D'Arlyn Bell
D’Arlyn Bell is a fourth-year doctoral candidate in the School of Public Affairs and Administration at the University of Kansas. She is a federally recognized member of the Cherokee Nation, a nontraditional, first-generation scholar, educator, and activist. She specializes in law, equity, and organizations with a cognate focus on community organizing and the political process. D'Arlyn received a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship to fund her dissertation research which examines political advocacy among Native American social service nonprofits in the urban core across three dimensions: affiliation with a federated structure, tax law restrictions on political activity, and funder directives.
Mac-Jane Crayton
Dr. Mac-Jane Crayton is starting her career as an assistant professor at Appalachian State University. Crayton earned her Ph.D. in Public Administration and Public Policy from Auburn University in 2023. Her research interests focus on nonprofit management, local government, and environmental justice. Crayton’s research explores how governments and nonprofits work together to encourage more inclusive and just policies. When she is not researching, Crayton enjoys helping service-based nonprofits and women in underserved communities. Having benefited from mentorship, Crayton founded Dream Mentorship, a nonprofit organization that provides mentorship, resources, and accountability for women to achieve their dreams.
Melanie Fillmore
Melanie Fillmore (they/them/she/her) is a Ph.D. candidate at Boise State University. They are Hunkpapa, Lakota and citizen of Standing Rock Sioux Tribe of North and South Dakota. Their work braids together theory and methods from both Indigenous Studies and Public Policy and Administration to identify the impacts of settler-colonialism on policy and governance over American Indigenous Tribes. Their dissertation work aims to center the contributions of American Indigenous policy actors and administrators serving critical roles to explain how Tribal sovereignty and policy positions are embodied in collaborative governance to address missing and murdered Indigenous persons (MMIP) cases.
Aarika Forney
Aarika Forney is a Ph.D. candidate in political science at the University of Oklahoma, with fields in public administration and public policy. Her research focuses on how racial identity and organizational dynamics influence our understanding of bureaucratic representation and social equity in public and nonprofit organizations. Her dissertation research seeks to improve our understanding of representative bureaucracy by centering the experiences of Black bureaucrats and their attitudes towards engaging in work that is explicitly tied to their racial identity and their organization’s efforts to promote social equity.
Vikas Gawai
Vikas PD Gawai is a Ph.D. candidate in the Applied Economics department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The focus of his research lies within the interdisciplinary domains of economics and public policy, with a particular emphasis on health, aging, human capital, and inequality in both the United States and India. He uses quantitative methods to conduct empirical investigations, providing valuable insights for evaluating evidence-based policies and assessing how these policies impact people differently based on their gender, race, and socioeconomic characteristics.Ìý
Clinton McNair
Clinton McNair is a Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Oklahoma. His research interests are in public administration and public policy, focusing on emergency management, local government, and social equity. In his dissertation, Clinton researches how community leadership and social dynamics shape support for investing in socially vulnerable communities following a disaster. He also writes about citizen trust in administrative agencies/ government, representation, and deservingness. Clinton received his Master's Degree in Public Administration from Baruch College in 2017 and a Master's Degree in Community Development from Prairie View A&M University in 2009.
Delilah Mochoge
Delilah Mochoge is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at Texas Tech University. Her research focuses on the intersection of health politics and policy, public policy, political participation, race and ethnicity relative to organization behavior. Specifically, she is interested in investigating how policies and practices in these areas impact marginalized communities, and how they can be designed to promote equity, inclusion, and social justice. Through her research, she aims to provide insight into the complex issues that affect our society and contribute to the development of evidence-based policies and practices.
Ariel Powell
Ariel Powell is a Ph.D. candidate at Florida International University. Her research interests broadly include education, criminal justice policies, and how the overlap between the two policy areas impacts different groups. Her research focuses not only on how criminal justice policies may impact the education system but how education policies themselves inequitably impact students. She holds a Master's degree in Public Administration from Florida International University, and a Bachelor's degree from the New College of Florida.
Merlene-Patrice Quispe
Merlene-Patrice Bourdeau Quispe is a President’s Postdoctoral Fellow in the leadership and management area at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota. Her research interests include examining truth and integrity in budgets, especially at the state, county and municipal levels; examining the performance of local governments in execution of their budgets; and furthering the research in performance budgeting by examining if adherence to best practices as recommended by budgetary institutions does, in fact, lead to desired outcomes expressed by citizens. Quispe earned her PhD in Public Affairs from Florida International University. She holds a master’s degree from New York University, and a bachelor’s degree from York College.
Dianna Ruberto
Dianna Ruberto conducts community-engaged research about the experiences and agency of Black low-income populations in urban policy processes. Her research interests include racial politics, citizen participation, urban development, and arts and cultural policy. Her dissertation used interpretive and participatory research approaches to investigate Black stakeholder experiences in market-driven creative placemaking practices in Wilmington, Delaware. She earned her Ph.D. in Urban Affairs and Public Policy from the Biden School at the University of Delaware in 2023 and recently accepted a position as a National Poverty Fellow in the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.