Gwen Arnold is a third-year student pursuing a PhD in public policy via a joint program between the IU School of Public and Environmental Affairs and the IU Department of Political Science. Her concentrations are environmental policy and political theory and methods. She is interested in wetland and water policy; before beginning at IU she edited a wetland policy journal and a book on post-Katrina wetland recovery. More recently, as a National Network of Environmental Management Scholars fellow, Gwen helped wetland staff in EPA Region 3 develop a rapid functional assessment methodology for mineral flat wetlands of the Atlantic coastal plain. In her dissertation she plans to explore policy learning, decision-making, and change in bureaucracies such as EPA and the ways in which scientific data inform environmental policy choices. gbarnold@indiana.edu
Jacob Bower-Bir investigates the introduction of market forces to traditionally public services. Of particular interest are the norms, rules, and institutions that govern those services and are potentially altered or abandoned following market reform. His current research focuses on school choice in American public education, with a special concentration on segregation and student achievement in charter schools. His work on education is part of a broader interest in the distribution of influence and benefits in collective action scenarios. Jacob is conducting additional research on direct democracy initiatives, state term limit legislation, and the history and implications of science-based public policy. jbowerbi@indiana.edu
Michael Cox uses institutional analysis and geographic information systems to study human-environment interactions in social-ecological systems. His current dissertation work explores the robustness of community-based irrigation systems in New Mexico known as acequias, and the effects that economic development and state-level policies are having on them. miecox@indiana.edu
Forrest Fleischman is a second year student in the Joint PhD Program in Public Policy at the School of Public and Environmental Affairs and the Department of Political Science. He holds a BS and MS in Earth Systems from Stanford University. Prior to joining the PhD program, Forrest worked in agriculture and forestry in the US and India. His dissertation will examine the impact of forest sector decentralization on the behavior of government agencies, NGOs, and other policy actors in India. http://mypage.iu.edu/~fleischf/ | fleischf@indiana.edu
Rob Holahan is a PhD candidate in the department of Political Science. His research focuses on the tradeoffs among economic efficiency, democracy, and sustainability. In particular, his dissertation is examining the strengths and limitations of using majority rule voting as a means to divide a natural or manmade renewable resource, like an ocean fishery or a national budget, among a group of users. He uses a mixture of experimental economics, formal theory and empirical research to investigate these questions. Rob holds a B.A. in Economics and an M.A. in Political Economy and Public Policy from Washington University in St. Louis and expects to finish his PhD in May 2010. raholaha@indiana.edu
Prakash Kashwan is a PhD candidate in the Joint PhD Program (Public Policy) at the School of Public and Environmental Affairs (SPEA). His concentrations include International Environmental Policy, and Political Theory and Methods. Prakash’s dissertation research focuses on how outcomes of local decision making under a forestland policy reform in India are mediated by institutions of electoral democracy, civil society, and those geared to forest conservation. His dissertation research and field work is supported by grants from the International Foundation for Science, Stockholm, and Ford Foundation, New Delhi. Prior to joining the graduate school, during 1999-2005 Prakash worked on issues pertaining to environment and development through NGOs, Social Movements, and donor agencies. For more information, including publications and updated research findings see his personal website. pkashwan@indiana.edu
Ursula Kreitmair is a first-year student in the joint PhD program in Public Policy of IU's School of Public and Environmental Affairs and the Department of Political Science. Appreciating the complexity of human behaviour, she aims to enrich her initial neoclassical approach to environmental problems with institutional analysis. Furthermore she takes a keen interest in environmental equity. Ursula holds a BA in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from Oxford University and an MSc in Environmental Policy, Planning and Regulation from the London School of Economics. She has worked for the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) GmbH Environmental Policy Programme in Beijing. ukreitma@indiana.edu
Sobhi Mohanty is a doctoral student in the Joint PhD program in Public Policy at the School of Public and Environmental Affairs and the Department of Political Science. A natural scientist so far, she has a B.A. in Biology (Ecology and Evolutionary biology) from Yale University and an M.Sc. in Marine Science from the University of Texas at Austin-Marine Science Institute. Her field experiences range from exploration of wildlife conservation to socio-cultural dimensions of environmental conservation in rural areas. She aims to bring her understanding of ecosystems and ecological processes to the study of evolving interactions between humans and their environment. Her specific interests lie in understanding the environmental as well as social ramifications of economic and industrial policies in developing countries such as India. somamoha@indiana.edu
Abhijit Ramalingam is a Ph.D. candidate in economics, with concentrations in behavioural and experimental economics, industrial organisation and game theory. His current research focuses on social preferences, such as concerns for status, altruism, work ethics and reciprocity, which individuals display in addition to “rational” preferences over material outcomes. In his dissertation, Abhijit explores the influences of the decision context, such as institutions and the other players, on the social concerns and decisions of workers in a firm. He uses theoretical and experimental methods to investigate these issues. He has a B.A. and M.A. from Delhi University, India and an M.A. from The George Washington University, Washington, D.C. aramalin@indiana.edu | http://mypage.iu.edu/~aramalin/.
Kentaro Sakuwa is a doctoral student at the Department of Political Science. He holds a BA in History from Kyoto University and an MA in Political Science from Arizona State University. His research interests focus on the geopolitics of global political and economic competition. More specifically, he investigates how the geopolitical conditions are related with the global struggles and change in the international structure. He is also interested in modeling the complex behavior of the international system, particularly focusing on how the international order emerges out of anarchy and how it changes as a result of interactions among actors, using both statistical and computational methods. ksakuwa@indiana.edu
Sergio Villamayor Tomas is pursuing a Joint PhD Program in Public Policy and Political Science. He holds a BS in Political Science from the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona and MS in Public Policy from the Sciences-Po Paris. His Master thesis explored the evolution of local communities’ discourse against dam building policy in the Spanish region of Aragon. More recently, he assisted the Aragon’s Water Agency staff in analyzing public consultation records for the elaboration of the 2009 Ebro River’s Basin Management Plan. He is currently working on a case study about the effects of urban growth on a periurban irrigation system in Zaragoza (Spain). His dissertation will look at the adaptive capacity of self-governed irrigation systems in Spain, with particular focus on their integration with government administrative structures and agro-environmental policy. sevillam@indiana.edu
Wal Duany nyibor@yahoo.com
