Tamar Mitts and Robert Axelrod participated in a trilateral workshop on the roots and trajectories of violent extremism. Mitts spoke about the radicalization of Islamic State supporters on social media; Axelrod about the strengths and weaknesses of automated text analysis for anti-terrorism research.
Michael Barr and colleagues received a $670,000 NSF award to develop new ways to spot financial market manipulation. Barr served as co-counsel on two Supreme Court amicus briefs by leading financial regulation and consumer finance scholars.
John Ciorciari recently completed extended field research trips to Lebanon, Liberia, and Sierra Leone as part of his work on "sovereignty-sharing," supported by an Andrew Carnegie Fellowship. He has presented his research at universities in the U.S., Europe, Asia, and the Middle East and is now completing a book manuscript.
Please join us in offering heartfelt thanks to Mary Corcoran for 25 years of stellar service as a teacher, mentor, and researcher. Plans are underway for a retirement tribute this spring.
Alan Deardorff will serve as director of U-M's master's program in applied economics this year. This summer, he traveled to Singapore for research with a former student and to Poland and China for conferences in Poznan and Tianjin respectively.
U-M's new Go Blue Guarantee is based in part on early results from Susan Dynarski's HAIL Scholarship pilot. In The New York Times, Dynarski made "The case for free and universal college admissions testing" and described "The wrong way to fix student debt." This fall, APPAM honored Dynarski with its Spencer Award for transformative contributions to education policy and management.
Associate Dean Elisabeth Gerber chaired and moderated a panel of prestigious U-M alums on "Investing in Detroit's Future" for U-M's Bicentennial Detroit Seminar.
Edie Goldenberg has founded Turn Up Turnout, a nonpartisan organization focused on increasing young voter registration and turnout in midterm and local elections. TUT members include John Chamberlin and Mary Corcoran from the faculty. Goldenberg is also the catalyst behind the new Big Ten Voting Challenge
Jonathan Hanson's "State capacity and the resilience of electoral authoritarianism," appears in the International Political Science Review.
Join us in congratulating Catie and Joshua Hausman, who welcomed baby Isaac in April. Catie's paper, estimating the impact of climate change on peak electricity demand, appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
In Brookings, Brian Jacob explored "causes, consequences, and potential solutions to chronic absenteeism" and tracked trends in charter school research. On Michigan Radio, he discussed state efforts to reform underperforming schools. Jacob's latest NBER working paper examines the effects of labor market information on community college students. The Education Policy Initiative has won a $712,000 IES grant to continue its postdoctoral training program in experimental and quasi-experimental methods.
Melvyn Levitsky's commentaries on Brazil's political crises and Uruguay's marijuana policies appear in the Latin American Advisor. He is quoted in stories by O Globo, the Christian Science Monitor, INFOBAE, and U.S. News and World Report. In March, Levitsky spoke at U-M's Bicentennial Global University Symposium on the importance of international education to U.S. national interests.
This summer, Ann Chih Lin taught a PPIA module on refugee policy. Students explored refugee policies around the world and wrote papers assessing whether unaccompanied Central American children seeking asylum in the U.S. should be treated as refugees.
Kary Moss was recognized by The Detroit News in the paper's annual Michiganian of the Year feature. As executive director of the ACLU of Michigan, Moss was honored for helping to draw national attention to the Flint water crisis.
Shobita Parthasarathy spoke on a plenary panel on "Science, Policy, and Economic Development" for the Africa-U.S. Frontiers in Science conference in Cameroon. She launched her new book, Patent Politics, at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, with commentators Richard Harris (NPR) and Daniel Sarewitz (Arizona State). In The Conversation, Parthasarathy argued for a new approach to university and nonprofit patent policy.
Natasha Pilauskas was honored with a postdoctoral fellowship from the National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation and a junior faculty fellowship from U-M's Institute for Research on Women and Gender for work on maternal employment characteristics and child well-being. With former Education Policy Initiative Postdoctoral Fellow Katherine Michelmore, Pilkauskas received a grant from Wisconsin's Institute for Research on Poverty to assess the effectiveness of tax credits in early childhood.
Barry Rabe's Statehouse and Greenhouse was honored with the American Political Science Association's Martha Derthick Best Book Award for lasting contributions to the study of federalism and intergovernmental relations. In Brookings, Rabe wrote about "Carbon pricing durability and the case in California" and, with CLOSUP Postdoctoral Fellow Sarah Mills, argued that "Americans want states to pick up federal slack" in climate policy. In Commonwealth, Rabe examines Pennsylvania's unorthodox resistance to energy severance taxes.
Daniel Raimi's book, The Fracking Debate: The Risks, Benefits, and Uncertainties of the Shale Revolution, will be released by Columbia University Press this December.
With a $330,000 NSF award, Kaitlin Raimi and colleagues will employ hourly energy use data to develop and test a novel technique designed to encourage consumers to reduce their household electricity use.
In The American Prospect, Luke Shaefer wrote about "fighting child poverty with a universal child allowance." Shaefer continues to lead U-M's Poverty Solutions initiative, which has just completed a youth employment pilot program and has an RFP out now for academic/community projects.
Charles Shipan's "The diffusion of policy frames: Evidence from a structural topic model," was recognized with the Deil S. Wright (MPA '54) best paper award from the American Political Science Association.
Please join us in congratulating Kevin Stange, whose promotion to associate professor with tenure was confirmed at the May 18 meeting of the University of Michigan's Board of Regents.
Betsey Stevenson is a member of a bipartisan working group convened by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and the Brookings Institution exploring prospects for paid family leave in the U.S. Stevenson is featured in a PBS Newshour segment on "growth industries men avoid."
Janet Weiss is working on a report, commissioned by the IBM Center for the Business of Government, on effective program management in the federal government. She was recently elected a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration.
Marina Whitman was interviewed by Marketplace Morning Report for a segment on the history of free trade in the U.S. and by Michigan Public Radio for a story on the erosion of support for public goods. In The Conversation, Whitman published "Public goods made America great and can do so again."
Justin Wolfers continues to contribute to The New York Times Upshot with stories about "Evidence of a toxic environment for women in economics," the difficulty of boosting the economy when interest rates stay low, and more. His latest NBER working paper explores "How the growing gap in life expectancy may affect retirement benefits and reforms."
Dean Yang's NBER paper with Parag Mahajan, a doctoral candidate in public policy and economics, explores hurricanes, migrant networks, and U.S. immigration. In The Conversation, they explain how "Hurricanes drive immigration to the U.S., helped by green cards."
Below is a formatted version of this article from State & Hill, the magazine of the Ford School. View the entire Fall 2017 State & Hill.