Professor Shelley Liu is a political scientist with a PhD from Harvard who studies conflict and development in weak and authoritarian states. Her recent and ongoing projects show how governments develop the state after conflict, how citizens respond to development policies, and how access to education and information mediates the relationship between citizens and their government. She has conducted fieldwork in Liberia and Zimbabwe, and brings to GSPP knowledge of comparative politics, the impact of political violence, and the politics…

Dr. Elizabeth Linos is a behavioral scientist and public management scholar. The majority of her research focuses on how to improve government by focusing on its people. Specifically, her studies consider how we can improve diversity in recruitment and selection, how to reduce burnout at work, and how different work environments affect performance and motivation in government. In her research on behavioral public administration, she also studies how to use low-cost nudges to reduce administrative burdens and to improve overall…

Professor Amy E. Lerman is a political scientist who studies issues of race, public opinion, and political behavior, especially as they relate to punishment and social inequality in America. She is the author of two books on the American criminal justice system—The Modern Prison Paradox and Arresting Citizenship. Her most recent book, Good Enough for Government Work, examines how perceptions of government shape citizens’ attitudes toward privatization. Professor Lerman’s scholarship can be found in a…

Professor Saru Jayaraman is the President of One Fair Wage and Director of the Food Labor Research Center at University of California, Berkeley. After 9/11, together with displaced World Trade Center workers, she co-founded the Restaurant Opportunities Center (ROC), which grew into a national movement of restaurant workers, employers and consumers. She then launched One Fair Wage as a national campaign to end all subminimum wages in the United States. Professor Jayaraman is a graduate of Yale Law School and the…

Hilary Hoynes is a Professor of Public Policy and Economics and holds the Haas Distinguished Chair in Economic Disparities at the University of California Berkeley where she also co-directs the Berkeley Opportunity Lab. She is a member of the American Academy of Art and Sciences, the National Academy of Social Insurance and is a Fellow of the Society of Labor Economists. She has served as Co-Editor of the American Economic Review and the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy and is…

Dr. Barbara Haya’s work combines research and policy outreach with a focus on the effectiveness of carbon offset programs. She leads the Berkeley Carbon Trading Project, which examines the outcomes of California’s carbon offset program and performs analysis on any proposed expansion or modification to the program. Dr. Haya is also helping the University of California system develop its strategy for procuring carbon offsets for use towards meeting the system’s carbon reduction and neutrality…

Governor Jennifer Granholm served two terms as Michigan's 47th governor from 2003 to 2011, and was the Michigan Attorney General from 1998-2002. As Governor, Granholm led the state through a brutal economic downturn that resulted from the Great Recession and a meltdown in the automotive and manufacturing sectors. She worked relentlessly to diversify the state’s economy, strengthen its auto industry, preserve the manufacturing sector, and add new, emerging sectors, such as clean energy, to Michigan’s economic portfolio. …

Angela Glover Blackwell, Founder in Residence, started PolicyLink in 1999. Under Ms. Blackwell’s leadership, PolicyLink gained national prominence in the movement to use public policy to improve access and opportunity for all low-income people and communities of color, particularly in the areas of health, housing, transportation, and infrastructure. Prior to founding PolicyLink, Ms. Blackwell served as Senior VP at the Rockefeller Foundation. A lawyer by training, she gained national recognition as founder of the Urban Strategies Council. From 1977 to 1987,…

Professor Ellora Derenoncourt is a labor economist and economic historian whose work focuses on inequality. Her research uses quasi-experimental methods and original data collection to understand the evolution of racial inequality in the US over the 20th century. Her recent studies have examined northern backlash against the Great Migration and ensuing reductions in black upward mobility and the role of federal minimum wage policy in accelerating racial earnings convergence during the Civil Rights Era. She has also written on the…

Professor Jennifer Bussell is a political scientist with an interest in comparative politics and the political economy of development and governance, principally in South Asia and Africa. Her research considers the effects of formal and informal institutions—such as corruption, coalition politics, and federalism—on policy outcomes. Her book Corruption and Reform In India: Public Services in the Digital Age (Cambridge University Press) examines the role of corrupt practices in shaping government adoption of information technology across sub-national…