Courtesy of the American Society for Public Administration
ASPA is pleased to announce the 2025 Nesta M. Gallas Award honoree and lecturer will be Rutgers University Distinguished Research Fellow Marilyn Rubin. The Nesta M. Gallas Award honors the lifetime achievements of a dedicated public servant and innovative leader whose career has been characterized by exemplary efforts to uphold legal and ethical standards locally, nationally and internationally; sustained work to advance gender equality and diversity; responsible, democratic and expert accomplishments in public affairs; and mentorship of young academics and public servants. Marilyn Rubin's long career showcases all of these characteristics and more. We are excited to present her with this award and learn from her insights.
Rubin is distinguished research fellow at the School of Public Affairs and Administration (SPAA) at Rutgers University, where she also is an affiliated faculty member of the University’s Law School Center for Law, Inequality and Metropolitan Equity. Previously, she was professor of public administration and economics at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice of the City University of New York for 31 years, serving for several years as director of the College’s MPA Program.
Overall, Rubin has worked consecutively and interchangeably in the academic and practitioner worlds for close to 50 years — always with the goal to inform and advance the results of public policies through research, consulting and collaborative engagements with public officials, government agencies and professional organizations. Advancing social equity and justice has been a central element in all of her work.
Rubin’s research record includes more than 60 academic journal articles, book chapters, scholarly reports and commissioned studies. She and John Bartle were pioneers in writing about equity in budgeting, with a focus on gender equity. Their 2005 article that appeared in Public Administration Review is the first on this topic to appear in a U.S. public administration journal, and is consistently cited as a seminal article on the topic. She has edited several books on topics that span the evolution of public administration, government finance and tax policy, public budgeting, gender equity and social justice.
Rubin also is a partner in Urbanomics, a consultancy group that began in 1984 to provide governments and businesses with research and support regarding economics, public finance and urban planning. At Urbanomics, she has been the principal investigator and primary author of more than 20 commissioned reports regarding state and local tax policy and urban economic development. Prior to her partnership in Urbanomics, she was a consultant for eight years to New York City’s deputy mayor for economic development and the deputy director of the city’s Office of Management and Budget.
Rubin has been a member of economic advisory boards to elected officials in the United States at federal, state and local levels of government and has been a Fulbright Senior Specialist since 2010. She is a fellow in the National Academy of Public Administration and former chair of ASPA’s Association for Budgeting and Financial Management. She also was a member of NASPAA’s executive council and a member of the executive council of Pi Alpha Alpha.
The Nesta M. Gallas lecture will take place at the 2025 ASPA Conference on Sunday, March 30 at 2:00 p.m.