Maxwell School News

Colleen Heflin, professor of public administration and international affairs, says it is important to note that “since a large portion of these errors are outside the control of the agencies [because they have to work with the information that clients provide], it will be difficult to bring down these errors without needlessly burdening all SNAP recipients.”

“In China, the response is more centralized and top-down,” says Yingyi Ma, professor of sociology. “AI is being built into national education planning and new majors. In the U.S., the response is more decentralized. Individual universities, schools, departments and faculty variability is huge.”

The Maxwell sociologist recently began his term leading the international organization focused on the study of food, agriculture and health. 

The inaugural flight, titled Foundations and comprised of four lectures examining the origins of the U.S. republic, is available on Maxwell’s YouTube channel. The remaining nine lectures to be released in the days ahead in three additional flights titled: Shaping a Nation, Issues in Focus and Modern Challenges.

Grant Reeher, professor of political science, argues Pres. Trump's declining approval ratings on the economy are about more than just the recent economic impact of the war with Iran, saying it is "the cumulative effect of a host of policies that have not enjoyed widespread support, combined with rhetoric that has turned a lot of people off." 

Co-authored by Associate Professor of Sociology Marc Garcia, the article was published in Population Research and Policy Review.

The article, co-authored Sarah Hamersma, associate professor of public administration and international affairs, and Ph.D. student Mitchell McFarlane, was published in The Milbank Quarterly.

“This might be a time of thinking about liberty, equality, the pursuit of happiness,” says Carol Faulkner, professor of history. But in some ways this time is different, she says. “It's much more partisan. It's really much more about a divisive president than the 1876 or the 1976 commemorations.”

Leonard Lopoo, professor of public administration and international affairs, says the federal government could help families achieve their family planning goals by expanding pregnancy prevention and infertility treatments at all income levels.

Minju Kim, assistant professor of political science, has written Taming the Careerists: The Politics of Foreign Policy Implementation (Cambridge University Press, 2026). The book asks how the design of employment contracts, specifically, the features that strengthen or weaken job protections, shapes bureaucratic behavior and, in turn, American foreign policy. 

From international law to executive power, Maxwell's national security studies program tackles the defining security questions of the moment.

Trump’s age is a “peripheral issue” when it comes to evaluating his presidency, says Grant Reeher, professor of political science. “Concerns about the administration are not about cognitive decline but rather WHAT he IS doing, in terms of policy, funding and rhetoric,” he says.

The rising senior grew up in the California congressional district where she would later intern—an opportunity made possible by Maxwell in Washington.

Chancellor J. Michael Haynie and Col. (Ret.) Bill Smullen were among those recognized for decades of advocacy for those who served.

The article, co-authored by Associate Professor of Public Health Bernard Appiah, was published in BMC Public Health.

Lauren Woodard, assistant professor of anthropology, has written Ambiguous Inclusion: Migration and Race on the Russia-China Border (University of Toronto Press, 2026). The book draws on 17 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Moscow and Vladivostok, Russia, and Almaty, Kazakhstan. 

Separatism is “in the zeitgeist,” says Ryan Griffiths, professor of political science and author of The Disunited States: Threats of Secession in Red and Blue America and Why They Won’t Work (Oxford University Press, 2025).

This brief describes how shale boom-era municipal debt could become a long-term fiscal burden for impacted communities and identifies four policy approaches for managing these risks before the transition leaves communities holding the bill.

She will help shape the panelist selection process for the organization’s fellowships and grants programs, which have awarded more than $29.6 million to nearly 1,600 women scholars and community projects.