Faculty highlights and research

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• Don Siegel has joined David Audretsch (Indiana University) as co-Editor-in-Chief of Small Business Economics: An Entrepreneurship Journal (IF 4.8, ABS and ABDC-“A”).
• Thom Reilly, was featured on a podcast called History in the Making: The War in Ukraine. Listen here.
• Don Siegel presented “Pro-Social Technology Transfer and Academic Entrepreneurship: Lessons Learned and New Directions” at Uppsala, Orebro, and Gothenburg Universities in Sweden and at the Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN) in Stockholm. These seminars were delivered on his tour of the country before receiving the Global Award for Entrepreneurship Research on June 1, 2026 at the Royal Swedish Opera House.
• Elisa Jayne Bienenstock was interviewed by Deepti Hajela for an article: " World's reaction to hantavirus tinged by echoes of COVID | AP News
• Don Siegel's article, titled “Building a Community of Scholars of Technology Transfer and Academic Entrepreneurship: Reflections on the Journal of Technology Transfer and Growth and Development of the Field,” was accepted for publication in the Journal of Technology Transfer (IF 4.3). This paper was presented at the recent ASU conference, organized by Maribel Geurrero and the Global Center for Technology Transfer, in honor of the 50th Anniversary of the Technology Transfer Society and to celebrate the career achievements of Barry Bozeman and Al Link.  
• Danbi Seo’s paper, co-authored with Beth Gazley (Indiana University) and Chao Guo (University of Pennsylvania), has been accepted in Nonprofit Management & Leadership. Titled “What Do We Mean by Collaboration Processes? A Systematic Review of Research Design and Methods,” the paper examines 253 empirical studies (1972–2024) to clarify how “process” is defined and studied in nonprofit collaboration research.
• Don Siegel and Maribel Guerrero’s article (with co-authors) titled “A Theoretical Analysis of the Relationship Between Entrepreneurial Competencies and Entrepreneurial Actions: A Proposed Model, ” was accepted for publication in the Journal of Business Venturing (FT 50, IF 8.9). The article provides a framework for linking entrepreneurial competencies to entrepreneurial action. We will be applying for a major grant to implement this model in the training and education of academic entrepreneurs at universities and federal labs, with the goal of advancing “pro-social” technology transfer and academic entrepreneurship.  
• Eric Welch co-wrote an article in The Conversation discussing how the Trump administration’s science policies have affected US researchers.
• Roni Fraser served as a co-instructor for the Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service/FEMA course AWR 330: Whole Community Planning in Disasters, held in Surprise, Arizona, in March 2026. The course brought together civic leaders, emergency managers, students, and first responders to explore whole community principles and apply them in an Arizona context.
• Alvaro Hofflinger was quoted in a CNN story: The world is entering a new era of wildfire. This huge blaze shows how hard they are to tackle.
• Kathryn Sorensen was featured recently in three news outlets: Arizona considers buying California water as Colorado River tensions remain high (Fox 10 Phoenix); Big cuts are coming for Colorado River water. This Arizona town will feel them first (91.5 KJZZ); Phoenix plans tougher water cuts as Colorado River crisis grows (13 News).
• Thom Reilly appeared on The Show (KJZZ) and spoke about the challenges of creating a political party for Arizona political independents
   Listen here.
• Maryann Feldman was interviewed by NPR Podcast KUOW in a segment titled "An engine of Seattle's innovation economy is running out of gas". Listen here.
• Sian Mughan, Anthony Howell and Akheil Singla have published new research in the Journal of Public Budgeting & Finance. The article is titled "Regulation or Revenue? The Role of Selective Taxes in Housing Policy " April 27 2026.
• PhD candidate Tipeng Chen published an article with Eric Welch, “Contracting Services for Response to Extreme Weather Events in Public Organizations,” in Public Administration Review. The article examines why public agencies establish contractual relationships to manage extreme weather events, despite the increased risks to control over the contracting process and to safeguard public safety posed by the uncertainty, temporariness, irregularity, and time pressures of such extreme events.
• Chris Herbst and his co-author Jessica Brown will give a briefing to the U.S. Senate Budget Committee on the role of private equity (PE) ownership in the child care industry. The briefing was scheduled in response to an investigation launched by Sen. Merkley (D-Oregon) to understand how PE is affecting the child care workforce, children, and families.
• Thom Reilly joined Tom Collins and Gina Roberts from @azcleanelections on Beyond the Ballot AZ to discuss ballot measures in Arizona. Don’t miss this important conversation and how it shapes Arizona. Listen here.
• Maryann Feldman presented  in an online seminar entitled “Innovation and Equity: Places and Practices. Dr. Feldman presented a paper entitled “Prosperous places: processes, policies and practices”. This paper Is co-authored with Olav Sorenson (UCLA) and Christof Brandtner (EM Lyon) and is forthcoming in Industrial and Corporate Change.
• Chris Herbst's paper entitled "How Rising ICE Activity Influences the Child Care Workforce" was accepted for publication at the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). This work is co-authored with Erkmen Aslim, Janet Currie, and Erdal Tekin.
• Lily Hsueh will deliver an invited lecture, "Beyond the Bottom Line: How Corporations Shape Public Policy and the Planet," at the Rochester Institute of Technology. As part of the Science, Technology, and Public Policy Seminar, Professor Hsueh will explore the critical intersection of business and public policy, sharing insights from and new research building on her book, Corporations at Climate Crossroads (MIT Press, 2025).
• Don Siegel presented “Unlocking Entrepreneurial Potential: Lessons Learned from the Scholarly Literature on Academic Entrepreneurship for University and Regional Policymakers” as part of a webinar for the State Science and Technology Institute (SSTI). SSTI is a national nonprofit organization that supports state, regional, and university efforts to promote science and technology-based economic development by sharing best practices, conducting research, and fostering collaboration.  
• Yushim Kim’s edited volume, Computational Approaches to Policy Challenges: Novel Methods and Applications, builds on more than a decade of collaboration between researchers at Arizona State University’s Center on Technology, Data, and Society (CTDS) and Hanyang University’s Center for Computational Social Science (C2S2), and is published as part of the World Scientific Series on Public Policy and Technological Innovation. Read here.
• Sian Mughan has published an article titled "Beyond crime: evidence on policing and marijuana dispensaries" in the Annals of Regional Science.
• Sian Mughan will participate as an invited speaker at the Bedrosian Symposium, held at the Price School at the University of Southern California on April 17. The theme of the event is “Effective/Successful Government.”  Her talk will focus on two of her current research projects, each investigating different approaches to addressing the unintended consequences of driver’s license suspensions for unpaid court debt.
• New publication by Mary K. Feeney and colleagues titled: "Who Is Accountable? How Citizens Attribute Success and Failure in Cross-Sector Collaborations".
• On March 2nd Maryann Feldman gave an online talk to the NIH National Center
  for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) Summit on “Driving Translational Science Toward Measurable Impact”.  The emphasis was on building bioscience entrepreneurial ecosystems.   
• On February 26, Maryann Feldman participated on a panel titled "Advancing the Griliches Question: What We Know and What Comes Next" at the Federation of American Scientists meeting on "What is the ROI on R&D?"
• Jiho Kim published an article with Tina Nabatchi titled “Collaboration as a Tool for Equity? Reducing Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Healthcare Access” in Public Administration Review. The article evaluates the effectiveness of cross-boundary collaborations at lowering linguistic, cultural, and economic barriers to healthcare services for racial and ethnic minorities. Read here.
• The keynote lecture at the annual AZ-AATSEEL Conference will be delivered by Thom Reilly. He will be joined by his research team to present findings from his forthcoming book, Child Abduction in the War in Ukraine: Erasing Ukrainian Identity as a Tool of War (Routledge, 2026). Read here.
• School of Public Affairs Professor of Practice Vince Micone has been inducted into the Partnership for Public Service’s Strategic Advisors to Government Executives network. This distinguished group brings years of federal C-suite experience and now lends its expertise to advising current government executives through the partnership’s programs and initiatives.
• Yushim Kim, Ph.D. candidate Jieun Kim, and their colleagues published the paper “Administrative Decision-Making with Generative AI: The Challenge of Epistemic Boundedness” in Administration & Society. The paper explains the underlying mechanisms of large language models and examines their implications for government decision-making. Read here.
• Chris Herbst’s paper, “The Declining Relative Quality of the Child Care Workforce” was selected by a panel of economists and journalists as one of three papers designated “must-read research of 2025.”
• Associate professor James E. Wright, along with co-authors Collin Cox and Victoria Pham, published an article titled "Code Red: Fighting Fires, Racism, and Policies in Emergency Safety Services." The study examines structural and institutional racism in frontline work in the context of firefighting. Read here.
• We Will Not Fade Away is a documentary following five Ukrainian teenagers as they navigate adolescence during Russia’s war against Ukraine, offering a powerful and deeply human perspective on resilience and displacement. Thom Reilly participated in the moderated discussion following the screening, alongside faculty from across the university.
• Chris Herbst was interviewed by KJZZ for The Show: Deportations are shrinking the child care workforce. The whole labor market could be next.
• Lily Hsueh was invited by IEEE Spectrum to contributed to a guest article analyzing why many global corporations continue to invest in climate and energy infrastructure despite shifting political rhetoric. Read more.
• Annus Azhar has been appointed Associate Editor of the International Journal of Public Sector Management. IJPSM publishes research on public sector management, governance, and public value and has a 2024 Impact Factor of 2.5. Learn more.
• Scott Robinson was quoted in a recent article in the Washington Post regarding rumored downsizing plans for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Professor Robinson discussed the controversies over the use of administrative and personnel actions to unravel positions and offices that were congressionally mandated following Hurricane Katrina.  This is a continuing debate that will shape the conversations about emergency management over the next years.
• In early February, Lily Hsueh served as the inaugural speaker for the LKYSPP Speakers Series at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. The LKYSPP Speakers Series is a new initiative featuring prominent scholars in the field of public policy.
• Together with colleagues at ASU and Purdue University, Melanie Gall published a paper on the relationship between economic losses due to natural hazards and mortgage default rates. Read more here.
• Elisa Jayne Bienenstock and Skaidra Smith Heisters recently published "Planted at the Scene of the Crime: Teaching Undergraduate Forensics Students about the Uses of Pollen as Evidence in Criminal Investigations." Journal of the Arizona-Nevada Academy of Science 51, no. 1 (2025): 1-8 with our collaborator from the West Valley Campus, Ken Sweat and his students, Sophie C. Enright and  Anastasia S. Neill. Read more here.
• Lily Hsueh's article, "Global companies are still committing to protect the climate – and they’re investing big money in clean tech," has been published in The Conversation.  Read it here.
• Bill Gates moderated a panel on AI and elections Wednesday, Nov. 19, at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. [Article]
• Scott Robinson was featured in a new article by Barrett and Greene, a leading local government consulting firm known for its national reporting on public-sector innovation. The article explores the growing challenges facing emergency managers and procurement officials as natural disasters become more frequent and costly. Read more here.
• Nicole K. Mayberry has launched a brand-new podcast, The Doc to Dock Podcast. What happens when long-distance friends turn their voice notes into a podcast? Doc to Dock is where two PhDs, Nicole K. Mayberry and Brett S. Goldberg, turn their ongoing voice notes into conversations that travel across place, politics, and perspective. Together, they explore how where we are shapes how we think, bridging time zones, disciplines, and ideas; a space where friendship and geography meet reflection. It’s voice notes turned podcast. Place as perspective. You can find it where you get your podcasts (YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts). Please follow @doctodockpod, and for more, visit us on https://linktr.ee/doctodockpod
• Bill Gates participated in a roundtable discussion on KTAR: The right to disagree: A special roundtable discussion (video)
• Vince Micone joined national leaders on the National Academy of Public Administration’s “Management Matters” podcast to discuss the evolving challenges facing public servants today.
  In the episode, panelists explored how federal decision-making shapes state and local outcomes and how public service is being redefined through disruption, agility, and resilience. Listen to the full episode here: https://lnkd.in/evueHADd
• James E. Wright II's article, "Internal Representation? How Black and White firefighters view racial diversity within the Fire service" is newly published in PMRA's Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory here.
• Vince Micone is featured in Federal News Network: Federal Employee Shutdown Survival Guide. In the interview, Micone shares firsthand insights on navigating the uncertainty of government shutdowns, drawing from personal experience to highlight how preparation, connection, and trust help federal employees stay mission-focused through challenging times.
• Bill Gates was interviewed by KTAR news in The Right to Disagree: A special roundtable discussion.
• James E. Wright II has joined the Spark Magazine editorial board. The board is composed of scholars from diverse disciplines and institutions who are dedicated to sharing research and scholarship with a broad public audience. Read more here.
• Yushim Kim and Jieun Kim’s proposal, GenAI-Assisted Policy Solution Generation and Evaluation, has been selected for a seed grant from ASU’s Learning Engineering Institute. The project will develop a GenAI-assisted policy analysis prototype that both generates and evaluates policy solutions, with a focus on climate actions in Phoenix.
• Lily Hsueh's book, "Corporations at Climate Crossroads: Multilevel Governance, Public Policy, and Global Climate Action," has been released. Read about it in ASU News here.
• Jiho Kim and his coauthors have a new publication titled "A "Watershed" Moment for Collaboration: The Impacts of Legislation and Network Governance on Environmental Outcomes" in Public Administration Review.
• Danbi Seo and her co-authors' paper, "Achieving organizational transformation: Leadership and strategic planning as a structurational process", was published in International Public Management Journal (IPMJ).
• Jiho Kim and his coauthors have a new publication titled "A "Watershed" Moment for Collaboration: The Impacts of Legislation and Network Governance on Environmental Outcomes" in Public Administration Review.
• Roni Fraser visited Kerr County, Texas, to study mental health and social support for affiliated and unaffiliated volunteers and first responders after the Independence Day weekend disaster. Read about her work here.
• Scott Robinson was a quoted in a Washington Post article titled "DHS moves to bar aid groups from serving undocumented immigrants."
• Youngjae Won (Postdoc, North Carolina State University) and Jieun Kim (PhD candidate) have a new publication with SPA faculty members (Yushim Kim and Elizabeth Corley) on identifying neighborhoods with green space access and use mismatch in Los Angeles, using Geographically Weighted Regression techniques in Environment and Behavior (5yr IF: 7.0)
• Barry Bozeman has a new publication, titled "Impervious Corruption: President Trump and the Deformation of Democracy"
• Scott Robinson was featured in ASU News to discuss outdated weather warning system. Read the article here.
• Together with current and former ASU colleagues, Brian Gerber and Melanie Gall published an article summarizing the impacts of climate, resource, population, urbanization, and technology drivers on foreign assets for the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations in Kolkata, India. The article describes an integrated and inclusive process to develop a capabilities-based planning (CBP) framework to inform decision-making for future investments, centering hazard risk reduction and operational resilience.
• Alvaro Hofflinger has a new publication, title "Wildfires and social capital: Evidence from Chile" in International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction.
• Michael Crow, President of Arizona State University, and Martha Bohrt, Interim Executive Director of the Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs, and Administration (NASPAA), join host and Academy President & CEO James-Christian Blockwood to tackle a big question: How does public administration education need to change?
• Yushim Kim and Jieun Kim have a new publication with former SPA students (Youngjae Won, Jake Nelson) on data and analytical issues related to Phoenix green space equity research using large scale human mobility datasets (SafeGraph) in Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science.
• Danbi Seo and her co-author published an article, titled “The Role and Potential of Grounded Theory in Advancing Nonprofit Research and Theory Development”, at the VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations (An official publication of International Society for Third-Sector Research).
• Kathryn Sorensen is featured in a recent article highlighting "the vital and also brave" work of water system operators. Read here.
• Monica Gaughan is a recipient of a 2025–26 Fulbright U.S. Scholar Award.  She will travel to Kansai University in Suita, Japan, to teach courses on demography, population aging, international development, and American government. Read here.
• Mary Feeney was featured In AAUP Presents - the podcast service for AAUP.  Academic Freedom on the Line: Science Funding. Listen here.
• Shannon Portillo and co-authors explore “Race, Gender, and Rules: How Intersectionality and Congruence Shape Leadership Perceptions” in the International Public Management Journal. Read full article here
• Bill Gates has been named by Arizona Governor Hobbs to serve on a 19-member committee to develop AI policies for the state. KJZZ-FM and ASU News.
• Together with ASU colleague Petar Jevtic and doctoral student Cody Delos Santos, Melanie Gall co-authored a new paper on the effects of natural hazards on spatio-temporal patterns of violent crime in the United States. Employing regression discontinuity design principles, swaths of linear regression models across different time scales were fitted, yielding nearly 120 statistically significant coefficients. The findings reveal correlations between certain natural hazard types and changes in crime rates. Read here
• New editorial piece in Ars Technica by Mary Feeney titled "Editorial: Censoring the scientific enterprise, one grant at a time Recent grant terminations are a symptom of a widespread attack on science." View here.
• Sian Mughan and Akheil Singla's paper "Competition or Cooperation? The Case of Revenue From Traffic Citations" has been published in Public Budgeting and Finance. View here.
• "Science Competes: Informing Policy in a Time of Distrust, Fracture, and Chaos," by  Barry Bozeman, has been published. MIT Press.
• Mary Feeney wrote for Can We Still Govern: "I oversaw rigorous review of NSF." Read here
• Sarah Porter, director, Kyl Center for Water Policy and Kathryn Sorensen, director of research, Kyl Center for Water Policy and professor of practice, School of Public Affairs, were featured: Is Phoenix sustainable? Experts tell SEJ conference region plans for heat, drought: Arizona Republic; and Chandler general plan speakers focus on housing, water: Chandler Independent.
• Alvaro Hofflinger was interviewed by Maggie Fox (One Health Trust) about his paper "Breathing dirty air, struggling in school" published in the journal Population and Environment. Click Here
• Elisa Jayne Bienenstock with colleagues from CISA, Mary Fulton and students just published a new paper on AI Detection: Hyatt, J. P. K., Bienenstock, E. J., Firetto, C. M., Woods, E. R., & Comus, R. C. (2025). Using aggregated AI detector outcomes to eliminate false-positives in STEM-student writing. Advances in Physiology Education.  View Here
• Together with colleagues from the National Institute of Environmental Health, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and the University of Central Florida, Melanie Gall published an article on the prevalence of cardiovascular disease risk factors associated with residential natural hazard risk in Science of the Total Environment (IF: 8.2). The research team found that residing in areas prone to disasters is associated with higher prevalence of key cardiovascular disease risk factors. Click Here
• Roni Fraser, along with colleagues from the University of Delaware, published their article “Including the Maternal and Infant Needs in Preparedness and Sheltering: A Case Study of Hurricanes Ida and Ian” in the Journal of Emergency Management’s Special Issue “Leave Nobody Behind: Emergency Management in a More Inclusive Way.” View Here
• Sian Mughan, Akheil Singla and Susan Miller received a $560,000 grant from Arnold Ventures to conduct a field experiment with Tempe Municipal Court.
• Sang Eun Lee has published a new paper in Public Personnel Management entitled "Gender, empowerment, and performance in U.S. federal agencies: The role of women's leadership representation. Click here
• Akheil Singla and colleagues Drs. Carolyn Abott and Matthew Incantalupo were recently awarded the inaugural GovFi Prize by the Government Finance Officers Association. The prize is for their peer-reviewed research “Informing Voters About Public Finance Evidence from a Survey Experiment” published in Public Finance Journal. Click Here
• Elisa Jayne Bienenstock and Skaidra Smith-Heisters' new book "Economyths about Work, Value, and Success in America" has been published by Edward Elgar Press. Click Here
• Ulrich Jensen and colleagues recently published a paper entitled “More Random Than Not? A Review of the Logic of Inference in Experimental Public Administration.” The paper, published in the Journal of Behavioral Public Administration, analyzes the primary findings from every experimental study published in JPART from 1991 to 2020.  By investigating both the original studies and how their findings were interpreted in subsequent citations, the paper finds that many conclusions from experimental studies are not rooted in randomization—an observation that raises important questions about knowledge development in the field.
• Sang Eun Lee and PhD candidate Youngjae Kim’s paper entitled “Flexibility stigma, supervisory support, and the use of flexible work arrangements in the public sector: Distinguishing flextime and flexplace” is published in International Review of Public Administration. https://doi.org/10.1080/12294659.2024.2416273
• Karen Mossberger and co-authors are featured in The Conversation:  Local governments are using AI without clear rules of policies, and the public has no idea