SPAA Faculty & Staff Highlights: Academic Year 2020-2021
- Domonic Bearfield (PhD'04), associate professor, was awarded the 2021 SPAA Faculty Service Award for outstanding service to SPAA's students, faculty, and the greater SPAA community.
+ Bearfield joined the editorial board of Public Administration Review (PAR).
+ Bearfield won the 2020 Best Paper Award from the Review of Public Personnel Administration for “The Myth of Bureaucratic Neutrality: Institutionalized Inequity in Local Government Hiring,” co-authored with Dr. Shannon Portillo and Nicole Humphrey, associate professor and PhD student from the University of Kansas, respectively.
- Leonor Camarena joined the faculty of Rutgers SPAA as an assistant professor on Sept. 1, 2020.
- Ariane Chebel d'Appollonia was selected as the 2021-2022 George Soros Visiting Chair in the School of Public Policy at the Central European University (CEU).
+ Chebel d'Appollonia wrote the November SPAA Research Brief "To Whom Black Lives Actually Matter? Reflections on the Efficacy and Sustainability of Ethno-Racial Coalitions," which addresses questions surrounding the Black Lives Matter movement – Who actually supports the BLM movement? What are the main motives of the various ethno-racial groups that coalesce around its agenda? And what has been its impact to date? – by focusing on the evolution of race relations and multiracial coalitions in America today.
- James Davy, distinguished practitioner in residence, was sworn in as the new mayor of Pennington Borough.
+ Davy's book, The Power of Anticipatory Images in Student Achievement, was published by Palgrave Macmillan in October 2020.
- Rachel Emas, assistant teaching professor, was named co-book review editor for the Journal of Public Affairs Education.
+ Emas was selected to serve on the accreditation committee of the International Commission on Accreditation of Public Administration Education and Training (ICAPA) of the International Association of Schools and Institutes of Administration.
- Kyle Farmbry, professor, was appointed to represent Rutgers University–Newark in launching a $500,000 grant from the U.S. Embassy, University of Pretoria, and RU-N to strengthen United States-South Africa Higher Education Network.
+ Farmbry was awarded a stipend by the IBM Center for The Business of Government to produce a report which responds to key public sector challenges as part of their efforts to stimulate and accelerate the production of practical research that benefits public sector leaders and managers.
- Diane Hill, assistant professor of professional practice, was part of a team at the New Jersey Alliance for Clinical and Translational Science (NJ ACTS) at Rutgers University that received a $5 million National Institutes of Health grant to launch outreach campaigns and expand access to COVID-19 testing for underserved and vulnerable communities in New Jersey.
+ Hill was awarded a Rutgers Global Health Institute Global Health Seed Grant for the initiative "Transdisciplinary Intergenerational Community Engagement Model for Senior Health Promotion in Greater Newark." The program seeks to support the city’s senior population by launching a health promotion program, titled "Living Your Best Life: Virtually," and provide training for the Rutgers research community on how to use the Rutgers University–Newark’s Office of University-Community Partnerships model that focuses on the value of partnerships between university and community and how to create, strengthen, and nurture them.
- Jihye Jung joined the faculty of Rutgers SPAA as an assistant teaching professor on Jan. 1, 2021.
+ Jung received a Best Dissertation Award from the School of Public Affairs, University of Colorado-Denver where she completed her dissertation titled “Dimensions of Democratic Accountability of Foundations: Transparency and Grantmaking Openness.”
- Jiahuan Lu, associate professor, joined the editorial board of Nonprofit Management and Leadership.
- Lindsey McDougle, associate professor, joined the editorial board of Nonprofit Management and Leadership.
+ McDougle co-authored the Rutgers SPAA September 2020 Research Brief "Critical Pedagogic Strategies for Teaching Social Justice in Nonprofit Management Education" which uses the case of nonprofit management education (NME) to provide instructors with practical strategies they can use to help students build the skills necessary to address complex social problems and engage in critical social justice dialogues.
- Charles Menifield, dean, was selected as a 2021 recipient of the Donald C. Stone Service to ASPA Award from the American Society of Public Administration (ASPA).
+ Menifield's book, the fourth edition of The Basics of Public Budgeting and Financial Management: A Handbook for Academics and Practitioners, was published by Hamilton Books in September 2020.
+ Menifield authored the Rutgers SPAA December 2020 Research Brief "Pandemic Planning in the U.S.: An Examination of COVID-19 Data" which discusses how COVID-19 deaths are spread across in U.S. and examines if African Americans more likely to die from COVID-19 than other racial groups.
- Charles Menifield, dean, and Gregory Porumbescu, assistant professor, are co-principal investigators of an initiative to establish a policy lab for the state of New Jersey via a $1 million award from the New Jersey Office of the Secretary of Higher Education. The project will look to improve the quality of data and evidence used by state policy experts to implement policy and program improvements for New Jersey and focus on improving the Greater Newark community’s access to state services.
- Madelene Perez, associate dean for finance and administration, was awarded the 2021 Gail Daniels SPAA Staff Award for outstanding service to SPAA students, faculty, and the greater SPAA community. (The award is named for Gail Daniels who served Rutgers SPAA for over 43 years within academic and student services.)
- Suzanne Piotrowski, associate professor, had her research cited in the final report of the 2018-2020 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Advisory Committee, on which she served, with one of the recommendations in the report coming directly from her work. It requires a report from the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Information Policy (OIP) and the National Archives' Office of Government Information Services (OGIS) to Congress and the President.
- Suzanne Piotrowski, associate professor, and Gregory Porumbescu, assistant professor, are part of a Rutgers University-led team, which includes the Transparency and Governance Center in SPAA, awarded a three-year, $2.3 million Smart and Connected Communities Grant from The National Science Foundation (NSF) to partner with the City of Newark, NJ, for developing strategies and tools to create inclusive and equitable digital public services. Piotrowski and Porumbescu are the director and assistant director of TCG respectively.
- Norma Riccucci, Board of Governors Distinguished Professor, is the 2021 recipient of the Midwest Political Science Association's Herbert Simon Award.
+ Riccucci was awarded the 2020 William Duncombe Excellence in Doctoral Education Award by the Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs, and Administration (NASPAA).
+ Riccucci was awarded the 2020 H. George Frederickson Award by the Public Management Research Association (PMRA).
+ Riccucci's book, Managing Diversity In Public Sector Workforces, was published by Routledge in June 2021.
- Frank Thompson, Board of Governors Distinguished Professor Emeritus, had his co-authored book Trump, the Administrative Presidency, and Federalism, published by Brookings Institution Press in September 2020.
- Lois Warner (PhD'07), assistant teaching professor, was awarded the 2021 SPAA Faculty Teaching Award for significant contributions to SPAA's students’ intellectual life through superior teaching practices.
- Pengju Zhang co-authored the Rutgers SPAA March 2021 Research Brief "Cap and Gap: The Fiscal Effects of Property Tax Levy Limits in New York" which focuses on the tax limit in NY and seeks to answer three closely related research questions: 1) whether the tax limit has a constraining effect, or has put an effective cap, on NY school districts’ total current expenditures per pupil; 2) whether the tax limit may have differential expenditure-stifling effects on different district groups; and 3) which expenditure categories and subcategories bear the brunt of this constraint, that is, how districts under fiscal constraint make spending cuts across different functions.
- Yahong Zhang co-authored the Rutgers SPAA February 2021 Research Brief "Do Public Organizations Have Reputations for Diversity? The Study of Women and Minorities’ Decision to Work in Public Organizations" which focuses on perceived organizational diversity as a job choice motivator to explain why people choose jobs in the public sector, particularly in redistributive agencies.
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