Pardee RAND Well Represented at APPAM DC Conference

November 13, 2018

As usual, Pardee RAND Graduate School had a terrific showing at the annual Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM) Fall Conference. Two students presented posters; one student and six alumni presented papers during panel discussions, and 3 professors also participated in panels.

Additionally, alumni Aziza Arifkhanova (cohort '12) and Claire O'Hanlon ('13) and Prof. Phil Armour received a special honor. APPAM presented 40 for 40 Fellowships in honor of this being the organization's 40th annual conference. The fellowships provided funding for 40 outstanding early career research professionals to attend the conference.

Two students presented their research in poster sessions:

• Erin Duffy ('15): Stakeholder Perspectives and Early Responses to California’s Surprise Medical Billing Law (AB 72)
• Katie Wilson ('11): The Effect of Closing the Gender Wage Gap on Bargaining Power: Evidence from Indonesia

Several alumni, students, and faculty also participated in panels:

• Alum Angela Hawken ('98) chaired the panel on Assessing the Effects of Making Marijuana More Available, which featured presentations by student Steven Davenport ('15) on "Cannabis Legalization and Traffic Safety in Uruguay: Insights from a Novel Synthetic Control Approach" and alum Yuyan Shi ('05) on "The Impacts of Potency, Warning Messages, and Price on Preferences for Cannabis Products."
• Student Tim R McDonald ('16) presented a paper he'd written with classmate Dung Huynh ('16), The Evolving Nature of US Security Alliances in East Asia: Viewed As a Complex Adaptive System; the panel, Geopolitical Competition and Cooperation, was chaired by Prof. Tim Heath
• Alum Fernando Hoces de la Guardia ('13) presented Why We Need Open Policy Analysis in the panel titled Towards a Replication Framework; Prof. Sean Grant presented Open Science for Policy Research: Toward Transparent, Reproducible Workflows on that panel as well.
• Alum Anne Boustead ('11) presented The Impact of State-Licensed Marijuana Outlets on Opioid-Related Outcomes, in a panel on Evaluating Responses to the Opioid Epidemic: The Role of Legal Variation and Complexity; Prof. Rosalie Pacula was a panel discussant.
• Alum Greg Midgette ('09) presented Using Certainty and Celerity to Deter Crime: Insights from 24/7 Sobriety on a panel titled Assessing “Swift, Certain, Fair” As an Approach to Offender Supervision
• Alum Alison Jacknowitz ('99) presented Trade-Offs and Coping Strategies Regarding Food Among the Deep Poor

The conference, held November 8–10 in Washington, D.C., had the theme "Evidence for Action: Encouraging Innovation and Improvement."