Maxwell School News and Commentary

Merril Silverstein, professor of sociology and Marjorie Cantor Endowed Professor in Aging, was elected to the Sociological Research Association (SRA), an honors society of sociology scholars dedicated to excellence in research. The SRA was founded in 1936 and membership invitations are extended to a limited number of sociologists each year, based on their long-term careers of distinguished research. 

“This is a tremendously costly endeavor, and that’s why we haven’t done it already,” says Pete Wilcoxen, director of the Center for Environmental Policy and Administration, about revising the EPA's model for evaluating the broad economic costs and benefits of air pollution regulations.

Patents have generally been ignored by map historians, says Mark Monmonier, Distinguished Professor of Geography,  but they reveal a lot about how people have used maps over the years. He found that like many discoveries and inventions, patents for similar ideas seemed to spring up independently around the same time—a phenomenon known as the theory of multiple discoveries.

"It is very important to deal very carefully with North Korea," says Robert Murrett, deputy director of the Institute for National Security and Counterterrorism. "They are [a] less rational actor than other international players."

“[President Trump] has got to go there, and he has got to go there while the problem is still extreme, while the place is still in a state of crisis,” says Grant Reeher, professor of political science. 

Fred Carriere, research associate at the Moynihan Institute, provides his assessment on the discussions between Joseph Yun, the U.S. envoy for North Korea policy, and Pak Song-il, a senior North Korean diplomat at its UN mission in New York.

"The Mueller investigation from the beginning has been about potential collusion, and this would be additional evidence of potential collusion involving the campaign, in particular of General Flynn," says Professor Emeritus William C. Banks.

“Regional music lives on in India because it embodies a wide range of values pertaining to community, locality, rituals and gender,” says Carol Babiracki, director of the South Asia Center at the Maxwell School. “Regional performance is a bellwether of social and cultural identity-formation and of processes of change.”