Fall 2012

Message from the Dean

They’re here! Our newest students, the 2012 Cohort, arrived at the Pardee RAND Graduate School in September. Since arriving they've thrown themselves into their coursework but also into becoming part of the Pardee School community. You can already see them as active members of RAND project teams, enthusiastic supporters of the many speaker series at RAND (including the student-led International Development Speaker Series), and regular attendees at CoCom-sponsored lunches and happy hours. The 2012 Cohort wrapped up November with a celebration of extravagant facial hair as part of their “Movember” fundraising for men's cancer awareness. You can learn more about these latest members of the school's student body in the story below and through our Facebook site.

The strength of our Pardee School community has come through loud and clear as we've hosted and attended a number of alumni events these past few months. In September, RAND and PRGS alumni gathered in Washington, D.C. to discuss progress made and lessons learned since 9/11 with Brian Michael Jenkins and Jeff Hiday. In October, we gathered with alumni from the Bay Area over food and wine to talk about the school but also about each other's lives and careers post-PRGS. November brought us to the Republic of Georgia and reconnecting with alumnus Vladimir Shkolnikov, and in December we met with a dozen recent and “senior” alumni over lunch back in Washington, D.C. At each of these get-togethers, we were all reminded of the great joy there is in sharing time with smart people who care deeply about the world around us and are working to make it better.

All of us at the Pardee RAND Graduate School wish you the very best for the upcoming holidays and the New Year. Stay in touch!

Susan Marquis
Dean

Around Campus

Welcome, Cohort 2012!

Our 2012 Cohort with Dean Marquis. Read their bios »

Professors' Recommendation for "Ten Books" Goes Viral

What books inspire you to train your sights on the most intractable problems of our time? To come up with innovative, persuasive, and enduring solutions? To ensure that, no matter the topic, the problem is well formulated and the research approach is well designed and well executed?

PRGS professors collaborated this summer to recommend Ten Books That Will Change the Way You Think. Frank Camm, Paul Davis, Natalie Crawford, Jeannie Ringel, Lois Davis, and many others provided first-hand accounts of why they recommended the books.

PRGS and RAND then featured the recommendations on Facebook and Twitter and the list went viral, reaching an audience of more than 3000 via RAND and PRGS Facebook posts and well over 1000 via a RAND post on Twitter.

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Dean Hosts Debate Night, Election Night Events

Dean Marquis welcomed PRGS students to join her in watching the first presidential debate in October and the election returns come in on November 6. For the Debate Night, the dean was joined by Professors Robert Lempert and Charles Wolf (pictured at right) to discuss the candidates' policy positions.

Student Research: Prolific PRGS Publishing

PRGS students have been busy writing RAND reports and journal articles. Below is a sampling of recent releases; a full list is available online.

• Susan Burkhauser and Ashley Pierson (both cohort '09) and PRGS professors Susan Gates and Laura Hamilton coauthored Addressing Challenges in Evaluating School Principal Improvement Efforts, which indicates that the time frame for observing a measurable effect on student outcomes from efforts to improve principals may be substantially longer than for efforts that target teachers or students directly.
• Lopamudra Das (cohort '08) helped to convene a technical expert panel to develop consensus guidelines on treating children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD); she coauthored "Nonmedical Interventions for Children With ASD: Recommended Guidelines and Further Research Needs" in Pediatrics.

• Deborah Lai (cohort '08) coauthored NATO and the Challenges of Austerity, a RAND study that analyzes the impact of planned defense budget cuts on the capabilities of seven key European members of NATO and suggests ways in which the Alliance can adapt to meet emerging security challenges.
• Victoria Shier and Ruopeng An (both cohort '08) coauthored "Is There a Robust Relationship Between Neighbourhood Food Environment and Childhood Obesity in the USA?" with professor Roland Sturm, in Public Health. Their research found no consistent evidence to support the hypothesis that improved access to large supermarkets results in lower youth BMI, or that greater exposure to fast food restaurants, convenience stores and small food stores increases BMI.
• Daniel Waxman (cohort '10) published Worlds Apart for the "Piece of My Mind" column in JAMA, comparing his work and surroundings in a university hospital and a Veterans Administration hospital; he also coauthored "Can Quality-Adjusted Life-Years and Subgroups Help Us Decide Whether to Treat Late-Arriving Stroke Patients With Tissue Plasminogen Activator?" in the Annals of Emergency Medicine, with PRGS professor Emmett Keeler.

Catching Up with Alumni

New Job? Congratulations!

Bowman Fernandes Kilgore Ma Mahnovski Richard Bowman (cohort '06) is the Chief Accountability and Strategy Officer for Santa Fe Public Schools. Meena Fernandes (cohort '05), is a Consultant for the School Feeding Unit at the UN World Food Programme in Rome. "I'll be supporting a research agenda they have developed with the World Bank in DC and the Partnership for Child Development in London to improve school feeding programs in low-income countries," she writes. She also welcomes visits from PRGS alumni! Meredith Kilgore (cohort '98) was recently named chair of the Department of Health Care Organization and Policy in the University of Alabama-Birmingham School of Public Health. Sai Ma (cohort '02), is a Social Science Research Analyst at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Sergej Mahnovski (cohort '98), former director of energy policy for NYC mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, is now director of the city's Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability.

PRGS Holds Information Session in Republic of Georgia

PRGS Board member Kakha Bendukidze sponsored a trip by Dean Marquis and Admissions Director Stefanie Stern to visit Tbilisi, Georgia, for an information session this November. The information session had more than 100 people register, from Georgia as well as Armenia, Azerbaijan, and other countries in the region.

While they were in Tbilisi, Marquis and Stern had lunch with alum Vladimir Shkolnikov (cohort '89), who is currently the Senior Human Rights Advisor for the South Caucasus, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Alum 'Writes the Book' on Marijuana Legalization

Angela Hawken (cohort '98) and her long-time academic collaborators Mark Kleiman, Jonathan Caulkins, and PRGS professor Beau Kilmer literally "wrote the book" on marijuana legalization this summer. Marijuana Legalization: What Everyone Needs to Know received broad media exposure and played an important role during — and after — the elections this November that saw marijuana legalized in Colorado and Washington state.

Alumni Directory Is Now Available

Thanks to those of you who opted to be included in our inaugural alumni directory! If you opted in and did not receive your electronic copy, please contact us at prgs-alumni-news@prgs.edu.

This resource has been eagerly received by our current students as they look into their career options post-PRGS and are able to see the impressive breadth of careers our alumni are pursuing. If you would like to "opt in" and be included as we develop the next incarnation, please watch for communication from us via email in summer 2013.

Our Newest Alumni

Six students completed the requirements for their Ph.D. in the last six months.

• Jack Clift (cohort '06); dissertation: Three Essays on the Labor Supply, Savings and Investment Behavior of Older Workers. He will be joining Boston Consulting Group in their Los Angeles office as a consultant.
• Jeremy Didier (cohort '09); dissertation: Evaluating Cadet Leadership Positions at the U.S. Air Force Academy. He is working as an intelligence officer in the USAF.
• Kimberly Hale (cohort '09); dissertation: Expanding the Use of Time/Frequency Difference of Arrival Geolocation in the Department of Defense. She is working as a policy analyst for the USAF in Pensacola, Florida.
• John Langley (cohort '09); dissertation: Occupational Burnout and Retention of Air Force Distributed Common Ground System (DCGS) Intelligence Personnel. He is working as a student pilot for the USAF in Columbus, Mississippi.
• Kevin O'Neill (cohort '09); dissertation: Sustaining the US Air Force's Force Support Career Field through Officer Workforce Planning. Kevin is serving as an Air Force officer for the USAF at Scott AFB in Illinois.
• Helen Wu (cohort '07); dissertation: What's on the Menu? Evaluating the Food Environment in Restaurants. She is working as a research and policy analyst for UC-Davis Health System's Institute for Population Health Improvement in Sacramento, California.

Congratulations to all of them, and welcome to the PRGS Alumni Association!

Share Your News!

For more Alumni news, visit the PRGS Alumni News page.

You can also use the online form to submit your updates!

Recent and Upcoming Events

Commencement 2012 — Watch the 10-minute Highlight Video

Were you unable to attend 2012 Commencement Weekend, or do you simply want to enjoy the memories? Watch the highlight reel on YouTube and view an online photo gallery.

Commencement 2012 Video

Commencement 2012 Photo Gallery

IDSS Presents…

Kicking off the 2012-13 International Development Speaker Series were Todd Moss, vice president at the Center for Global Development, speaking on Cash Transfer Evolution and Why It Matters for the Global Oil and Gas Boom; John Sterman, director of the system dynamics group at the MIT Sloan School of Management, speaking on Interactive Simulations to Support Climate Negotiations, and UCLA professor Paco Buera on The Macroeconomics of Microfinance.

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Students, Alumni, Faculty and Staff Converge on APPAM Conference in Baltimore

Pictured to right (L to R): PRGS Program Coordinator Kristina Wallace, Registrar Mary Parker, Professor Paco Martorell, and Alumni Lindsay Daugherty (cohort '05) and Richard Bowman (cohort '06).

Others whose work was presented at the conference included PRGS students Victoria Shier (cohort '08), Ruopeng An (cohort '08), and Greg Midgette (cohort '09), as well as PRGS alum Ashlesha Datar (cohort '99) and several PRGS professors.

PRGS and RAND Alumni Hear Counterterrorism Expert Brian Michael Jenkins

The RAND Alumni Association welcomed PRGS attendees at the November discussion of "Knowing Our Enemy, Securing Our Homeland" at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. View an online gallery of selected photos on the PRGS Facebook page.

January Event to Honor the Life and Legacy of James Q. Wilson

James Q. Wilson, one of the past century's most honored and influential thinkers, left an indelible mark on American government and civil society. Wilson had a particular influence on RAND and the Pardee RAND Graduate School, where he served both as a longtime member of the graduate school's Board of Governors and a trustee for the RAND Corporation.

This past year, Wilson and his family bestowed his papers and books on the Pardee RAND Graduate School. Thanks to the generosity of our supporters, the graduate school is establishing the James Q. Wilson Collection within the RAND library. PRGS will be honoring Wilson's influence and impact, as well as dedicating the James Q. Wilson Collection, on Thursday, January 17. All alumni are invited to attend.

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