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LEONARD LOPOO, Paul Volcker Chair in Behavioral Economics and professor of public administration and international affairs, is one of 13 scholars from across the country who have been selected to serve on a prestigious National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine panel.

The panel is reviewing evidence regarding the application of insights from behavioral economics to key public policy objectives, including public health, chronic illness, economic well-being and responses to global climate change.

Panelists are also examining frontiers in the field, asking what happens when behavioral economics intersects with related disciplines, including cognitive psychology, social psychology and the decision sciences.

Lopoo, who is founding director of the Maxwell X Lab and is finishing his term as director of the Center for Policy Research, says behavioral economics can be applied in practical ways to examine things such as why people do or do not apply for government benefits or, say, a pension program. Often, he says, there are information barriers or stigma associated with participation.

The national panel includes researchers from Duke University, Princeton University, the University of California-Berkeley and the University of Pennsylvania, among others.

JAMES-CHRISTIAN BLOCKWOOD is executive vice president of the Partnership for Public Service whose previous roles include service as a career member of the Senior Executive Service, managing director at the U.S. Government Accountability Office, director in the Office of Policy and Planning at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, deputy director in the Office of International Affairs at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and an intelligence officer at the U.S. Department of Defense.

MARK MONMONIER, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Geography and the Environment, was named a 2021 Fellow by the American Association of Geographers. Fellows are conferred for life based on their contributions to geographic research, the advancement of practice, teaching, mentoring and overall strengthening of the field of geography. Monmonier has published over 20 books in the field of geographic information systems, the history of cartography in the twentieth century, map design and environmental mapping. He has won numerous awards and held various esteemed positions in the field. Awards include a Guggenheim fellowship in 1984, the American Geographical Society’s O. M. Miller Medal in 2001, the Pennsylvania State University’s Charles L. Hosler Alumni Scholar Medal in 2007, and the German Cartographic Society’s Mercator Medal in 2009. In 2016 he was inducted into the Urban and Regional Information Systems Association’s GIS Hall of Fame.

JAMIE WINDERS, professor of geography and the environment, was named associate provost for faculty affairs for Syracuse University, effective Jan. 1, 2022.

Winders has been at Syracuse since 2004. She is the founding director of the Autonomous Systems Policy Institute and she was chair of the department of geography and the environment from 2014–2019.

ARTHUR SIDNEY is senior vice president of government relations at Forbes Tate Partners, a bipartisan government and public affairs advocacy firm located in Washington, D.C. He served as chief of staff, chief counsel and legislative director to two members of Congress for over 12 years. He also previously worked as an attorney for the Department of Commerce and has been an adjunct professor at area law schools and universities since 1999.

SEAN MCFATE is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, professor of strategy at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and the National Defense University and an advisor to Oxford University’s Centre for Technology and Global Affairs. He’s an expert on 21st-century war, changing international relations, and mercenaries who also serves as a consultant to the Pentagon, CIA and the film industry.

KATHLEEN J. MCINNIS is a specialist in international security at the Congressional Research Service and nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council's Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security’s Transatlantic Security Initiative and Forward Defense practice. She has worked as a research consultant at Chatham House in London and in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

As associate provost, Winders oversees all aspects of faculty recruitment, hiring and appointments, third-year reviews and promotion and tenure as well as policy oversight for faculty affairs. She also provides leadership for faculty on-boarding, mentoring and development, including new faculty orientation and awards and recognitions.

ALFONSO FLORES-LAGUNES, professor of economics, has been named president-elect of the American Society of Hispanic Economists (ASHE). His three-year term began Jan. 1, 2022. He will serve as president-elect for the first year, president for the second year and past-president for the third and final year.

The ASHE was founded in 2002 to promote the vitality of Hispanics in the economics profession through education, service and excellence.

Flores-Lagunes joined the Maxwell faculty in 2014 and additionally serves as the director of doctoral studies for the Department of Economics, is a Melvin A. Eggers Faculty Scholar and a senior research associate in the Center for Policy Research. His research focuses on the economics of labor markets and economic evaluation of government programs and institutions. His work often explores the differential impact of policies across groups defined by race and ethnicity.

CATHERINE HERROLD, associate professor of public administration and international affairs, has been awarded the Virginia A. Hodgkinson Research Book Prize for her book, Delta Democracy: Pathways to Incremental Civic Revolution in Egypt and Beyond (Oxford University Press, 2020).

The prize was awarded in November 2021 by the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action. The organization, composed of a diverse community of scholars and practitioners, awards the prize to one book each year that best informs policy and practice in the nonprofit sector.

In Delta Democracy, Herrold reveals the culturally resonant and politically smart ways that Egyptian NGOs promoted democracy after the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings. She also provides policy recommendations for the reform of U.S. democracy assistance.

The book prize’s namesake, Virginia Hodgkinson, is widely recognized for her work to advance the understanding of the role of nonprofits in the United States and abroad. She also was instrumental in developing institutions and organizations that support research on philanthropy, volunteering and nonprofit organizations.