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Spring 2021 Edition

2020 Recap: Mentoring the Next Generation of Public Servants

Impactful Locally and Internationally

  • Dr. David Guo and Dr. Howard Frank are FIU faculty advisors on a Multiple-phase project (over $300,000— the Truth and Integrity in State Budgeting sponsored by the Volcker Alliance), assessing State Government’s Budget Practices. Drs. Guo and Frank are conducting research on Disclosure of Tax Expenditure in State Budgeting funded by the Koch Foundation ($174,000, assessing state government’s compliance of GASB statement 77 and the overall disclosure of tax expenditure reports).
  • Dr. Keith Revell Outright: $60,000 [Awards for Faculty] Florida International University Project Title: Reinventing the Consumer City: The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of Miami Beach, 1915–2000.
    Project Description: Research and writing leading to a book on the history of Miami Beach, tracing its evolution as a consumer city and the implications for understanding the development of urban spaces.
  • Dr. Can Chen is the PI for a research grant project—A Spatial Econometric Analysis of Chinese Urban Infrastructure Finance ($35,000) funded by Lincoln Institute of Land Policy in 2019.
    Dr. Can Chen is the PI for a research project—Accounting and Reporting Capital Assets Impairment ($10,000) funded by Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) in 2020.
    Dr. Can Chen and Dr. David Guo worked closely with Florida League of Cities (FLC) to forecast the revenue impact of COVID-19 among Florida cities in 2020.
  • Drs. N. Emel Ganapati and Travis Whetsell are the Co-PIs of a National Science Foundation (NSF) project is entitled “A Value-Driven Multi-Sector Stakeholder Decision-Making Framework to Support Disaster Resilient Communities.” This is a $314K, inter-disciplinary research project conducted in collaboration with FIU’s Moss School of Construction (PI: Dr. Lu Zhang). The goal of this project is to improve collaborative decision making towards more resilient communities through an innovative, multi-sector stakeholder value-driven framework.
  • Dr. N. Emel Ganapati is the Co-PI of a Natural Hazard Center grant (supported through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)). This $50K grant focuses on the impact of multiple disaster events on health and non-health focused non-profits in Puerto Rico. The studied disaster events include the COVID-19 pandemic, 2017 Hurricane Maria and Hurricane Irma, and the 2020 Southwest Puerto Rico Earthquake Sequence. The project is a collaboration between FIU, the University of Utah (PI: Ivis Garcia), and Métrika, a Puerto Rican based survey company.
  • Dr. N. Emel Ganapati serves as a senior expert for a newly funded, $305K, three-year, NSF project. The project brings together researchers at FIU and Vanderbilt University who will collect data in 17 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean region on disaster risk perception and public support for disaster risk reduction. The project is led by Dr. Barry Levitt from FIU’s political science department.
  • Dr. Agatha Caraballo awarded by NASPAA as the 2020 Pi Alpha Alpha Chapter Advisor Award of Excellence.
  • Drs. Milena Neshkova and Alex Kroll elected as editorial board members of Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory (JPART).
  • Dr. David Guo as Treasurer of the Association of Budgeting and Financial Management (ABFM) and President of China-America Association for Public Affairs (CAAPA).
  • Dr. Can Chen was appointed as the Interim Chair of American Society of Public Administration (ASPA) Section on Transportation Policy and Administration (STPA).
  • Dr. Allan Rosenbaum, elected to second term as ASPA President - urging greater policy involvement for discipline - mobilizing national opposition to proposed Schedule F.
  • Dr. N. Emel Ganapati serves as an Advisory Board member of the Culture and Disaster Action Network (CADAN). CADAN is dedicated to building and integrating cultural comprehension into disaster risk reduction and disaster recovery practices throughout the world. It brings together disaster researchers and leaders from the government, NGOs, and the private sector.
  • This fall, Dr. Allan Rosenbaum was appointed to the rank of Distinguished University Professor at FIU. Dr. Rosenbaum is one of 15 university faculty members so designated and the first from the social sciences to be so recognized.

Department's Institute for Public Management and Community Service continues extensive international engagement, despite the pandemic

The Institute for Public Management and Community Service, the department's principal center for international engagement continued, despite the pandemic, its extensive work in good governance reform and democratic institution building initiatives in many parts of the world through its activities via zoom. Among the highlights of its past year activities, it's Director, Dr. Allan Rosenbaum, was the only US scholar invited to speak at a special seminar organized by the Saudi Arabian government in conjunction with its hosting of the G 20 summit of national heads of state.

Also, via zoom, Institute Director Rosenbaum, this past fall, was an invited feature speaker at six major international conferences organized in Africa, Asia and Europe, including one viewed by 15,000 local government officials from throughout the African continent and another celebrating the 90th anniversary of the establishment of the International Institute of Administrative Sciences in Brussels, Belgium. Research produced through the Institute this past year has appeared in academic journals in Africa, Europe, Latin America and the US on subjects ranging from decentralization in Latin America, implementing the UN Sustainable Development Goals, internally displaced persons in Ukraine and university-community relations in the US and Bulgaria, among other topics.

25th Consecutive Annual InterAmerican Conference of Mayors and Local Authorities

Organized initially in Washington DC 26 years ago (by the World Bank, the Organization of American States, the Inter-American Development Bank and USAID), for the past 25 years this annual event, typically attracting 500+ local government officials from throughout Latin America, has been organized by the department's Institute for Public Management and Community Service in Miami. This year, for the first time, and hopefully for the last, it was organized via zoom.

Once again, the program included top level government policymakers from throughout the hemisphere as senior officials from the World Bank, the IDB, the newly elected Mayor of Miami-Dade County, the immediate past president of Costa Rica and prominent local government scholars from Latin America made presentations. The conference, which has been the recipient of the Greater Miami Tourist and Convention Bureau's highest award for contributing to the South Florida economy typically has an annual local economic impact of over a million dollars a year.

Dr. Allan Rosenbaum to Receive International Award for Lifetime Achievement in Advancing Public Administration

At its upcoming annual conference, to be held this year in July in South Africa, Dr. Allan Rosenbaum will receive the International Association of Schools and Institutes of Administration's annual award for career achievement in the field of public administration and the advancing of good government. Dr. Rosenbaum also was recently recognized by each of Latin America‘s two major municipal associations for his lifetime achievements in the advancing of local government and democratic institution building in that region. In each instance, he was the first person from outside of Latin America to be so honored.

Current Faculty Research

Dr. Jean-Claude Garcia-Zamor’s current research addresses the often-neglected aspect of culture within the context of migration policymaking. It will help raise this topic in the current debate about how to deal with migration and will explore the ethics and policy conundrum created by migrants’ cultural differences. The research will show that multiculturalism plays an important role in migration policymaking and can be an opportunity for policymakers of receiving countries to develop a more efficient administration, an open minded, tolerant, diverse culture and a more ethical society.

Dr. N. Emel Ganapati’s research (PI: Dr. Sebawit Bishu) on how the gender of governors might affect public risk perception and protective action in times of COVID-19 was showcased in Washington Post (see the article here).

Dr. N. Emel Ganapati is conducting research with international scholars on the COVID-19 communication of public health agencies (e.g., CDC) in the U.S., Sweden, and Italy, which will soon be published in the American Behavioral Scientist journal.

Congratulations to Our Recent Ph.D. Graduates

  • Dr. Ana Maria Dimand hired as an Assistant Professor at Boise State University and elected as an ASPA National Council Member, District 4, 2021-2023.
  • Dr. Pallavi Awasthi hired as an Assistant Professor at Nova Southeastern University.
  • Dr. Evelyn Trammell hired as Assistant to the City Manager, City of Sunny Isles Beach.
  • Dr. Andrea Headley as an assistant professor at Georgetown University.
  • Dr. Sebawit Bishu hired as a Research Fellow of the Women and Public Policy Program at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.
  • Dr. Andrea Headley is heading a $22K study funded by the Drug Enforcement and Policy Center evaluating the collision of the COVID-19 pandemic and the opioid epidemic. The study is co-led by Dr. N. Emel Ganapati, and features PA Ph.D. graduate Dr. Christa L. Remington and current doctoral student Mrs. Kaila Witkowski.
  • Dr. Sebawit Bishu received a Quick Response Grant from the Natural Hazard Center for a study on gender leadership bias in times of the COVID-19 Pandemic.
  • Dr. Christa L. Remington, along with three current doctoral students (Kaila Witkowski, Monica Bustinza, and Kira Haensel) have chapters in an upcoming edited book on Research Methods in Disaster and Emergency Management (Editor: Jason Rivera).