The Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs is pleased to welcome several new faculty members.  

Çağlayan Başer, assistant professor of political science, will teach classes in international relations, gender and security. Başer was a visiting scholar and instructor with New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD). Prior to that, she served as a visiting scholar and instructor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Başer’s research focuses on the links between domestic and international politics, gender and conflict studies. She has written two peer-reviewed articles: “Women Insurgents, Rebel Organization Structure and Sustaining the Rebellion: The Case of Kurdistan Workers’ Party,” and “The Choice Between Intergovernmentalism and Nongovernmentalism: Projecting Domestic Preferences to Global Governance” and has a monograph under contract with Cambridge University Press. Her research has been supported by NYUAD’s Global Dynamics Research and Inequality Funds, the Fund for Inclusion and Innovation and the American Political Science Association, among others. She is a Women in International Security Fellow and an Empirical Implications of Theoretical Models alumna. Başer earned a Ph.D. from Loyola University Chicago in 2020.

Mark Brockway, assistant teaching professor of political science, will teach American National Government and Politics, Religion and Politics, and the Civic Engagement Research seminar. Previously, Brockway was a faculty fellow in the Department of Religion in the College of Arts and Sciences and the Political Science Department in the Maxwell School. Prior to that, he was an assistant professor of political science at the University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg. He explores the role of religion and secularism in American public life as well as the tension between science and religion and its consequences for public policy and individual behaviors. His work has appeared in peer-reviewed journals and he has been cited by multiple media outlets. His research has been supported by the Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts and The Rooney Center for the Study of American Democracy at the University of Notre Dame. He was the co-recipient of a 2022 CUSE Interdisciplinary Workshop Research grant and a recipient of the Andrew W. Mellon Special Endowed Fellowship at Notre Dame. Brockway earned a Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame in 2019.

Monica Deza, associate professor of economics, will teach courses in the economics of crime, risky health behaviors and urban economics. She previously served as an assistant professor of economics at Hunter College and Graduate Center at the City University of New York and as an assistant professor of economics at the University of Texas, Dallas. Her research examines determinants of risky health behaviors among youth, particularly drug use and criminal behavior. Her work has been published in the Journal of Econometrics, the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, the Journal of Urban Economics and the American Law and Economic Review, among others. She was principal investigator for a National Science Foundation grant, and she has been honored with the 2022 Georgescu-Roegen Prize for the best article published in Southern Economic Journal and the 2021 Best Paper Award for Earlier-Career Scholars from Criminology & Public Policy. She is a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a research affiliate at the Center for Health Economics of Treatment Interventions for Substance Use Disorder. She received a Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, Berkeley in 2012.

Amy Fairchild, professor in the Maxwell School and senior research associate in the Center for Policy Research and Lerner Center for Public Health Promotion and Population Health, will teach courses in history, ethics and policy. She joins Maxwell from The Ohio State University, where she served as professor and dean of the College of Public Health with an appointment in the Department of History. She also held various administrative appointments and served on the faculty at Texas A&M University School of Public Health, and the Joseph L. Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. Fairchild is a historian who works at the intersection of the social history, politics and ethics of public health. Her work has focused on the ways in which social movements, political action, scientific debate and professional tools and values have interacted to shape the ethics and politics of public health over time. She is the principal investigator on a research project examining the backlash against public health, supported in part by the Commonwealth Fund. She is the author of three books and her work has been published in numerous peer-reviewed journals. She is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences. She received a Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1997.

Amanda Hilton, assistant professor of anthropology, will teach courses on applied and environmental anthropology. Previously, she was a research scientist at the Bureau of Applied Research in Anthropology at the University of Arizona, where she worked with tribal nations, food justice and environmental nonprofits and government agencies. Other prior roles include working as an instructor in the School of Geography and Development at the University of Arizona, for the University of California Education Abroad Program in Italy, and with colleagues at the University of Catania in Sicily, Italy. In Sicily, she researched political ecology, critical food studies and critical heritage studies. Her work has been published in Economic Anthropology, Gastronomica: Journal for Food Studies, and she is the co-editor of a special issue of Making Collaborative Futures of Collaborative Anthropologies. Hilton’s research has been supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, The American Philosophical Association and with Fulbright awards. She is a board member of the Society for Economic Anthropology and the Society for the Anthropology of Food and Nutrition and is a founding board member of Associazione Food Heritage. She earned a Ph.D. in 2020 from the University of Arizona.

Denisa Jashari, assistant professor of history, will teach classes in colonial and modern Latin America, urban history, revolutions and counterrevolutions, and the Cold War. Jashari was an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and, in 2020, she was a visiting fellow at the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame. Jashari’s research focuses on 20th-century Chilean urban and social history. She is currently working on her book manuscript tentatively titled, “Santiago’s Urban Battleground: Space and the Production of the Working Poor in Chile, 1872-1994.” Her work has appeared in the Latin American Research Review and was part of a Kellogg Institute for International Studies working paper series. Honors include the Council of Graduate Schools/ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Award in the Humanities and Fine Arts, and Indiana University’s Distinguished Ph.D. Dissertation Award for 2020 in the humanities category. Her research has been supported by the American Historical Association, the Latin American Studies Association, the Tinker Foundation, and the Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship. Jashari earned a Ph.D. from Indiana University in 2020.

Meghan Kelly, assistant professor of geography and the environment, will teach classes in cartography, digital storytelling and feminist mapping. Kelly was an assistant professor at Durham University in the United Kingdom, and a postdoctoral researcher and visiting scholar in the Critical Geospatial Research Lab in the Geography Department at Dartmouth College. Kelly’s research explores the intersections of cartography and feminist theory, particularly the role of power in data, map design and mapping processes. She has authored articles in ACME, The Professional Geographer, GeoHumanities, Cartographic Perspectives and has a forthcoming chapter in the “Routledge Handbook of Geospatial Technologies and Society.” Kelly is an associate editor for The Cartographic Journal and an editorial board member for Cartographic Perspectives. Kelly’s professional cartography work can be found in the Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post, Rolling Stone Magazine and Science Magazine. Kelly has received numerous awards including the Mellon-Wisconsin Fellowship and a Teaching Fellow Award from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Kelly earned a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 2020.

Shafaat Yar Khan, assistant professor of economics, will teach classes in international economics and international trade. Previously, Khan was a research economist at the World Bank in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He also served as an instructor and teaching assistant at the University of Rochester. Khan’s research focuses on international trade and international macroeconomics. His empirical and quantitative research emphasizes the importance of trade dynamics in understanding the effects of policy changes and other aggregate shocks. His research has been published in the Journal of International Economics. He has also published policy pieces in VoxEU and VoxChina and has contributed to multiple economic policy reports on the East Asia and the Pacific region. Honors include the W. Allen Wallis Fellowship at the University of Rochester, where he also received the Ronald Jones Scholarship twice. He earned a Ph.D. from the University of Rochester in 2020.

Drew Kinney, assistant teaching professor for international relations, will teach classes on civil-military relations, international institutions and Middle East politics. Previously, Kinney was a visiting assistant professor at Colgate University. He also served as visiting assistant professor at Tulane University and St. John Fisher University. His research examines the role of civilian politicians in encouraging military coups in the Middle East and North Africa. He has published articles in the International Studies Review and International Studies Quarterly and is finalizing his book manuscript, “Politicians at Arms: Civilian Coup Advocacy in the Post-Colonial Middle East.” Kinney received a Ph.D. from the Maxwell School in 2018.

Garbriela Kirk-Werner, assistant professor of sociology, will teach classes in the sociology of punishment, law and society, and qualitative methods. Kirk-Werner previously served as a faculty fellow in the Maxwell School’s Sociology Department, and as a senior research associate in the Center for Policy Research. Her research focuses on the use and impacts of non-carceral punishments such as monetary sanctions and electronic monitoring. With collaborators at the University of Southern California and North Carolina State University, she received funding from Arnold Ventures and the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University to launch the Captive Money Lab, a public-facing research lab focused on detailing the political economy of punishment in the United States. Additionally, she has received funding from the Russell Sage Foundation and from Arnold Ventures to fund research on court-mandated alternatives to incarceration programs in New York state. She received the inaugural SSRC Charles E. Lindblom Memorial Fellowship for her work furthering anticipatory social research and is a recipient of the Ruth D. Peterson Fellowship for Racial and Ethnic Diversity. Kirk-Werner earned a Ph.D. from Northwestern University in 2022.

Tidiane Ly, assistant professor of economics, will teach classes in game theory and general equilibrium theory. Ly previously researched issues in interjurisdictional tax competition as a postdoctoral fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Before that, he was a postdoctoral fellow and lecturer at the University of Lugano’s Institute of Economics. Ly’s main areas of research include public economics, urban economics and public policy evaluation with a focus on local jurisdictions. His work has been published in Regional Science and Urban Economics, International Tax and Public Finance and other publications. Ly was awarded the Ph.D. Thesis First Prize by the French Economic Association as well as first prize in the Graduate-Student-Author Paper Competition of the North American Regional Science Council. Ly earned a Ph.D. from the University of Lyon in 2019.

Tomás Olivier, assistant professor of public administration and international affairs, will teach classes in statistics and policy implementation. He will also join the Center for Policy Design and Governance and Center for Policy Research as a senior research associate. Previously, he served as an assistant professor in the School of Public Administration at Florida Atlantic University. He was also a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. His research focuses on the governance of shared natural resources, and he is particularly interested in how groups of actors collaborate to address collective action problems surrounding the governance of water resources. He has published articles in multiple journals, including the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, the Policy Studies Journal and Public Administration, in addition to contributing to several edited volumes. He has been active in a variety of professional associations, serving on award committees for the American Political Science Association and as a steering committee member for the International Association for the Study of the Commons 2021 Water Commons Conference. Olivier earned a Ph.D. in 2017 from the University of Arizona.

Takumi Shibaike, assistant professor of political science, will teach classes in global environmental politics, non-governmental organizations and global governance. Previously, Shibaike was an assistant professor of international relations at Duke Kunshan University. He also served as a postdoctoral associate at the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy and as a Max Weber Fellow at the European University Institute. He investigates how civil society activism shapes the public understanding of environmental issues, such as species conservation and climate change. His peer-reviewed articles have been featured in International Studies Quarterly, Global Environmental Politics, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly and other publications. His research has been supported by the Canon Foundation-EUI Research Fellowship and the Konosuke Matsushita Memorial Foundation Research Grant. Shibaike earned a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto in 2020.

Jessie Trudeau, assistant professor of political science, will teach classes in comparative politics, including the politics of crime and violence, politics of geography, Brazilian politics and research methods. Previously, Trudeau was a postdoctoral fellow with Brown University’s Program for Philosophy, Politics and Economics. Trudeau’s research focuses on organized crime and policing, primarily in Brazil. She is currently revising her book manuscript, “Machine Gun Politics: Why Politicians Cooperate with Criminal Groups,” which explains why local candidates collude electorally with criminal organizations in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Her peer-reviewed articles have appeared in World Development and EconomiA. Honors include the 2023 American Political Science Association (APSA) Urban and Local Politics Section’s Best Dissertation Award and the 2022 APSA Pi Sigma Alpha Best Paper Award. Her graduate research was supported by various organizations, including a grant from the Corporación Andino de Fomiento. Trudeau earned a Ph.D. from Harvard University in 2022.

Haowei Wang, assistant professor of sociology, will teach Statistics for Social Science, Intro to Research and Global Perspectives on Population Health and Aging. Previously, Wang was a Scientist III at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University. Prior to Tufts, she was a postdoctoral scholar at the Population Research Institute at the Pennsylvania State University. Her research focuses on global aging and health, family demography, intergenerational relations, and biopsychosocial pathways to health disparities. Wang has contributed to book chapters and over 15 articles in peer-reviewed publications such as Social Science & Medicine, the Journals of Gerontology, Ageing & Society and the Journal of Aging and Health. Wang’s research has been supported by the Social Science Research Council. She was a recipient of the Student Research Award from the 31st Annual Convention of the Association for Psychological Science. Wang earned a Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts, Boston in 2020.

Chengzhi Yin, assistant professor of political science, will teach classes in Chinese foreign policy and international relations research methods. Previously, Yin was a postdoctoral research scholar in Columbia University’s China and the World Program. Yin was also a lecturer at Wellesley College and a research fellow in Tufts University’s Rising Power Alliances Project. Yin’s research interests include international relations theory, great power conflict, rising powers, Chinese foreign policy, Asian security and Cold War history. His dissertation “Accommodation or Coercion: China’s Choices of Alliance Balancing Strategies,” is the basis of one published peer-reviewed journal article and a working book manuscript. Yin’s graduate studies were supported by a Hans J. Morgenthau Fellowship from the University of Notre Dame’s International Security Center and a dissertation fellowship from Boston College’s Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences. Yin earned a Ph.D. from Boston College in 2022.