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SPIAction Newsletter
News May 05, 2025
SPIAction Newsletter — May 2025
Dear Princeton SPIA community,As the spring semester draws to a close, I am grateful to everyone at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs for helping make the last few months such a success. There was much to be proud of, but I want to highlight two efforts that were particularly meaningful for the School.First, our Constructive Dialogues initiative welcomed speakers from a wide variety of backgrounds and perspectives, who engaged in respectful conversations on difficult and controversial issues. Panel discussions on antisemitism, Islamophobia, the 119th Congress, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict gave our students multiple…
Wei Peng
News May 05, 2025
Research Record: Comprehensive Energy Actions Can Improve Health Outcomes in the U.S.
Princeton SPIA’s Research Record series highlights the vast scholarly achievements of our faculty members, whose expertise extends beyond the classroom and into everyday life.If you’d like your work considered for future editions of Research Record, click here and select “research project.”
SPIA accolades header
News May 01, 2025
SPIAccolades — May 2025
SPIA in New Jersey Faculty Fellow Joe Krakora ’76 will receive the Charles J. Hollenbeck Award from the New Jersey Commission on Professionalism in the Law at a ceremony on June 12. The award recognizes members of New Jersey’s legal community who have demonstrated the highest standards of professionalism in practice. At Princeton SPIA, Krakora, who is New Jersey’s former Public Defender, is developing an original intervention at the intersection of academic theory and practice, leveraging research for public policymaking. “I am honored to have been selected for this award,” Krakora said. “Our legal system is adversarial by definition, but the…
Frank Von Hippel Book
News April 30, 2025
Princeton SPIA Pioneer Reflects on 50 Years of Anti-Nuclear Efforts
At 87, Frank von Hippel — the first natural scientist to be hired by the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs more than 40 years ago — has written down his life story.“Ending the Nuclear Arms Race: A Physicist’s Quest” explains how von Hippel, a third-generation physicist and the first in his family to be born in the United States, co-founded the Program on Science and Global Security (SGS) at Princeton SPIA and played a pivotal role in nuclear disarmament efforts during the Cold War.In the preface of his book, von Hippel bills it as “a memoir of my adventures as a physicist in the policy arena.”“Basically, I wrote it for my friends…
MPA Header Week 3
News April 29, 2025
Seventy-Five Years in the Making: Princeton SPIA MPA Alumni Reflect on Their Professional Achievements
Princeton University’s 278th Commencement will mark a special anniversary for the graduates of Princeton SPIA’s Master in Public Affairs (MPA) program. The 2023-2024 cohort of the two-year program will cross the stage as members of the 75th anniversary graduating class, harkening back to the program’s origins in 1948.For three-quarters of a century, MPA alumni have gone on to meaningful careers in federal, state, and local governments — here in the United States and around the world — NGOs and nonprofits, the United Nations, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and countless organizations large and small that change the world for the…
Barbara Buckinx and Amelia Frank-Vitale
News April 25, 2025
Research Record: What Does It Mean to Be in Solidarity with Migrants?
Princeton SPIA’s Research Record series highlights the vast scholarly achievements of our faculty members, whose expertise extends beyond the classroom and into everyday life.If you’d like your work considered for future editions of Research Record, click here and select “research project.”
Elena Ayala-Hurtado
News April 23, 2025
Research Record: Navigating the Tension Between Social Capital and Meritocracy in the Job Search
Princeton SPIA’s Research Record series highlights the vast scholarly achievements of our faculty members, whose expertise extends beyond the classroom and into everyday life.If you’d like your work considered for future editions of Research Record, click here and select “research project.”
Austin Edwards, MPP ’23
Community Profile April 21, 2025
#PolicyProfile: Austin Edwards, MPP ’23
“After Princeton SPIA, I joined SandSJ NJ as a senior policy counsel. SandSJ is a Black-faith-rooted organization that works to liberate the Black community throughout New Jersey and transform public policy to uplift people throughout the state. We’re currently working to build a birthing center in Trenton and a few other places throughout New Jersey that are traditionally birthing deserts. We want to ensure that our citizens have a reliable place to safely give birth and have access to maternal health care, good midwives, and doulas. We're in the process of writing legislation and securing funding for midwives to staff the location, provide…
SPIA in New Jersey Faculty Fellow Joe Krakora (right) speaks with a student volunteer with the Clemency Project. Photo credit: Anastasia Mann
News April 21, 2025
SPIA in New Jersey Lends a Hand to New Jersey Clemency Initiative
Before New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy signed an executive order last June to increase petitions for clemency and expedite the clemency process, his staff reached out to Princeton School of Public and International Affairs faculty member Heather Howard, special advisor to the School’s SPIA in New Jersey initiative.“Essentially, they were developing the clemency initiative and knew they’d have staffing constraints given the scope of it,” said Howard, a professor of the practice at Princeton SPIA. “They thought it might be a good internship opportunity for Princeton students and potential partnership for SPIA in New Jersey.”The timing could not have…
SPIA students at Newark Immigration Court
News April 17, 2025
Asylum Lessons Come Alive in Student Court Visit
At dawn on a windy March day, 17 bleary-eyed undergraduates gathered at the campus Wawa to board a bus to Newark. Fueled by cups of coffee and ample pre-reading, the students in Amelia Frank-Vitale’s course “Asylum: Policy, Politics, and Practice” were heading to federal immigration court for an up-close understanding of how the U.S. government handles deportation proceedings.The experiential courses at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs are often cited by undergraduate students as a program highlight. From presenting policy recommendations in front of the United Nations to working to help free innocent people who are…
Katherine Marshall MPA ’69, Kanni Wignaraja MPA ’89, Laura Jaramillo MPA ’02, Margaret Mullins MPA ’18, Arthur Shemitz MPA ’23
News April 15, 2025
Seventy-Five Years in the Making: Princeton SPIA Alumni Reflect on Their Favorite MPA Memories
Princeton University’s 278th Commencement will mark a special anniversary for the graduates of Princeton SPIA’s Master in Public Affairs (MPA) program. The 2023-2024 cohort of the two-year program will cross the stage as members of the 75th anniversary graduating class, harkening back to the program’s origins in 1948.For three-quarters of a century, MPA alumni have gone on to meaningful careers in federal, state, and local governments — here in the United States and around the world — NGOs and nonprofits, the United Nations, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and countless organizations large and small that change the world for the…
Andrew Guess
News April 14, 2025
Research Record: People Favor Sanctioning Extreme Online Hate Speech
Princeton SPIA’s Research Record series highlights the vast scholarly achievements of our faculty members, whose expertise extends beyond the classroom and into everyday life.If you’d like your work considered for future editions of Research Record, click here and select “research project.”
SPIA accolades header
News April 11, 2025
SPIAccolades — April 2025
Jonathan Mummolo, an associate professor of politics and public affairs, co-published “New data fill long-standing gaps in the study of policing” in Science. The piece discusses where research on racial bias in policing should go from here.“New data is making it possible to measure aspects of police encounters that have frustrated research on racial bias for decades,” Mummolo said. “But to make the most of this new opportunity, and aggregate knowledge across studies, researchers must focus on specific and policy-relevant statistical quantities that can be compared across the roughly 18,000 police agencies in the U.S.” Ben Bradlow’s debut book, “Urban…
VA Secretary Collins visit to SPIA DC Center event guests
News April 10, 2025
At Princeton SPIA DC Center, VA Secretary Collins Highlights Discussions on Bipartisan Criminal Justice Reform
Doug Collins, the U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs, paused and grew emotional as he recalled the hug he received from the first person released under the First Step Act, which he cosponsored in 2018 with U.S. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, a New York Democrat, when he was a Republican member of Congress representing Georgia’s 9th District.“We don’t vote on ideas but words on paper,” he said. “It doesn’t matter what I think this paper symbolizes, it matters what the words actually say. When words on paper became faces and hugs, we knew we did something.”Collins was at the SPIA DC Center on April 3 – early in Second Chance Month – to discuss the future of…
Elliot Mamet
News April 09, 2025
Research Record: Democratic Equality for Washington, D.C.
Princeton SPIA’s Research Record series highlights the vast scholarly achievements of our faculty members, whose expertise extends beyond the classroom and into everyday life.If you’d like your work considered for future editions of Research Record, click here and select “research project.”