APSA Diversity and Inclusion Programs: Alumni Updates

Meredith Anderson, PhD, (RBSI 2006) recently published two reports for the United Negro College Fund, including “Building Better Narratives in Black Education” (2016) and “Lift Every Voice and Lead: African American Leaders’ Perceptions of K-12 Education Reform” (2017).

Nadia Brown, PhD, (RBSI Advisory Committee, RBSI 2003), associate professor of political science and African-American studies, Purdue University, now serves on the editorial team for Politics, Groups, and Identities.

Yalidy Matos, PhD, (RBSI 2008, MFP 2009–2010, Fund for Latino Scholarship 2015) accepted an assistant professor position at Rutgers University, New Brunswick in the departments of political science and Latino and Caribbean studies starting in the fall of 2017.

Michelle Ngirbabul (RBSI 2015), a recent graduate of Cornell College, was awarded a Fulbright research grant to study in India for nine months, beginning in August 2017.

Horacio Oliveira, MA, (RBSI 2001) completed his Master’s degree at the George Washington University in May 2016 and began a new position as a Project Operations Manager at Palladium in Washington, DC in March 2017. He also recently published a coauthored article titled “Somalia’s Organized Crime Networks: A new framework to degrade al-Shabaab” in International Affairs Review.

Lavar Thomas (RBSI 2012) recently accepted a new position to serve as a community involvement coordinator with the United States Environmental Protection Agency within their Hazardous Site Cleanup Division. He is also codirector of Leaders of the Free World, an international experiential learning and leadership development program for young black men.

Valeria Sinclair-Chapman, PhD, (Former Member, APSA Committee on the Status of Blacks in the Profession) associate professor of political science, Purdue University, is the director of the Center for Research on Diversity and Inclusion at Purdue University. She is also director of a state legislative program for undergraduates. Additionally, she serves on the editorial team for Politics, Groups, and Identities. ■

American Sociological Association Holds Annual Meeting in August

The Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association provides the opportunity for professionals involved in the scientific study of society to share knowledge and new directions in research and practice. Approximately 600 program sessions are convened during the four-day meeting held every August to provide participation venues and networking outlets for nearly 3,000 research papers and over 4,600 presenters. The Annual Meeting will be held at the Palais des Congrès de Montréal in Montréal, Québec, August 12–15, 2017. We welcome you to the Annual Meeting and to Montréal. Learn more at www.asanet.org.

New PBS Documentary on Vietnam War

The Vietnam War, a new 10-part, 18-hour documentary film series directed by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, will air on September 17, 2017 on PBS stations nationwide. In an immersive narrative, Burns and Novick tell the epic story of the Vietnam War as it has never-before been told on film. The Vietnam War features testimony from nearly 100 witnesses, including many Americans who fought in the war and others who opposed it, as well as Vietnamese combatants and civilians from both the winning and losing sides.

Ten years in the making, the series brings the war and the chaotic epoch it encompassed viscerally to life. It includes rarely seen, digitally remastered archival footage from sources around the globe, photographs taken by some of the most celebrated photojournalists of the 20th century, historic television broadcasts, evocative home movies, revelatory audio recordings from inside the Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon administrations, and more than 100 iconic musical recordings by many of the greatest artists of the era. Learn more at http://www.pbs.org/vietnamwar.

Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management Holds Meeting

The APPAM Fall Research Conference is a multi-disciplinary annual research conference that attracts the highest quality research in multiple formats on a wide variety of important current and emerging policy and management issues. With the theme, “Measurement Matters: Better Data for Better Decisions,”

The 2017 conference will focus on the importance of data and measurement, and celebrate the government staff who work to improve the measures we use every day. At recent Fall Conferences, we have heard about the importance of using evidence and research in policy making; focusing on data and measurement is the next step. It is more essential than ever, in light of recent criticism of government data and statistics, to demonstrate the importance of both. The 39th APPAM Fall Conference will take place in Chicago, a city that hosted the first APPAM conference in 1979. Learn more at www.appam.org.