Social Policy & Public Impact Working Group Event - Faculty Flash Talks

Google map

A light lunch will be served to all in-person attendees.

Edu-techno-futurism: private power and curricular priorities in education

Nora Reikosky, Assistant Director, Rock Ethics Center, Assistant Research Professor of Public Policy, School of Public Policy (Penn State-University Park)

Over the past decade, a broad and bipartisan political coalition of philanthropists, corporations, educational institutions, and politicians have emphasized the urgent necessity of computer science education for students at all levels. Drawing on economic, political, and social equality justifications, their advocacy has led to rapid policy changes and significant shifts in curricular offerings across K-12 education. Yet these shifts allow for increased and often unfettered technological integration within and enhanced opportunities for corporate influence over schooling. This talk explores the connectedness of this advocacy coalition and the risks such influence raises, offering recommendations for insulating schools from corporate and philanthropic power.

Cannabis Policy, Politics, and Public Health

Daniel Mallinson, Associate Professor of Public Policy and Administration, School of Public Affairs (Penn State-Harrisburg)

This talk focuses on ongoing research on three fronts. First, how politics shaped the spread of medical marijuana laws in the states and what that teaches us about the social aspects of medicine. Second, how we measure state cannabis policy and use those measures to examine the public health effects of legalization. Third, a new project examining the myriad barriers to accessing medical cannabis in Pennsylvania (and beyond).

Geographer as Translator: Working with Communities and Policymakers to Analyze Energy Systems

Dr. Jennifer Baka, Associate Professor of Geography, IEE co-fund, EESI co-fund

I am an energy geographer that has worked for over a decade with communities in the Marcellus Shale gas region of Southwestern PA (SWPA). My research is motivated by their repeated calls to better understand the energy system in which they live, how it operates and how it might impact their health. This talk will highlight three projects I have done to address these concerns: 1. Mapping out the ‘industrial ecosystem’ that comprises shale gas and petrochemical development in SWPA; 2. Studying the (piecemeal) regulatory system that enables the ‘industrial ecosystem’; 3. Developing an interactive map to help communities to locate themselves in the ecosystem and better understand what surrounds them. I regularly share my results with communities and with PA state government officials as I am a member of the Environmental Justice Advisory Board for the Department of Environmental Protection. I will conclude the talk with some reflections on what I have learned about communicating with communities and government officials.

Promoting health of justice-involved populations by addressing trauma & behavioral health disorders through evidence-based practice & policy

Brandy Henry, Assistant Professor of Education, SSRI faculty co-fund

Dr. Henry will describe how her research has social policy and public impact. She will highlight how she engages both with and as a member of the community, including how her role as a boundary spanner has served as a catalyst for collaboration. She provides a recent example from an ongoing study to highlight this in action.

Administrative burden and the politics of public resources

Tracee Saunders, Assistant Professor in Political Science, SSRI faculty co-fund

Dr. Saunders examines how administrative burden — the ordeals of learning about, applying for, and staying enrolled in public programs — shapes who actually gets access to the benefits and services they're eligible for, across Medicaid, SSI, and (in a contributing strand) reproductive health access through courts and clinics. She'll trace that agenda briefly, then turn to topline results from a paper on Medicaid and the "federalist paradox": why devolved, state-level control over program design produces a poverty gradient in access rather than the locally responsive system decentralization promised.