Maxwell School News and Commentary

One of 15 geographers from 11 states and the West Indies, Farhana Sultana, professor of geography and the environment, will focus on climate and society. 

“This is a perfect sweet spot for a public power entity to take on some of that risk, to try to really get a technology that we need off the ground,” Matt Huber, professor of geography and the environment, says of TVA’s small modular reactor program. ​“They have the resources and the social mission to do that, where private capital wouldn’t.”

The funding will enable the Maxwell School assistant professor to build on his study of the crop-climate feedback cycle. 

Entitled “Like-minded Sources on Facebook Are Prevalent but Not Polarizing” and co-authored by Assistant Professor of Political Science Emily Thorson, this groundbreaking research published in Nature uses an on-platform experiment to examine what happens when Facebook users see dramatically less content from people who share their political leanings.

"Typically, you would expect a decrease in voter attendance because they’re [members of Parliament, MPs] working in the private sector. What you find among Labour MPs is no difference whatsoever. Among Conservative MPs you actually find that attendance increases when they have a second job. So they are more likely to attend votes," says Simon Weschle, associate professor of political science.

Six faculty members were granted tenure and promoted to associate professor and three were promoted to professor.

“Going forward I think there’s almost no doubt he’s going to be indicted in Washington. And because he’s going to be indicted in Washington and the potential for a jury that would sit and judge him in Washington, his prospects for remaining free got a lot darker,” says William Banks, professor emeritus of public administration and international affairs.

"Given how partisan and ideologically extreme most politicians still are, are nonpartisan primaries really enough to save American democracy? While we’re already seeing improvements in the states that have them, the tide won’t fully change until a critical mass of politicians are freed from partisan primaries at the state and national level," writes Richard Barton, assistant teaching professor of policy studies and public administration and international affairs.

The book garnered the Elsa Goveia Book Prize and the 2022 Mary Alice and Philip Boucher Book Prize.

"Like-minded sources on Facebook are prevalent but not polarizing," co-authored by Assistant Professor of Political Science Emily Thorson, was published in Nature. The study is focused on the prevalence and effects of "echo chambers" on social media.