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Nine Princeton students completed summer internships at the Telethon Kids Institute (TKI) in Perth, Australia.
News September 15, 2023
Princeton Students Impact Global Health
This summer, Princeton University students took on some of the world’s most critical public health challenges – from fighting AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria, to curbing antimicrobial resistance and understanding the drivers of climate change. Princeton’s Center for Health and Wellbeing (CHW) sponsored 88 opportunities for students to pursue global health internships as well as senior thesis research and other health-focused endeavors. The fully funded internships, spanning six continents and 20 cities, offered immersive experiences for undergraduate and graduate students interested in global health. Designed to enrich academic coursework, these…
The Injustice of Place book cover
News September 15, 2023
‘We Need Help to Get Ahead’
In 2015, Kathryn Edin, the William Church Osborn Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs and co-director of SPIA’s Center for Research on Child and Family Wellbeing, and the University of Michigan’s H. Luke Shaefer published $2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America. Their documentation of the rise of extreme poverty in the U.S., seen through the eyes of the impoverished families they profiled, landed on numerous best-of lists, including that of The New York Times, which tabbed it as a Notable Book of the Year. Edin and Shaefer reunited – and were joined by Timothy Nelson, a lecturer of public affairs – to produce The Injustice of Place:…
widner
News September 15, 2023
Innovations for Successful Societies Creates Anticorruption Courses for Ukraine Civil Servants
As Ukraine rebuilds and rebounds after responding to Russia’s war, SPIA’s Innovations for Successful Societies (ISS) program has extended a helping hand to the European country. ISS director Jennifer Widner has been working alongside Oksana Nesterenko of National University Kyiv-Mohyla Academy’s Anticorruption Research and Education Center (ACREC) and anticorruption specialists to deliver focused training for compliance officers and civil society monitors in Ukraine. “Construction is a corruption magnet,” said Widner, a professor of politics and international affairs. “There are many points at which conflicts of interest between project goals and…
JSI 2023 cohort
News September 13, 2023
JSI Program Nears 40 Years of Public Policy Possibilities
June and July usually mark a time of rest and relaxation in higher education, but for students looking to polish their public policy prowess, Princeton’s Junior Summer Institute (JSI) is the place to be. For nearly 40 years, Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA) has hosted a Junior Summer Institute to prepare students from diverse backgrounds for graduate study and careers in public policy. “The future of equitable public policy in our society requires representation, experience, and knowledge from diverse voices,” said SPIA Associate Dean of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Rayna Truelove. JSI provides an entry point into…
Keith Wailoo and Pushing Cool book cover
News September 08, 2023
Very Cool — Wailoo’s Examination of Menthol Cigarette Advertising Wins Award
From 2008 to 2010, the Truth Initiative, America's largest nonprofit public health organization dedicated to the eradication of tobacco and nicotine use, estimated that almost 94% of young African American adults who smoked did so with menthol cigarettes. The trend is not new — menthol tobacco products have been marketed toward Black communities for decades. And as a Black man who grew up in one of those communities, Wailoo experienced the industry’s advertising barrage firsthand. It led him to write “Pushing Cool: Big Tobacco, Racial Marketing and the Untold Story of the Menthol Cigarette,” in 2021, which just received the British Society for the…
Seema Jayachandran
News September 06, 2023
Whose CO2 is it Anyway? Seema Jayachandran’s Research Explores Alternate Mitigation Efforts
As CO2 emissions continue to climb globally, Seema Jayachandran, a professor of economics and public affairs and co-director of the Research Program in Development Economics, published research in the Journal of Economic Perspectives about alternate strategies for low- and middle-income countries to reduce climate change. In this Q&A, she talks about some of those findings from “Think Globally, Act Globally: Opportunities to Mitigate Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Low- and Middle-Income Countries.” SPIA: In the piece, you and your co-author argue that the most cost-effective opportunities for atmospheric CO2 mitigation will happen in low- and middle…
Gregory B. Jaczko
News August 18, 2023
A Change in Leadership for SINSI
It has been a summer of transition for SPIA’s prestigious Scholars in the Nation’s Service Initiative. After seven influential years as co-directors, Kathryn Lunney and Frederick Barton retired at the end of July. Last month, Dean Amaney Jamal named Gregory B. Jaczko the program’s new director. “Greg’s longtime engagement in Washington, D.C., and his enthusiasm for working with SPIA students make him an outstanding choice to head SINSI,” Jamal said in announcing the appointment. Jaczko served SPIA as a lecturer of public and international affairs for the last five years. An internationally recognized energy policy leader, he previously chaired and…
News August 18, 2023
Jonathan Mayer, Technology Policy Expert, Wins NSF CAREER Award
Jonathan Mayer, an expert in technology policy, has received the National Science Foundation’s CAREER award, a top honor for early-career faculty. The NSF’s Faculty Early Career Development Program supports early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization. Mayer is an assistant professor of computer science with a joint appointment in the School for Public and International Affairs. He studies the intersection of technology and law, with emphasis on national security, criminal procedure and consumer privacy. He is also an…
Jonathan Mummolo
News August 17, 2023
SPIA Researcher’s Analysis Plays Important Role in Lawsuit Victory
Research conducted by a School of Public and International Affairs faculty member was cited extensively in a federal judge’s ruling that the Kansas Highway Patrol acted unconstitutionally in stopping out-of-state drivers to search their cars for illegal drugs. Jonathan Mummolo, an associate professor of politics and public affairs, and his research collaborator, Dean Knox, an assistant professor of operations, information, and decisions at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, conducted research on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas in its suit against KHP, and Mummolo gave testimony at the trial as an expert…
Afghanistan flag in cloth
News August 15, 2023
SPIA Reacts: Afghanistan Under Two Years of Taliban Rule
August 15, 2023, marks a grim two-year anniversary: that of the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan. Adela Raz, director of SPIA’s Afghanistan Policy Lab, marks the anniversary below. The Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021 marked one of the most agonizing moments of the 21st century for Afghan women and girls. Upon their return to power, the Taliban started the suppression of women's rights. Their actions have escalated in hostility, targeting the systematic erasure of women and girls from all facets of life. This encompasses the prohibition of girls' education and the enforced closure of public and private spaces essential for women's…
Robert Malley
News August 15, 2023
Senior State Department Official to Join SPIA Faculty as Visiting Professor and Lecturer
A senior official with the U.S. Department of State will join the School of Public and International Affairs faculty this fall. Robert Malley, currently on leave from his role as a special envoy for Iran in the State Department, comes to SPIA as a John L. Weinberg/Goldman Sachs & Co. Visiting Professor and Visiting Lecturer. He will teach a graduate course this fall on foreign policy decision-making, and one to two undergraduate courses in the spring focused on some combination of diplomacy, negotiation, and foreign policy. “While I am on leave from the State Department, I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to work with the next…
Autocratic Legalism book cover
News August 10, 2023
Research Gains New Life as Israel Faces Challenges to Democracy
As pro-democracy protests sweep across Israel, it is a 2018 scholarly article from a Princeton School of Public and International Affairs professor that foreshadows the country’s potential autocratic future while thousands demand change before it’s too late. “Autocratic Legalism,” written by Kim Lane Scheppele and first published in The University of Chicago Law Review, is receiving praise as a “must-read” in Israeli media for its multi-step approach to spotting autocracy. The article detailed how these leaders “use their democratic mandates to launch legal reforms that remove the checks on executive power, limit the challenges to their rule, and…
Zelizer
News August 09, 2023
DOJ Declares Accountability is “Essential to Our Democracy” With New Trump Indictments
“CBS Sunday Morning” host Jane Pauley sat on a white chair, flanked by blue-green video boards, and perched in front of a purple background as she introduced Julian Zelizer’s commentary on the historical significance of former President Trump’s indictments. When Zelizer, the Malcolm Stevenson Forbes, Class of 1941 Professor of History and Public Affairs, appeared on screen wearing a gray suit and dark brown tie, the backdrop was no longer a playful amalgamation of color. Instead, the stoic black tapestry behind him only added further drama to the political landscape in the United States today. “The new indictment of former President Donald Trump…
Students in Princeton Policy Advocacy Clinic course
News August 08, 2023
An Immersion in Policy Advocacy for SPIA Undergraduates
When the School of Public and International Affairs launched the Princeton Policy Advocacy Clinic last fall, nobody knew what to expect. The program, which was designed to teach undergraduates how to find policy solutions for social problems and then engage them in advocacy campaigns to advance those policies, was the first of its kind in higher education. If its inaugural year is any indication, SPIA has a smash hit on its hands. Eleven students were accepted into the full-year, two-semester course following a competitive application process. They were divided into three project teams based on their individual preferences. The students spent the…
The us dollar against the background of a declining chart.
News August 07, 2023
SPIA Reacts: The United States’ Credit Rating Takes a Hit
Last week, Fitch Ratings downgraded the United States’ credit rating from AAA to AA+. The agency cited the recent standoff over raising the country’s debt ceiling, the country’s debt burden, and the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol.Layna Mosley, a professor of politics and international affairs in the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, offered an analysis of the situation:Sovereign credit ratings ultimately are intended to measure the risk of a default – that a country will not repay (or, more modestly, will erode the real value of) its borrowing obligations. Credit ratings agencies therefore make judgements about…