Nine Maxwell School faculty members have new titles in the 2023-24 academic year due to promotions approved by the Syracuse University Board of Trustees. Six of them were granted tenure and promoted from assistant to associate professor: Brian Brege, Michah W. Rothbart, Áron Tóbiás, Yulong Wang, Simon Weschle and Steven White.

Brian Brege, associate professor of history, is also a senior research associate in the Program for the Advancement of Research on Conflict and Collaboration (PARCC). He studies early modern Europe and its engagement with the wider world. His first book, "Tuscany in the Age of Empire" (Harvard University Press, 2021), won the American Association for Italian Studies book prize in the category History, Society, and Politics. In the 2019-20 academic year, he was in Florence as a Harvard I Tatti Fellow researching his second book, "The Global Merchants of Florence: Florentine Patrician Families and Early Modern Capitalism." He co-hosted a conference at I Tatti in 2022 on the Florentine world traveler Francesco Carletti, is co-editor of the resulting edited volume, and is preparing a new translation of Carletti's account of his circumnavigation. He received a Ph.D. from Stanford University in 2014

Michah W. Rothbart, associate professor of public administration and international affairs, is also a senior research associate in the Center for Policy Research (CPR). His research and teaching interests are in public finance and financial management, particularly in the fields of education and food policy. His recent work includes the study of the impacts of school food programs and policies, the relationships between social welfare participation, pre-kindergarten utilization and school readiness, and the consequences of COVID-19 on student health and academic outcomes including the moderating effects of vaccination. He is the co-principal investigator for a $3.5 million research grant from the National Institutes of Health titled “COVID-19, vaccinations and school/community resources: Children's longitudinal health and education outcomes using linked administrative data.” He received a Ph.D. from New York University in 2016.

Áron Tóbiás, associate professor of economics, is an applied theoretical economist who studies the economic and policy implications of incomplete data. His research is focused on public economics and finance, game theory, and the economics of information. His work has been included in publications including the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Games and Economic Behavior, and the Journal of Public Economics. Prior to joining Maxwell, he was a research assistant and teaching fellow at Yale University. During his graduate studies, he received numerous awards and fellowships, including the Raymond Powell Teaching Prize, the Yale University Dissertation Fellowship, the Annie G. K. Garland Memorial Fellowship, and the Yale University Fellowship. At Maxwell, he teaches undergraduate and graduate courses including mathematical economics and microeconomics. He received a Ph.D. from Yale in 2016.

Yulong Wang, associate professor of economics, is also a senior research associate in CPR. He is a theoretical econometrician who develops statistical models to measure and estimate tail behavior, which refers to extreme circumstances such as economic inequality, hurricanes, war or epidemics. His work has appeared in numerous peer publications, including the Journal of the American Statistical Association, the Journal of Econometrics, and the Journal of Business & Economic Statistics. He received a Ph.D. from Princeton University in 2017.

Simon Weschle, associate professor of political science, researches democratic accountability and representation, in particular the role of money in politics and elite political communication. His work has appeared in the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science and other academic publications. In 2022, he published his first book, “Money in Politics. Self-Enrichment, Campaign Spending, and Golden Parachutes” (Cambridge University Press). He was the 2022 recipient of the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Award for Teaching and Research, an award presented annually in recognition of a non-tenured faculty member of the Maxwell School with an outstanding record of teaching, research and service. He earned a Ph.D. from Duke University in 2015.

Steven White, associate professor of political science, is also a senior research associate in the Campbell Public Affairs Institute. He researches race and American political development. He authored “World War II and American Racial Politics: Public Opinion, the Presidency, and Civil Rights Advocacy” (Cambridge University Press, 2019) and has published articles in the American Political Science Review, Studies in American Political Development and other journals. He was a 2019-20 visiting research scholar at Princeton University's Center for the Study of Democratic Politics. He received a Ph.D. from Columbia University in 2014.

Three faculty members were promoted from associate professor to professor: Mona Bhan, Ryan Griffiths and Osamah Khalil.

Mona Bhan, professor of anthropology and Ford-Maxwell Professor of South Asian Studies, is also currently a Lender Faculty Fellow and a senior research associate and advisory board member for the South Asia Center. She researches the role of economic and infrastructural development in counterinsurgency operations and resistance movements to protracted war and conflict. She has authored "Counterinsurgency, Democracy, and the Politics of Identity in India: From Warfare to Welfare?" (Routledge, 2014), co-authored "Climate without Nature: A Critical Anthropology of the Anthropocene" (Cambridge University Press, 2018) and co-edited "Resisting Occupation in Kashmir" (University of Pennsylvania Press 2018). She also she co-edited and contributed to “The Routledge Handbook of Critical Kashmir Studies” (Routledge, 2022) and “The Palgrave Handbook of New Directions in Kashmir Studies” (Palgrave, 2023). She received a Ph.D. from Rutgers University in 2006.

Ryan Griffiths, professor of political science, is a member of the Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs and a senior research associate for PARCC. Broadly, he is interested in international relations; his research focuses on the dynamics of secession and the study of sovereignty, state systems and international orders. He authored "Secession and the Sovereignty Game: Strategy and Tactics for Aspiring Nations" (Cornell University Press, 2021) and contributed to and co-edited “The Routledge Handbook of Self-Determination and Secession” (Routledge, 2023). He was recently awarded $442,000 by the National Science Foundation Security and Preparedness Program for a research project titled “Global Patterns in Interstate and Intrastate War Since 1750.” He earned a Ph.D. from Columbia University in 2010.

Osamah F. Khalil, professor of history, also serves as chair of the International Relations Undergraduate Program and is a senior research associate for the Middle Eastern Studies Program. He is a historian of U.S. foreign relations, the modern Middle East and the Cold War. Khalil is the author of the forthcoming “A World of Enemies: America's Wars at Home and Abroad from Kennedy to Biden” (Harvard University Press, 2023) and “America’s Dream Palace: Middle East Expertise and the Rise of the National Security State” (Harvard University Press, 2016) and the editor of “United States Relations with China and Iran: Towards the Asian Century” (Bloomsbury, 2019). In 2018, he received the Chancellor’s Citation for Faculty Excellence and Scholarly Distinction. In 2021, Khalil was the recipient of the Dr. Ralph E. Montonna Endowed Fund for the Teaching and Education of Undergraduates. He received a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2011.