People
The faculty and staff of the Scrivner Institute are defined by their passion, expertise and dedication to using public policy as a tool to create a more just, equitable and healthy world. The Institute draws faculty from across the Korbel School and the whole University to ensure its research, programming, and curriculum interrogates policy in an interdisciplinary and holistic way. Learn more about them and how they're advancing positive public policy solutions below.
Scrivner Institute Team
Naazneen Barma
Director
Naazneen H. Barma is Director of the Doug and Mary Scrivner Institute of Public Policy, Scrivner Chair, and Associate Professor at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver. She is a political scientist whose work spans topics including peacebuilding, foreign aid, the political economy of development, and global governance. She is currently working on a collaborative project that aims to develop a principled and pragmatic roadmap for a modern global liberalism. She is author of The Peacebuilding Puzzle: Political Order in Post-Conflict States (Cambridge University Press 2017), co-author of Rents to Riches? The Political Economy of Natural Resource-Led Development (World Bank, 2011), and co-editor of Institutions Taking Root: Building State Capacity in Challenging Contexts (World Bank, 2014) and The Political Economy Reader: Markets as Institutions (Routledge, 2008). Prior to joining the Korbel School faculty, she was Associate Professor of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School from 2000–2010 and previously worked from 1998–2001 and 2007–2010 as a development practitioner at the World Bank.
Rebecca Montgomery
Director of Democracy and Civil Discourse Initiatives
Katie Aker
Assistant Director
Katie Aker is the Assistant Director for the Scrivner Institute of Public Policy. She has a Master of Public Administration and a Master of Arts in International Education Management from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies. Katie has previously worked as a program manager and coordinator for several social impact initiatives, including programs related to university-community engaged research, ocean conservation and social enterprise, and sustainable agriculture action research. Prior to graduate school, Katie served as a community economic development volunteer with the Peace Corps in Peru and completed her undergraduate degrees in Business Administration and Spanish at Colorado State University.
Scrivner Faculty
Naazneen Barma
Associate Professor, Scrivner Chair
Expertise: political economy, statebuilding, public policy, foreign aid, global governance
Ajenai Clemmons
Assistant Professor
Expertise: police-community relations in the U.S. and Europe, inequality, intersection of policy and politics
Hinckley Jones-Sanpei
Professor
Expertise: ethics in public policy, U.S. social policy, and program evaluation
Matt Kazan
Associate Professor of the Practice
Expertise: health policy, legislative and regulatory policy
Lapo Salucci
Teaching Associate Professor
Expertise: urban politics and policy, demographics, US policy, methodology, statistics
Kaitlyn Sims
Assistant Professor
Expertise: applied economics, public health, public policy, crime
Korbel Faculty
Deborah Avant
Distinguished University Professor, Sié Chéou-Kang Chair
Expertise: security, human rights, climate, technology, business, non-state actors, governance
Rachel Epstein
Professor, Senior Associate Dean for Research & Faculty Affairs
Expertise: economy, security, international organizations
Ritwick Ghosh
Assistant Professor
Expertise: environmental policy, market-based solutions, climate change
Frank N Laird
Associate Professor
Expertise: renewable energy policy, renewable energy politics, environmental policy, climate policy, science policy
Fritz Mayer
Dean and Professor, Korbel School
Expertise: international trade, climate change, value chains, narrative politics, democracy
Linda Mendez Barrientos
Assistant Professor
Expertise: power, institutional change, water governance, environmental justice
Tamra Pearson d’Estrée
Professor
Expertise: identity dimensions of social and ethnic conflict, intergroup conciliation and reconciliation, evaluation of international, community and environmental conflict resolution
Martin Rhodes
Professor
Expertise: comparative political economy, European public policy
Rachel Sigman
Assistant Professor
Expertise: democracy, governance, public administration, bureaucratic politics, policy implementation, African politics and administration, state capacity
Other DU Faculty
Andrew R. Goetz
Professor, Department of Geography and the Environment
Expertise: transportation, urban studies, urban and regional planning, sustainability
Jennifer Greenfield
Associate Professor; Associate Dean for Doctoral Education, Graduate School of Social Work
Expertise: social policy analysis, health policy, aging policy, family caregiving, economics of caregiving
Rafael Ioris
Professor, Department of History and Urban Studies
Expertise: Latin American politics, the history of development, Latin American foreign policy and US-Latin American relations
Seth Masket
Professor, Department of Political Science; Director, Center on American Politics
Expertise: US politics, campaigns and elections, parties, polarization
Govind Persad
Associate Professor, Sturm College of Law
Expertise: health law, health policy, health insurance, public health, bioethics
Lolita Tabron
Associate Professor, Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies
Expertise: P-12 educational leadership, critical policy analysis, college readiness, access, and transitions; STEM education and pathways for historically underserved communities, critical approaches to quantitative inquiry and research
Chiara Piovani
Associate Professor, Department of Economics
Expertise: political economy, environmental justice, feminist economics
Ellen Winiarczyk
Academic Director and Teaching Associate Professor, Nonprofit Leadership, University College
Expertise: leadership development, diversity/equity/inclusion/belonging, strategic planning, executive coaching