Ford School announces faculty appointments
Three Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy professors recently received faculty appointments, Ford School Dean Susan M. Collins has announced.
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Melvyn Levitsky |
Ambassador (Ret.) Melvyn Levitsky, a Ford School professor since 2006, has been appointed Professor of International Policy and Practice at the University of Michigan; Susan Dynarski has been appointed as a tenured Associate Professor of Public Policy and Education; and Anthony S. Chen has achieved tenure and has been appointed Associate Professor of Sociology, College of Literature Science and the Arts and Associate Professor of Public Policy at the Ford School.
Ambassador Levitsky also is a Senior Fellow at the Ford School's International Policy Center, a member of the Substance Abuse Research Center (UMSARC), a Faculty Associate of the Center for Russian and East European Studies and of the Center for European Union Studies, and a Faculty Advisor to the Weiser Center for Emerging Democracies.
Ambassador Levitsky enjoyed a 35-year career with the U.S. Foreign Service and served seven years as Professor of Practice at Syracuse University's Maxwell School. At the Ford School, he teaches classes on U.S. national security and on the links between illegal drugs, crime and terrorism. He earned his BA from the University of Michigan and his Master's in Political Science from the University of Iowa.
In May 2006 Ambassador Levitsky was reelected by a vote of the UN Economic and Social Council to a seat on the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB). During his 35-year career as a U.S. diplomat, Ambassador Levitsky was Ambassador to Brazil from 1994-98 and before that held positions as Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics Matters, Executive Secretary of the State Department, Ambassador to Bulgaria, Deputy Director of the Voice of America, and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights. On his retirement from the State Department he received the Secretary of State's Distinguished Service Award.
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Susan Dynarski |
Professor Dynarski arrived at the Ford School and the School of Education in September from Harvard University, where she was an Associate Professor of Public Policy. She studies and teaches the economics of education and has a special interest in the interaction of inequality and education. Professor Dynarski's research focuses on financial aid policy, the long-term impact of early educational experiences, the price sensitivity of private school attendance, and gender differences in educational outcomes.
Professor Dynarski has testified on her research to the U.S. Senate Finance Committee, the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee, and the President's Commission on Tax Reform. Dynarski earned an AB in social studies at Harvard College, an MPP at Harvard University, and her PhD in economics at MIT. At the Ford School, Dynarski teaches Applied Regression Analysis.
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Anthony Chen |
Professor Chen teaches Special Topics in Race and Civil Rights Policy at the Ford School and will serve as Interim Director of the school's PhD program in 2009. His interests include twentieth-century American political development, social inequality, and public policy, with a special emphasis on civil rights, employment, health care, and poverty. He earned his PhD in Sociology at the University of California, Berkley.
Professor Chen is author of The Fifth Freedom (Princeton, forthcoming), a political and legislative history of the postwar struggle against job discrimination. With a collaborator at NYU, he has begun work on a book that chronicles the birth and evolution of affirmative action in undergraduate admissions. With a collaborator at Berkeley, he is investigating the interplay of federalism and health care reform over time.