Public Administration and International Affairs Leadership and Staff

Leonard M. Lopoo is the Paul Volcker Chair in Behavioral Economics; professor, chair and associate dean of public administration and international affairs; director and co-founder of the Maxwell X Lab; and senior research associate in the Center for Policy Research. Lopoo has been on the faculty at Syracuse University since 2003. His research is interdisciplinary and his interests primarily involve the family: fertility, marriage, maternal employment and the social welfare policies designed to assist the low-income population.

He has published in a number of journals, including Demography, Journal of Health Economics, Journal of Human Resources, Journal of Marriage and the Family, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management and Journal of Public Economics, among many others. He has received funding from a number of federal agencies and foundations, including the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the National Institute on Aging, the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Smith Richardson Foundation, the United States Department of Agriculture, the Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Foundation and the Allyn Family Foundation.

He is the recipient of numerous awards for his research and teaching, including the Birkhead-Burkhead Teaching Excellence Award (twice), the Excellence in Graduate Education Faculty Recognition Award, the Meredith Professors Recognition Award, and the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Prize.

Lopoo received a Ph.D. from the Harris School of Public Policy Studies at the University of Chicago in 2001, and was a postdoctoral fellow at the School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University from 2001-2003. 

Steve is responsible for overseeing the School’s midcareer graduate degree programs (roughly 150 full- and part-time students from thirty countries around the world) and developing and managing various executive management training for both domestic and international audiences. Steve also teaches graduate level courses at the Maxwell School on subjects related to non-governmental organizations and civil society.

Prior to his work with the Maxwell School, Steve spent 12 years designing and managing development programs in South East Asia across a range of topics including health (i.e. family planning, maternal and child health, HIV/AIDS, nutrition) and rural development (i.e. agricultural production, microcredit, small business development).

Starting as a World Teach volunteer in Thailand in 1991, Steve’s career path allowed him to live and work also in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam and to become fluent in Thai and Vietnamese. Steve’s last assignment before returning to Syracuse University full-time in 2004 was as regional director of a Thai NGO, the Population and Community Development Association.

Steve also has experience as an information systems analyst while working for Computer Science Corporation (CSC) from 1989 – 1991. Steve is a graduate of Jamesville-DeWitt High School and his wife and three children are residents of DeWitt since 2003. Steven Lux has an A.B. in economics from Harvard College (1989) and an M.P.A. from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University (1997).

As assistant director of Executive Education Programs, Margaret directs the Humphrey Fellowship Program and is the contact for admissions and financial aid for the E.M.I.R. in D.C.

Samantha manages the myriad administrative responsibilities of the Center, including financial and faculty/staff support elements of the office. She also advises students on career and internship opportunities in Washington, D.C. She helps bridge academic training at Maxwell with the practicalities of preparing for a global career. 

Ken maintains the department database and records for the graduate students. His main tasks involve admissions where he processes applications, coordinates with the EMC and SCIS to see that our international student’s documents are in order for a smooth arrival. Ken also serves as administrative support to the faculty director of the Ph.D. program in public administration. 

Melissa helps arrange our program schedule and class meetings, gather and disseminate information to students, as well as other administrative and logistics concerns. Melissa mainly works from home, but you will receive important messages and information from her electronically.