News | Maxwell School

Faculty, Staff, and Student News
Submit News to Inside Maxwell
Patel piece on the battle against illicit finance published by Law360
"Why We're Losing The Battle Against Illicit Finance," co-authored by Kristen Patel, Donald P. and Margaret Curry Gregg Professor of Practice in Korean and East Asian Affairs, was published by Law360. Patel and co-author William Lichtenfels argue that the U.S. Department of the Treasury's anti-money laundering framework, as well as the department's bureaucratic structure, is not fit for purpose and is due for an overhaul. 12/07/21
12/7/2021

Reeher quoted in The Hill article on anti-elitism, public distrust
Populism and anti-elitism have been two of the biggest forces shaping American society in recent years. “The thing that needs to be borne in mind is that there has been a very clear and significant decline in trust in all major institutions in the United States, government being the most notable one,” says Professor Grant Reeher. “It is the media, it is physicians, it is the church, it is corporations. We have seen it all across the board.” Read more in The Hill article, "The Memo: Elites' misdeeds fuel public distrust."
12/7/2021

Flores-Lagunes to lead the American Society of Hispanic Economists
Maxwell School Economics Prof. Alfonso Flores-Lagunes has been named president-elect of the American Society of Hispanic Economists (ASHE). Flores-Lagunes’ three-year term will begin Jan. 1, 2022. He will serve as president-elect for the first year, president for the second year and past present for the third and final year.

12/6/2021

Gadarian speaks to CSM about partisan patterns, COVID behaviors
When the pandemic shut down normal life in March 2020, partisan patterns in personal behavior became clear early on, and have stuck, according to a forthcoming book, “Pandemic Politics: How COVID-19 Revealed the Depths of Partisan Polarization,” co-authored by Professor Shana Gadarian. Such behaviors include mask-wearing, social distancing, and later, a willingness to be vaccinated. "There are these big gaps between Republicans and Democrats that we see in our survey data very early on in March 2020, and which don’t go away over time as the virus starts to move across the country,” says Gadarian. Read more in the Christian Science Monitor article, "As US faces new COVID variant, calls for patience and prudence."
12/3/2021

London study looks at COVID-19 through lenses of HIV, epidemic history
"'It’s history in the making all around us': examining COVID-19 through the lenses of HIV and epidemic history," co-authored by Professor Andrew London, was published in Culture, Health & Sexuality. The study aims to determine how men living in the USA make sense of COVID-19 in the light of their collective knowledge and/or memories of the HIV pandemic, and provides evidence regarding the social organization of a contemporary pandemic and how individuals perceive and guard against risk, assign responsibility for virus transmission and acquisition, and navigate the threat of a potentially deadly infection.
12/2/2021

Zhang cited in WIRED article on the responsible use of AI
There are inherent conflicts in tech companies sponsoring or employing researchers to study the implications of technology they seek to profit from. But despite this, Baobao Zhang, assistant professor of political science, says the U.S. public still seems to broadly trust tech companies to guide development of artificial intelligence (AI). Read more about her recent survey findings in the WIRED article, "Ex-Googler Timnit Gebru Starts Her Own AI Research Center."
12/2/2021

Reeher discusses Chris Cuomo's role in brother's scandal with Spectrum
Chris Cuomo was suspended indefinitely from CNN this week amid questions about his role as part of a circle of informal advisors to his brother, Andrew Cuomo. The nearest analogy for the unusual arrangement of powerful brothers advising one another is the relationship between John F. Kennedy and his brother, Robert, who would serve as his attorney general, says Professor Grant Reeher. But Chris offering to call sources on behalf of his brother crossed a line, Reeher says. "You're shifting from that into actually drawing on your professional contacts in a way that are not supposed to be done with that kind of favoritism," he says. Read more in the Spectrum News article, "Indefinitely suspended from CNN, Chris Cuomo's role in brother's scandal under scrutiny."
12/1/2021

Monmonier weighs in on where Upstate NY begins in Westchester Magazine
While many believe Westchester to be part of Upstate New York, the truth is a bit more complex. Mark Monmonier, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Geography and the Environment, weighs in on the upstate-downstate breakdown—mentioning late-night host Stephen Colbert, who invented the concept of "truthiness," suggesting different levels of being factual. "Stephen might say something like 'upstatedness,'" says Monmonier. "Westchester County has a relatively low degree of upstatedness. Dutchess has more upstatedness. Albany has a considerably high level of upstatedness." Monmonier was quoted in the Westchester Magazine article, "So Where Does “Upstate” New York Really Begin?"
11/30/2021

Allport's Britain at Bay wins HWA 2021 Crown Award for nonfiction
"Britain at Bay: The Epic Story of the Second World War: 1938-1941" (Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2020), written by Professor of History Alan Allport, won the Historical Writers' Association 2021 Crown Award for nonfiction. According to the judges, "It changed our perspective, not just on Britain in the Second World War but on British national identity and the way that we deploy history more generally."
11/30/2021

Zwick explores the relationship between technology and cities
In his new book, “The Platform Economy and the Smart City: Technology and the Transformation of Urban Policy” (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2021), Maxwell School faculty member Austin Zwick explores the intersection between urban planning and technological change.
11/30/2021

Lovely talks to Politico about the China-directed USICA
The House will soon be moving ahead on Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s China-targeted $250 billion U.S. Innovation and Competition Act (USICA), designed to preserve a competitive technological edge over China through the injection of tens of billions of taxpayer dollars for various initiatives. Chinese officials have warned that reprisals are coming, should the bill become law. "China does not have many ways to hurt the U.S. now without damage to itself, but reducing the flow of strategic inputs for electrical vehicles would be a possible avenue for retaliation," says Professor Mary Lovely. She was quoted in the Politico article, "China blowback looms for Schumer’s Innovation and Competition Act."
11/29/2021

O'Keefe quoted in BBC article on the need for new spacesuits
Little has changed in the way of spacesuits since 1983 and now NASA's Johnson Space Center has called for private sector proposals for new ones. They would be used for spacewalks on the International Space Station (ISS) and during future Artemis missions to the surface of the moon. University Professor Sean O'Keefe says that he is not really surprised that the space agency has turned to the private sector for help. "Every variant of every space suit NASA has ever used was developed in concert with the private sector," says O'Keefe. Read more in the BBC article, "Upcoming Moon missions spur the search for new spacesuits."
11/29/2021

Alum Nick Armstrong uses data to help veterans achieve their goals
Nick Armstrong '08 M.P.A./'14 Ph.D. (SSc) directs IVMF’s multi-disciplinary team of applied social scientists, evaluators, and data engineers to crunch the numbers and conduct applied research that empower government, industry and philanthropic decision making on veteran- and family-related issues.
11/24/2021

Reeher weighs in on Onondaga County reapportionment process on WAER
Last Friday marked the final public hearing in what many democrats have called a partisan, political and broken process of redrawing Onondaga County’s legislative district lines. Despite the outcry, Professor Grant Reeher says it’s not clear if the results would have been dramatically different. "The party's problem has to do with turnout in these off-off-year elections, and also the apparent fact that there are quite a number of democrats that are ticket splitting," says Reeher. Listen to the full interview, "SU Political Science Prof. Questions Whether Onondaga County Democrats Could Have Made Gains In Redrawn District Maps," on WAER.
11/23/2021

Excerpt of Lasch-Quinn's Ars Vitae published in Montréal Review
An excerpt of "Ars Vitae: The Fate of Inwardness and the Return of the Ancient Arts of Living” (Notre Dame Press, 2020), written by Professor of History Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn, was published in The Montréal Review. In the book, Lasch-Quinn explores Americans’ stirring interest in ancient Greco-Roman philosophies including Cynicism, Platonism, Gnosticism, Stoicism and Epicureanism, and whether they can offer any alternatives to contemporary consumer culture as a means to happiness and well-being.
11/23/2021

1

2

3

4

5

»