Maxwell School News

Shannon Monnat, Lerner Chair for Public Health Promotion and associate professor of sociology, was recently presented with a Thought Leadership Award. Monnat was recognized for her substantial activities in translating research to public and policy audiences, including through public research briefs, op-eds, media communications, public presentations and congressional briefings.

Theresa Singleton, professor of anthropology, says the discovery of a woman's DNA in Belvoir matching with people living in Sierra Leone today holds "great promise" for future research—but the cost of DNA analysis may put it out of reach for some archaeologists.

"There is an emerging dimension to the U.S.-China conflict which has worrisome echoes of that earlier [U.S.-Russia] conflict—the growing division of the world into two technological blocs, each of which seeks autonomy and self-sufficiency and strives to limit the other's access to its advanced know-how," says University Professor James Steinberg.

"Even though in aggregate, trade leads to economic gains, it almost always creates winners and losers," writes Devashish Mitra, professor of economics and Gerald B. and Daphna Cramer Professor of Global Affairs." He adds that social protection policies "need to be in place for equity reasons as well as to build and sustain support for free trade."

"Unbeaten: Rocky Marciano’s Fight for Perfection in a Crooked World," by Mike Stanton ’79 BA (PSc), has been named one of the best books of 2018 by the Boston Globe and Library Journal, and as a 2018 Reader’s Favorite by the Wall Street Journal. Stanton’s first book, the New York Times bestseller "The Prince of Providence," will be adapted for the stage by Trinity Repertory Company in Providence.

Michael Wasylenko, Maxwell Advisory Board Professor of Economics, says "highly skilled, highly educated workers find the best job matches in East and West coast cities," which are typically located in high tax states.

"It’s a discussion between some of the Democrats who may have a better sense of strategic thinking about the election and the ones who think there are good reasons to be going forward with impeachment, [for whom] it’s the principle of the thing," says Grant Reeher, professor of political science and director of the Campbell Public Affairs Institute.

"It [undocumented immigration] was invented by legislators who wanted to close the border. And the vast, costly deportation apparatus that has been built as a result has created new problems, too,"  writes Elizabeth Cohen, associate professor of political science.

Democratic tax proposals are simply a "stealth attack" on the preferential rate for capital gains, says Christopher Faricy, associate professor of political science.

This issue brief explains the concept of harm reduction, describes various types of programs that fall under the harm reduction model, and discusses the promises these approaches hold for helping to combat the current opioid crisis.

Children today face three serious mental health crises: death from drugs, alcohol and suicide, says Shannon Monnat, associate professor of sociology and Lerner Chair for Public Health Promotion. "They’re much bigger societal issues that need to be addressed quickly or they’re going to manifest into something much more serious and then we’re going to be in big trouble not just now but decades to come."

"If Democrats want universal adult voter registration, nonpartisan electoral districting and mandatory disclosure of election-related spending, they would probably have to embed those requirements in the Constitution as well," writes Thomas Keck, Michael O. Sawyer Chair of Constitutional Law and Politics.