Politics and Policy

Akemi Nishida uses research, education, and activism to investigate the ways in which ableism are exercised in relation to other forms of social injustices. She also uses such methods to work towards cross-community solidarity. Currently, she is working on her book project which examines care through the prism of disability, race, gender justice works. Dr. Nishida examines US public healthcare programs as well as activism around creating community-based, alternative care support structure, and visioning for just society from beds.

Associate Professor, Political Science

Alexandra Filindra is Associate Professor of Political Science and Psychology. She currently serves as the editor-in-chief for the Journal of Race, Ethnicity and Politics (Cambridge). She specializes in American immigration policy, race and ethnic politics, public opinion, and political psychology. Her work has appeared in Political Behavior, Policy Studies Journal, Regional Studies, Harvard Education Review, Migration Studies, International Migration and other journals. Dr. Filindra is the recipient of three best paper awards from the American Political Science Association and the Lucius Barker Award from the MPSA.

Distinguished Professor, Black Studies & Gender and Women’s Studies & History

Dr. Ransby is a historian, writer, and longtime community activist. Her highly acclaimed biography, Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision received eight national awards. Her most recent book is Making All Black Lives Matter: Reimagining Freedom in the Twenty-First Century. In addition to her teaching and research, Dr. Ransby directs the campus-wide Social Justice Initiative, a project that promotes connections between academics and community organizers doing work on social justice. Dr. Ransby is also the winner of the prestigious Catherine Prelinger Prize for her contributions to women’s history.

Clinical Assistant Professor, Health Policy and Administration

Dr. Jarpe-Ratner’s qualitative and mixed methods applied research focuses on evaluating policy and systems changes that address social and structural determinants of health in order to promote health equity. She takes an intentional approach to collaboration with agency partners within governmental public health, early childhood and K-12 education, child welfare, health care, and community-based organizations. Current evaluation projects include: school-based policy implementation to promote child and adolescent health; policy, systems and environmental change initiatives to address precarious work; and community health planning and improvement.

Assistant Professor, Public Administration

Dr. Liang’s research primarily focuses on the effects of policy design and public management practices on government agencies’ environmental policy implementation activities in the U.S., as well as the implications of the adoption of equity-oriented policies for government’s program management under environmental federalism. Another line of her research probes the relations between organizational diversity, representativeness of the public sector, diversity management, governmental performance, and social equity.

Associate Professor, Urban Planning and Policy

Dr. Lowe studies transportation at the intersection of policy, funding, and social equity. Her work examines how varied stakeholders and transportation policies interact across different levels of government and how this impacts transportation investments. She also studies the transportation perspectives and experiences of low and moderate income communities of color, as well as structural racism in transit investment decisions.

Associate Professor, Public Administration

Dr. LeRoux’s current research projects involve field experiments to determine the effectiveness of various messages used by nonprofits to increase voter turnout in underrepresented communities, and another project examines racial diversity in the shadow state (private organizations funded by government contracts) and whether/how diversity affects contractor performance.

Professor, Sociology

Dr. Krysan’s research focuses on racial residential segregation and racial attitudes. Her most recent book, Cycle of Segregation: Social Processes and Residential Stratification (co-authored with Kyle Crowder) draws on in-depth interviews, large-scale survey data, and previously published research to propose an innovative theoretical framework for understanding the causes of racial residential segregation. Dr. Krysan regularly engage with the media, and present to community leaders, government agencies, advocates, and the like, both sharing my expertise with—and more importantly learning from—her conversations with these audiences.

Associate Professor, Latin American and Latino Studies & English

Dr. Cintron’s research combines rhetorical theory and ethnography. He has worked among right-wing extremist groups, in Chicago’s Puerto Rican and Mexican neighborhoods, and Eastern Europe, focusing on matters of the undocumented, gentrification, liberalism, democracy, property rights, and the commons. He wrote Angels’ Town: Chero Ways, Gang Life, and Rhetorics of the Everyday and is currently working on Volatilities and the End(s) of Sovereignty that addresses modernity, indigeneity, and climate warming.

Associate Professor, Department of Managerial Studies

Dr. Perkins researches leadership, diversity, and institutional change. Her research has found that female national leaders (presidents/prime ministers) in highly racially diverse nations have a positive effect on the economic development of those countries relative to their male counterparts. Another study analyzes the impact of an SEC rule making it mandatory for publicly listed US firms to disclose their corporate board hiring practices to examine the implications of state-level regulations mandating gender and racial inclusion on corporate boards.

Associate Professor, Latin American and Latino Studies Program

Dr. Bada is the author of Mexican Hometown Associations in Chicagoacán: From Local to Transnational Civic Engagement (Rutgers University Press). Her research interests include migrant access to political and social rights, migrant organizing strategies, violence and displacement, and transnational labor advocacy mobilization. She is coeditor of Accountability across Borders: Migrant Rights in North America (The University of Texas Press) and is currently a Fellow at the Berlin Institute for Advanced Study.