As the Maxwell School enters a new academic year, three of its faculty and administrative leaders are stepping into expanded roles that will help guide the school’s direction—from its day-to-day operations to its role in the study of global affairs and law.

In the dean’s office, Bob Bifulco joins associate deans Gladys McCormick and Shana Gadarian as the associate dean for budget and administration, rounding out a leadership team assembled to ensure continuity following Carol Faulkner’s return to the faculty after nine years in leadership. Meanwhile, Daniel McDowell is serving as associate director of the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs, and Yüksel Sezgin has been named director of the Law, Society and Policy integrated learning major, succeeding founding director Gretchen Purser.

New Roles for Associate Deans

Carol Faulkner stepped down as senior associate dean on June 30 after more than nine years in a leadership role and has returned to the Maxwell faculty.

Faulkner’s tenure began in January 2017. She worked closely with department chairs and academic directors to strengthen Maxwell’s programs and played a central role in developing new undergraduate programs, including environment, sustainability and policy, and law, society and policy. She was also a trusted advisor to Dean David M. Van Slyke on faculty and academic matters.

“It has truly been a privilege to work with her,” Van Slyke wrote in a message to the Maxwell community, calling Faulkner “responsive, accountable and deeply mission driven.”

The leadership team, along with Van Slyke, consists of:

Gladys McCormick, associate dean for curriculum and academic initiatives, serves as the primary contact for undergraduate education, curriculum development, experiential and international learning opportunities, academic integrity, and ongoing initiatives to foster community and belonging. She is a professor of history and the Jay and Debe Moskowitz Endowed Chair in Mexico-U.S. Relations.

Shana Gadarian, associate dean for faculty and research, leads faculty mentoring and development, promotion and tenure processes, research administration and external funding, and the strategic growth of centers and institutes. She is a professor of political science and the Merle Goldberg Fabian Professor of Excellence in Citizenship and Critical Thinking.

Bob Bifulco, professor and former chair of the Public Administration and International Affairs Department, has joined the dean’s office as associate dean for budget and administration, overseeing budgetary and financial strategy, resource planning, faculty workload, graduate program enrollment and funding, and long-term financial sustainability. A distinguished scholar and Maxwell alumnus, Bifulco brings deep institutional knowledge to the role.

“This leadership team will be instrumental in helping me lead the school through a challenging moment in the higher education environment while also identifying opportunities to strengthen Maxwell’s mission,” Van Slyke said.

McDowell Serves as Associate Director of Moynihan Institute

Daniel McDowell, the Maxwell Advisory Board Professor of International Affairs in the Political Science Department, is serving as associate director of the Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs, where he also co-directs the institute's Study of Global Politics speaker series.

McDowell’s research focuses on international political economy, with an emphasis on financial sanctions, international currency competition and financial crisis management involving the United States and China. He is the author of Bucking the Buck: US Financial Sanctions and the International Backlash Against the Dollar (Oxford University Press, 2023) and a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center, where he was a 2022-23 Wilson China Fellow.

His commentary and research have appeared widely in national media, including recent analyses for Bloomberg, Newsweek and the Financial Times on topics ranging from sanctions policy to the future of the dollar. McDowell earned a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia in 2012 and joined the Maxwell School as an assistant professor of political science.

The Moynihan Institute, endowed by the U.S. Congress to honor the legacy of former U.S. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, supports faculty and student research on the peoples, cultures, governments and economies that shape international affairs through seven regional centers and a range of multidisciplinary research programs.

Sezgin Named Director of Law, Society and Policy Program

Yüksel Sezgin, associate professor of political science, has been named director of the law, society and policy integrated learning major, succeeding Gretchen Purser, associate professor of sociology.

Introduced by the Sociology Department in fall 2023, the integrated learning major, or ILM, allows students to pair a base major from Maxwell or another Syracuse University school or college with a concentration in either law, crime and society in the U.S., or comparative and international law. The program also includes a three-credit internship requirement that students can fulfill locally, through Maxwell-in-Washington or through study abroad.

Sezgin brings more than a decade of Maxwell leadership experience to the role. He is an O’Hanley Faculty Scholar, director of the Pre-Law Program in Europe, a senior research associate with the Middle Eastern Studies Program and a research affiliate of the South Asia Center. He also holds a courtesy appointment as associate professor in the Syracuse University College of Law.

His research examines legal pluralism and comparative religious law, including Islamic, Jewish and Hindu family law, and human and women's rights in the Middle East and South Asia. He is the author of Human Rights under State-Enforced Religious Family Laws in Israel, Egypt and India (Cambridge University Press, 2013), which received the 2014 Gordon Hirabayashi Human Rights Book Prize from the American Sociological Association, and Judging Through Narrative: Muslim Family Laws in Non-Muslim Courts (Cambridge University Press, 2026). Sezgin earned graduate degrees from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the University of London’s SOAS and the University of Washington.