying changes to researchers and the broader WWC community. As a member of ED’s Evidence Planning Group, Weiss helped ED staff develop improved evaluation plans and program metrics. His work experience also includes roles as Director, Substance Use and Mental Health Program, at the Vera Institute of Justice; Senior Research Analyst, Langer Research Associates, New York University; and Clinical Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, also at New York University. He led the Quantitative Methods in the Social Sciences, Columbia University’s interdisciplinary applied research methods graduate program for a decade of continuous improvement and growth. Prior to that, he co-founded Built Environment and Health Research Group, an interdisciplinary research team studying the influence of features of the urban environments on obesity.

Lucy Sorensen, Assistant Professor, University at Albany, SUNY
Type of Mentoring: Job Document Review, Overall Professional Development, Research Guidance
Prefer to Mentor: Either

Hello! I am an Assistant Professor in the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy at University at Albany, SUNY. I graduated from Duke University in 2016 with a PhD in Public Policy Studies, and a concentration in Economics. Prior to graduate school, I worked as an economic analyst at Abt Associates, Inc. In my research, I use administrative longitudinal data and quasi-experimental methods to examine questions surrounding K-12 education policy, human development, and social inequality. I look forward to speaking to current PhD students about navigating graduate school, conducting education research, going on the public policy job market, making the transition to an Assistant Professor, going into public sector consulting, work/life balance, or any other topics of interest.

Employment & Training Programs

Jillian Berk, Deputy Director of Research and Evaluation, Mathematica *MATCHED*
Type of Mentoring: Job Document Review, Overall Professional Development
Prefer to Mentor: Ph.D.

Students I have worked as a public policy professional for 15 years, and I would enjoy the opportunity to help others begin their professional careers and advance in the field. My research at Mathematica focuses on employment and training programs for economically vulnerable populations, including the justice-involved, dislocated workers, workers with disabilities, and disconnected youth. Beyond my research, I also focus on hiring, mentoring, and staff development. I have reviewed hundreds of researcher applications, attended dozens of job talks, and counseled candidates as they made decisions about their careers. I can use that experience to provide mentoring on the job market as well as overall career development. Although I can provide more advice on the non-academic job market, I have experience with academic job search and considering the tradeoffs between non-academic and academic positions. I have a PhD in Economics and an AB in Public Policy from Brown University.

Family & Child Policy

Maria Cancian, Dean/Professor, McCourt School of Public Policy, Georgetown University *MATCHED*
Type of Mentoring: Overall Professional Development
Prefer to Mentor: Ph.D. Students

Maria Cancian is Dean of the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University. Her research considers the dynamic between public policies and family wellbeing—both how policies shape choices and outcomes for families, and how family change creates new challenges and opportunities for public policy. Ongoing projects analyze the interactions of the incarceration, child welfare and child support systems, as well as the implications of multiple partner fertility for family organization and policy. She has advised local, state, and federal agencies on policy initiatives designed to improve outcomes, especially for low income and otherwise vulnerable families. Most recently, she served as a Principal Investigator for the national Child Support Noncustodial Parent Employment Demonstration (CSPED), and, as a Casey Family Programs Senior Fellow, worked with the City of New York on innovative efforts to improve coordination between the child welfare and child support systems.

Matt Stagner, Vice President, Mathematica
Type of Mentoring: Overall Professional Development 
Prefer to Mentor: Either

Matthew W. Stagner is a Vice President and Director of the Chicago office for Mathematica Policy Research. He joined Mathematica in 2013 after serving as Executive Director of Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago, and, before that, as a center director at The Urban Institute in Washington, DC. In the 1990s, he directed the Office of Children and Youth Policy for the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Dr. Stagner focuses on the evaluation of programs and comprehensive approaches to helping families and children. Currently in his work at Mathematica, he leads several projects on improving the child welfare system and works closely with states on human services reforms. He holds a Ph.D. from The Irving B. Harris School of Public Policy Studies at the University of Chicago and a Masters in Public Policy from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. He is Past President of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.

Government & Politics

James Brandell, Government Policy Advisor, Dykema
Type of Mentoring: Overall Professional Development
Prefer to Mentor: Either

James. Brandell is the leader of Dykema's federal government relations team. With more than 20 years of public policy experience on the state, federal, and international levels, Dr. Brandell has extensive experience crafting and implementing legislative and political strategy; attracting, managing, and retaining talented staff; and developing and managing multi-million dollar budgets. He advises and advocates on behalf of some of the nation's most recognized companies, trade associations, and non-profits. His areas of work for clients include taxation, international trade, and health care. He earned each of his masters and doctoral degrees while working in full-time capacities.

Stephen Coulthart, Assistant Professor, University at Albany *MATCHED*
Type of Mentoring: Job Document Review, Research Guidance
Prefer to Mentor: Ph.D. Students

Stephen Coulthart (Ph.D. University of Pittsburgh) is an Assistant Professor in the College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security, and Cybersecurity at the University at Albany. Dr. Coulthart’s research focuses on intelligence analysis and the impact of emerging technologies on security. Specifically, his research agenda focuses on three areas: (1) how homeland and national security organizations implement information technology, especially “big data” technologies; (2) the effectiveness and government adoption of new intelligence analysis methodologies; and (3) how academia provides human capital to the US national security enterprise. His research has been published in Intelligence and National Security, International Affairs, and the Journal of Conflict Resolution, among others. He is the lead editor of Researching National Security Intelligence: Multidisciplinary Approaches (Georgetown University Press). Dr. Coulthart has contributed commentary to outlets such as “Defense One” and the Washington Post’s “Monkey Cage” and “Grade Point.” In 2018, Dr. Coulthart was selected by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to serve with other experts to analyze emerging national security technologies. He is also a fellow with the Truman National Security Project and has conducted analysis as well as provided training support to numerous governmental and non-governmental entities in the United States and Europe.

Jenni Owen, Director of Strategic Partnerships, Office of the Governor/State Budget and Management *MATCHED*
Type of Mentoring: Job Document Review, Overall Professional Development, Research Guidance, Fellowship Application Assistance 
Prefer to Mentor: Either

Appointed to Director of Strategic Partnerships by North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, Owen identifies and launches partnerships between state government, universities/colleges, philanthropy and other entities. The strategic partnerships team works with policy officials and scientists to identify research priorities; establishes and convenes networks of public sector and research experts to institutionalize engagement between the sectors; creates and implements learning opportunities for a wide a range of stakeholders; and bridges the work of philanthropy with that of state government. Primary goals include capitalizing on external research expertise for positive impact on policy and increasing internal-to-government research capacity. Stemming from challenges that emerged during COVID-19, the team led, with other partners, the first-ever survey of all NC nonprofit organizations and a statewide internship program to match students from across NC who lost internships with local government and non-profit organizations with capacity needs for COVID-19 response. Both of these initiatives have implications for policy and decision making by government and philanthropy.

Owen was previously Policy Director for the Governor, working closely with cabinet agencies and other state, local, and non-governmental partners to inform and act on the Governor’s policy priorities. Prior to joining the Cooper administration, she was the Director of Policy Engagement and on the faculty of the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University. She co-directed the Duke University School Research Partnership, was the principal investigator for foundation-funded projects, and served as director of the University-Based Child and Family Policy Consortium. In 2007, Owen was awarded an Eisenhower Fellowship to South Africa. Before Duke, Owen was the planning director for the Hunt Institute for Educational Leadership and Policy. Among other civic roles, she was a commissioner on the North Carolina Indigent Defense Services Commission, is a board member of El Futuro and the Durham Children’s Initiative, and a member of the policy council of the Association of Public Policy Analysis and Management.

Health Policy

Michael Doonan, Associate Professor MPP Program Director, Brandeis Heller School for Social Policy and Management *MATCHED*
Type of Mentoring: Job Document Review, Overall Professional Development 
Prefer to Mentor: Either

Michael Doonan is an associate professor and Director for the Masters of Public Policy Program, Schneider Institute for Health Policy at The Heller School for Social Policy and Management, Brandeis University. He is the Executive Director of the Massachusetts Health Policy Forum. His Ph.D. from Brandeis is both in Political Science and Health Services Research. His research and publications focus on issues related to access to health care reform, federalism, Medicaid, federal/state relations, public health and the politics and economics of health system change. He speaks widely on state and national health care reform. He is author of American Federalism in Practice: The Formulation and Implementation of Contemporary Health Policy, published by the Brookings Institute Press in 2013. Michael worked as program specialist for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), in the area of Medicaid managed care and state health care reform. He served as a member of President Clinton's Health Care Taskforce working primarily on the Low-Income and Working Families work group, and as a member of the Taskforce Speakers Bureau. Michael also worked as a fellow for the U.S. Senate Finance Committee as they considered national reform in 1994. He began his career as a legislative aide for Senator John Kerry where he worked on health and environmental issues.

Erika Martin, Associate Professor & PhD Director, University at Albany  *MATCHED*
Type of Mentoring: Overall Professional Development, Research Guidance 
Prefer to Mentor: Either

I am passionate about improving the health of our communities by strengthening our public health delivery systems, translating evidence-based research into public health practice, and promoting data-based decision making among public health agencies. My research focuses on the adoption and impact of public health policies, the allocation of scarce public health resources, HIV/AIDS and related syndemics, and public health data infrastructure. I frequently work with government agency staff on collaborative research projects. As a trained health services researcher, I used mixed methods approaches including statistical analysis of public health and healthcare data, qualitative interviews, systems modeling, and cost analysis. I also direct our PhD program, and my work with PhD students has inspired me to write a "PhD Hacks" column for the Journal of Public Health Management and Practice with strategies to navigate PhD life. I look forward to connecting with masters and doctoral students!

Lilliard Richardson,  Director of the Public Policy School, Penn State University *MATCHED*
Type of Mentoring: Overall Professional Development,  
Prefer to Mentor: Ph.D. Students

Lilliard Richardson is the Director of the Penn State School of Public Policy and Professor of Public Policy. He received his Ph.D. in government from the University of Texas and his B.A. in international studies from Missouri State University. He has been on the faculty at Duke University, the University of Tennessee and the University of Missouri, and he served as an executive associate dean in the Indiana University School of Public and Environmental Affairs.

Richardson's research focuses on the policy analysis of health and safety policies, and he has taught courses on policy process, program evaluation, policy analysis, health policy, and research methodology. He has published over forty articles in refereed academic journals, such as the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Health Affairs, American Journal of Public Health, Policy Studies Journal, Evaluation Review and Legislative Studies Quarterly. He is a past president of the State Politics and Policy Association and has served on several editorial boards. Richardson held a Fulbright Fellowship in Belgium, and he has taught in China, Thailand, and the United Arab Emirates.

I am happy to serve as a mentor. In recent leadership roles, I have been very involved in the hiring and promotion processes, and I can help answer a lot of questions from that perspective. We do not yet have a doctoral program in our school so I miss working with doctoral students and look forward to learning about the research interests and career goals of the student.

Bryan Tysinger, Research Assistant Professor, University of Southern California
Type of Mentoring: Job Document Review, Research Guidance, Overall Professional Development
Prefer to Mentor: Either

I am a Research Assistant Professor of Health Policy and Management at the Sol Price School of Public Policy at the University of Southern California. I also direct the Health Policy Microsimulation team at the Leonard D. Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics at USC. My career path has been varied, with several years as a research programmer and quantitative analyst before switching to a faculty position. Seeing research from both perspectives has been quite valuable. My research focuses on microsimulation of health and health-related economic outcomes, always with an eye towards policy. I work both domestically and internationally.

Housing & Community Development

Arthur Acolin, Assistant Professor, University of Washington
Type of Mentoring: Research Guidance, Job Document Review, Overall Professional Development
Prefer to Mentor: Either

Arthur Acolin is an Assistant Professor and Bob Filley Endowed Chair in the Runstad Department of Real Estate in the College of Built Environments at the University of Washington. He obtained his Ph.D. in Urban Planning and Development from the Sol Price School of Public Policy at the University of Southern California in May 2017. His dissertation, titled “Three Essays on Frictions in Housing Markets” looked at various market imperfections that affect household housing choices and impact their financial outcomes. His field of research is housing economics with a focus on international housing policy and finance. His particular interest is on how housing market institutions and market designs affect household access to housing (tenure choice, housing consumption and mobility decision).

Kristin Perkins, Assistant Professor, Georgetown University
Type of Mentoring: Job Document Review, Overall Professional Development, Research Guidance
Prefer to Mentor: Either

Kristin Perkins is an assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at Georgetown University. Kristin studies inequality and social stratification with a focus on children, families, and neighborhoods. Her research examines the consequences of residential mobility and changes in household composition for children's educational outcomes, the neighborhood contexts of child and adolescent development, and the consequences of housing policies for individuals and neighborhoods. Kristin received a PhD in Sociology & Social Policy at Harvard University, where she was also a doctoral fellow in the Multidisciplinary Program in Inequality and Social Policy. Prior to joining the faculty at Georgetown Kristin was a postdoctoral fellow at the Joint Center for Housing Studies.

Methodology/Analysis

Scott Cody, Senior Vice President, Insight Policy Research *MATCHED*
Type of Mentoring: Overall Professional Development, Research Guidance
Prefer to Mentor: Either

Scott Cody is a Senior Vice President and director of the Data and Improvement Group at Insight Policy Research. He is a national expert in the use of sophisticated analytic methods to evaluate and improve social programs. Scott has 25 years of experience designing and leading randomized controlled trials, quasi-experiments, implementation studies, microsimulation models, and surveys. Scott’s most recent work focuses on integrating research and continuous quality improvement methods. He has worked with more than a dozen federal agencies, examining programs like SNAP, TANF, WIC, K-12 education, healthcare quality measurement, and workforce development. He is acclaimed for his ability to translate complex evidence into clear, actionable intelligence. Previously Scott was director of data analytics at Mathematica. He also co-founded Project Evident, helping nonprofit service providers use their administrative data for both evaluation and program improvement.

Laura Peck, Principal Scientist, Abt Associates *MATCHED*
Type of Mentoring: Overall Professional Development 
Prefer to Mentor: Either

Laura R. Peck, Ph.D., is a Principal Scientist at Abt Associates and has 25 years of experience evaluating social welfare and employment policies and programs, both in research and academic settings (formerly a tenured university professor). A policy analyst by training, Dr. Peck specializes in innovative ways to estimate program impacts in experimental and quasi-experimental evaluations, and she applies this to many social safety net programs. Dr. Peck is the PI, Co-PI and Director of Analysis for several major national evaluations for the U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services, Labor, and Housing and Urban Development. Peck is author of Experimental Impact Analysis for Program Improvement (2020, SAGE Publishing), co-author of a public policy text-book, and more than 40 peer-reviewed journal articles. She also serves as the Global Lead for Abt’s Research, Monitoring, and Evaluation Capabilities Center, for which she advances the latest methods and practices across all of Abt Associates’ diverse portfolio of work. She earned her Ph.D. from the Wagner Graduate School at New York University.

Natural Resource, Environment, & Energy

Nikolay Anguelov, Associate Professor, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth
Type of Mentoring: Overall Professional Development, Research Guidance, Job Document Review
Prefer to Mentor: Either

With a decade of experience in teaching research-intensive course online, I can help share insights into guiding online capstone projects, remote learning and collaboration methods, interdisciplinary research, publishing capstones and guiding students into academic research.

 

Heather Campbell, Professor and Chair, Claremont Graduate University *MATCHED*
Type of Mentoring: Job Document Review, Overall Professional Development 
Prefer to Mentor: Either

I volunteered to mentor because grad-level job search has a bunch of peculiar norms, and I’d like to help you negotiate some of them. I am interested in/have researched many areas of policy. But my primary interest is urban environmental policy with a particular emphasis on environmental injustice (EI). Urban environmental policy matters because more than half of the world's people now live in cities. I became focused on EI because the fact that pollution exposure depends on race/ethnicity offends me and my ideals for this country. Researching EI policy lets me use my skills toward improving social justice.

Sanya Carley, Professor, Indiana University
Type of Mentoring: Job Document Review, Overall Professional Development, Research Guidance, Fellowship Application Assistance 

Prefer to Mentor: Either

Dr. Sanya Carley is a Professor and Director of the Master of Public Affairs programs at the O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University. Her research focuses on electricity and transportation policy, energy justice and a just transition, energy-based economic development, and public perceptions of energy infrastructure and technologies. She is a coeditor of the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management. Dr. Carley has extensive consulting experience with the World Bank, RTI International, the Environmental Protection Agency, among others. She received her Ph.D. in public policy from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and bachelor’s degrees in economics and sustainable development from Swarthmore College.

Lily Hsueh, Assistant Professor of Public Policy, School of Public Affairs, Arizona State University *MATCHED*
Type of Mentoring: Job Document Review, Research Guidance, Overall Professional Development
Prefer to Mentor: Ph.D. Students

My name is Dr. Lily Hsueh. I am an Assistant Professor at the School of Public Affairs, Arizona State University. As an economist and public policy scholar, my research bridges the fields of economics, public policy, and management to investigate how the environment and the global commons are managed and the ways in which behaviors of firms and organizations are shaped by multiple forces from markets to government policies. I bring a multi-methodological approach to this agenda, combining diverse tools in order to leverage new data and empirics for causal inference and to explore causal mechanisms. Outlets for my published work have included Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists; Governance; Journal of Regulatory Economics; Journal of Environmental Management; Environmental Science & Policy; Regulation & Governance, among others. In 2020-21, I have been awarded an American Fellowship by the American Association of University Women (AAUW) to work on my book-in-progress, "Corporations at the Climate Crossroads: Multilevel Governance and Global Climate Action." My book is under contract with MIT Press. I enjoyed serving as an APPAM Faculty Mentor during 2019-20 and am looking forward to another great year!

Gilbert Michaud, Assistant Professor of Practice, Ohio University *MATCHED*
Type of Mentoring: Overall Professional Development 

Prefer to Mentor: Either

Dr. Gilbert Michaud is an Assistant Professor of Practice at the George V. Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs at Ohio University, where he primarily teaches courses in the school’s Master of Public Administration (MPA) program. His applied research portfolio focuses on renewable energy policy, electric utilities, state politics, and economic and workforce development. For this work, Dr. Michaud was awarded a faculty sustainability research award from Ohio University’s Office of Sustainability, as well as a Midwest Energy News 40 Under 40 award, both in 2018. In 2019, he won the “Best Article of the Year” award from the Association of Energy Engineers (AEE) for his paper: “Non-Utility Photovoltaic Deployment: Evaluation of U.S. State-Level Policy Drivers.” Michaud holds a Ph.D. in Public Policy & Administration from the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), as well as an advanced certificate in Data Analytics from Cornell University.

Andrea Pierce, Associate Professor, University of Delaware
Type of Mentoring: Overall Professional Development, Research Guidance
Prefer to Mentor: Either

Andrea L. Pierce (formerly Sarzynski) is Associate Professor and Helen Gouldner Chair of the Environment in the Biden School of Public Policy & Administration at the University of Delaware. Andrea teaches policy process, analysis, and governance courses at the undergraduate, masters, and doctoral levels. Andrea's current research includes the comparative governance of food, water, in energy systems in cities; understanding the plight of shrinking American suburbs; and participation in urban climate change adaptation. Andrea is passionate about applied policy research and frequently mentors graduate students on their research projects and career development.

Barry Solomon, Professor Emeritus of Environmental Policy, Michigan Technological University
Type of Mentoring: Overall Professional Development, Research Guidance
Prefer to Mentor: Either

Barry Solomon is a professor emeritus of geography and environmental policy in the Department of Social Sciences at Michigan Technological University, where he specialized in energy and environmental policy. He is past president and founder of the U.S. Society for Ecological Economics. Previously, he was a senior economist in the Acid Rain and Climate Change Divisions of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in Washington, D.C., where he helped to design and implement the first national system of emissions credit trading, and before that he was senior staff at the U.S. Department of Energy. He is coauthor or co-editor of 7 books, 76 refereed journal articles, and over 130 other publications. He has received funding from the EPA, DOE, NSF, Michigan Economic Development Corp., Caterpillar, Inc., and has consulted for the UN Environment Programme, DOE, US Postal Service, AAAS, United States Academic Decathlon, and National Geographic Society.

Population & Migration

Matthew Hall, Associate Professor of Policy Analysis & Management, Cornell University *MATCHED*
Type of Mentoring: Job Document Review, Overall Professional Development
Prefer to Mentor: Either

Matthew Hall is Associate Professor of Policy Analysis & Management and (by courtesy) Sociology, Director of the Cornell Population Center, and faculty board member of the Cornell Institute for Public Affairs (CIPA). Hall is a demographer whose research focuses on immigration, racial/ethnic inequality, neighborhood change, and demographic methods. He has contributed to research assessing the economic and social impacts of unauthorized migration, the emergence of Latino boom towns and other new destination areas where immigration has been recent and rapid, and the changing nature of racial stratification and segregation in housing and neighborhoods. Current research projects are focused on understanding the consequences of intensified interior immigration enforcement, the link between immigration status and child development, describing patterns of racial discrimination in US housing markets, and the development of data science tools for demographic estimation.

Poverty & Income Policy

Scott Allard, Professor, Evans School of Public Policy & Governance - University of Washington *MATCHED*
Type of Mentoring: Overall Professional Development, Research Guidance, Fellowship Application Assistance, Job Document Review 
Prefer to Mentor: Ph.D. Students

Scott W. Allard is the Daniel J. Evans Endowed Professor of Social Policy at the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance at the University of Washington with expertise in poverty and inequality, social welfare policy, and urban policy. At the University of Washington, he serves on the Executive Board of the West Coast Poverty Center and Urban@UW research initiatives. Allard is author of Out of Reach: Place, Poverty, and the New American Welfare State (2009, Yale University Press), which examines the spatial and organizational challenges confronting local safety net providers. His latest book Places in Need: The Changing Geography of Poverty in America (2017, Russell Sage Foundation Press), focuses on the changing geography of poverty within metropolitan America and which aspects of the contemporary safety net respond well to these changes. He served as the co-director of the Family Self-Sufficiency Data Center at the University of Chicago from 2013 to 2019. In addition to his appointment at the University of Washington, he is a nonresidential senior fellow at the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program and is a national advisory board member of the Institute for Research on Poverty (IRP) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Asaph Glosser, Principal Associate, MEF Associates *MATCHED*
Type of Mentoring: Job Document Review, Overall Professional Development
Prefer to Mentor: Either

Asaph Glosser, a Principal Associate in MEF Associates’ Seattle office, has substantial experience conducting research and evaluation projects relating to economic security and mobility. Asaph has managed program evaluations for city, state, and federal agencies as well as non-profit partners. He also has extensive experience working with sites on all phases of randomized control trials. This includes recruiting sites, designing and implementing rigorous research designs, and conducting qualitative field research. Asaph has authored numerous research reports and policy briefs and regularly presents his work to policymakers, practitioners, and others in the research community. Asaph’s recent work includes directing a project studying the independent contractor workforce in Washington state, exploring organizational culture in TANF offices, evaluating re-entry programs in tribal communities, and studying alternatives to contempt in the child support program. Asaph has a master’s degree in Political Science from the University of Washington and a B.A. in Political Science from Bates College. When Asaph isn’t working, he spends as much time as possible either in his garden or exploring the beaches, mountains, and forests of the Pacific Northwest with his wife and two sons.

Heather Hill, Professor of Public Policy & Governance, University of Washington *MATCHED*
Type of Mentoring: Overall Professional Development, Research Guidance, Fellowship Application Assistance, Job Document Review
Prefer to Mentor: Ph.D. Students

I study how poverty and inequality affect children and their families and what government policies can do to reduce poverty, inequality. My training is interdisciplinary: I have a Master's in Public Policy (Michigan) and a PhD in Human Development and Social Policy (Northwestern). Prior to completing my education, I served as a Peace Corps Volunteer and worked as a research analyst at Mathematica Policy Research. My approach to mentoring is focused on: 1) listening; 2) seeing students as humans with unique interests, aspirations, styles, and challenges; and 3) helping to reveal the "hidden curriculum" of the academe and the non-academic research world.

Christopher Witko, Professor and Associate Director, Penn State School of Public Policy *MATCHED*
Type of Mentoring: Job Document Review, Overall Professional Development, Research Guidance, Fellowship Application Assistance
Prefer to Mentor: Ph.D. Students 

I have had some very good mentors, but could have benefited from building better relationships and networking with people outside of my department earlier in my career. Plus, it is always good to have the perspective of someone with a bit of distance as you finish your PhD studies and begin your academic career. Hopefully I can help young scholars with this given my perspective from working at very different types of institutions and publishing in a wide range of journals in political science, public policy and public administration.

Public & Nonprofit Management

Can Chen, Assistant Professor, Florida International University
Type of Mentoring: Overall Professional Development, Job Document Review, Research Guidance
Prefer to Mentor: Ph.D. Students

I am an Assistant Professor who joined the Department of Public Policy and Administration at Florida International University in Fall 2015. My substantive research interests include infrastructure (transportation) finance, capital budgeting, and fiscal transparency. My methodological interests focus on empirically testing theories in the field of public budgeting and finance using rigorous causal research designs and data sciences (experimental and natural/quasi-experimental research designs). Professionally, I currently serve as an Executive Board Member for American Society of Public Administration Section on Transportation Policy and Administration (STPA) and a certified Research Associate for the National Transportation Finance Center (Mineta Transportation Institute).

Jason Coupet, Associate Professor of Public Administration, SPIA, North Carolina State University *MATCHED*
Type of Mentoring: Job Document Review, Overall Professional Development 
Prefer to Mentor: Either

Jason Coupet is an Associate Professor of Public Administration at NC State. Jason’s PhD is in Strategic Management from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and his BA in Economics from the University of Michigan. His research interests include strategic management, Data Envelopment Analysis, performance measurement, organizational economics, research methods, and the political economy of organizations. He was also a National Science Foundation Mentoring Fellow in Economics at Duke University. His research has appeared in Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Public Performance & Management Review, Business Strategy & the Environment, Administration & Society, and Nonprofit Management & Leadership, among others. His work has been funded by the Sloan Foundation, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, and the North Carolina Department of Transportation. I had great mentors and am looking to serve in the same ways I benefit from. I am really behind what APPAM is doing here, particularly regarding diversity.

Nathan Dietz, Senior Researcher, Do Good Institute, The University of Maryland *MATCHED*
Type of Mentoring: Overall Professional Development, Job Document Review, Research Guidance
Prefer to Mentor: Either

Nathan Dietz joined the School of Public Policy in March 2017 as an associate research scholar after over twenty years of conducting and managing research projects in government, the nonprofit sector, and academia. His work with the Do Good Institute focuses on social capital, volunteering, charitable contributions, civic engagement and social entrepreneurship. Since 2013, he has also held an appointment as senior research associate at the Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy at the Urban Institute. From 2002 through 2012, he worked at the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), serving as associate director for research and evaluation. Prior to government service, he held an appointment as assistant professor of political science in the School of Public Affairs at American University. He earned a master’s degree and a PhD in political science from the University of Rochester.

Stephen Holt, Assistant Professor, University at Albany, SUNY
Type of Mentoring: Job Document Review, Research Guidance
Prefer to Mentor: Ph.D. Students

I graduated from American University with a Ph.D. in Public Administration in 2017. I work on research related to core public management questions - often centered on what shapes public workers' motivation, performance, and use of discretion - and related topics in education policy. My research approach is quantitative in nature and varies between detailed descriptive analysis and research designs aimed at identifying causal relationships.

NAIM KAPUCU, Professor, UCF
Type of Mentoring: Job Document Review, Research Guidance
Prefer to Mentor: Not Specified

Naim Kapucu, Ph.D., is Pegasus professor of public administration and policy and former director of the School of Public Administration at the University of Central Florida (UCF). His research interests are emergency and crisis management, decision-making in complex environments, network governance, and leadership. His work has been published in Public Administration Review, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, the American Review of Public Administration, and Disasters, among others. He teaches network governance, leadership, and methods.

Public Finance

 

Patrick Murphy, Vice President for Public Finance, 104702
Type of Mentoring: Overall Professional Development, Research Guidance
Prefer to Mentor: Either

I've had something of a "nontraditional" career path in public policy. After completing my masters, I began working at a think tank and later in government. Eventually, I went back to school to complete my Phd. I then taught at a medium-sized university for 20 years -- only to return to a full-time research position in a think tank. I currently work in philanthropy. In other words, if you are planning to map your life out for the next four decades, I'm not that person. If you are weighing a couple of different possible paths, it might be interesting for us to talk.

 

 

Science & Technology

Claire Bowen, Lead Data Scientist, Privacy and Data Security, Urban Institute
Type of Mentoring: Job Document Review, Research Guidance, Fellowship Application Assistance, Overall Professional Development
Prefer to Mentor: Either

Claire McKay Bowen is the lead data scientist of privacy and data security at the Urban Institute. Her research focuses on the quality of differentially private data synthesis methods and science communication. Bowen holds a BS in mathematics and physics from Idaho State University and an MS and PhD in statistics from the University of Notre Dame. After completing her PhD, she worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where she investigated cosmic ray effects on supercomputers. She is also the recipient of the National Sciences Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship, the Microsoft Graduate Women’s Fellowship, and the Gertrude M. Cox Scholarship and was selected for the inaugural NSF Graduate Research Internship Program and the NSF-funded Rising Stars in Computational and Data Sciences Program.

 

Kyle Myers, Assistant Professor, Harvard Business School
Type of Mentoring: Overall Professional Development, Research Guidance
Prefer to Mentor: Either

Kyle Myers is an assistant professor of business administration in the Technology and Operations Management unit. He teaches the first-year Technology and Operations Management course. Professor Myers studies the economics of innovation. His research lies at the intersections of science, health care, and the commercialization process. More specifically, Professor Myers is interested in the strategic choices and performance of scientists, the supply and demand of innovation in high-tech sectors, public versus private funding of R&D, and the management of innovation in large organizations such as hospitals and pharmaceutical and engineering firms. Professor Myers holds a Ph.D. from the Wharton School’s Department of Health Care Management and Economics. He has a M.S. in Health Policy and Management and a B.S. in Biology from Penn State University. Prior to joining HBS, he served as a post-doctoral fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research and worked at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Social Equality & Race

Agatha Caraballo, Associate Teaching Professor and Assistant Chair, Florida International University  
Type of Mentoring: Overall Professional Development
Prefer to Mentor: Either

Dr. Agatha Caraballo is an Associate Teaching Professor and the Assistant Chair for the Department of Public Policy and Administration at Florida International University (FIU), where she is also the Director of the Leadership Studies Certificate. She is the immediate past Chair of the Section for Women in Public Administration (SWPA) for the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA), and previously served as an officer and past President for the ASPA South Florida Chapter. Dr. Caraballo earned both her Bachelor of Science in Communication and a Ph.D. in Public Affairs degrees from FIU. Dr. Caraballo’s specialties include online teaching and remote instruction, communications, public affairs, professional development, administration, community relations, diversity and inclusion, corporate social responsibility, mentoring and advising, civic engagement, and community development