Sanford School of Public Policy
Duke University
MEET THE FACULTY
Sanford School faculty are recognized nationally and internationally for policy engagement and rigorous research. On campus, students appreciate them for being open and approachable, and for their strong commitment to teaching. The faculty includes scholars trained in academic disciplines such as economics, sociology, public policy, law, and political science, as well as “professors of the practice”—such as a former ambassador, a senior Pentagon attorney, and journalists—who bring years of policy-relevant work experience to the classroom.
Their thought-provoking work addresses some of today’s most complex and challenging issues, including globalization, bioethics and genomics, racial and ethnic inequality, education reform, youth violence, HIV/AIDS, sustainable development, international trade and development, democratization, and foreign policy.
MEET THE FACULTY: ENVIORNMENTAL POLICY
Pair Seeks Effective Methods in Climate Change, Public Health
Sanford professors Alexander Pfaff and Subhrendu K. Pattanayak, both economists, take theory-based, empirical approaches to the study of deforestation, climate change, water quality, and environmental health issues facing the world’s population. While they have both studied policies in the United States, most of their research is based in developing countries such as Costa Rica, Mexico, Brazil, and the Indian subcontinent.
Recent work by Pfaff on deforestation and climate-change policy in Costa Rica, for example, examined assertions about how much acreage of forest was being saved through public policies like protected areas and payments for ecosystem services.
“The literature has overlooked the fact that the forest in protected areas faces lower than average risk. If the forest would still be standing without protection or payments, then the policies may not be saving any forest,” Pfaff said. Similarly, Pattanayak has empirically measured the “natural insurance” services of tropical forests in Brazil and Indonesia.
However, Pattanayak’s more recent work, some in partnership with Pfaff, has occurred at the intersection of environment and human health. Through grants from the World Bank, he evaluated public policies to deliver water and sanitation services in South Asia. His research concerns “the big three - diarrhea, malaria, and respiratory infections - and their main behavioral modifiers - toilets, taps, nets, and stoves.” His work also touches on gender and health, since women are the main actors in efforts to change environmental health behaviors in the home.
Graduate Courses Taught:
Alexander Pfaff, Associate Professor of Public Policy, Economics and Environment: Political Economy; Collective Action; Sustainable Development
Subhrendu K. Pattanayak, Associate Professor of PPS and Environmental Economics: Microeconomics; Policy Applications; Global Environmental Health; Forest Economics
MEET THE FACULTY: SOCIAL POLICY
Evaluating Education Reforms
If you happen across Helen Ladd, Charles Clotfelter, and Jacob Vigdor conversing in the hallway, chances are good they’re discussing their latest education-related research. The three professors frequently collaborate on analysis of current problems in education, such as teacher quality and assessment, minority achievement gaps, or school configuration. Each is affiliated with the Duke Center for Child and Family Policy, and each earned a doctorate in economics from Harvard.
Much of their work draws on a rich N.C. school database that allows them to track students over time. For example, they are among more than a dozen faculty members working on a comprehensive, interdisciplinary project, “Beyond Test Scores: Schooling and Life-Course Outcomes in Early Adulthood.” This project matches test score data with other data to examine whether connections exist between testing success and other types of life success, such as employment or marriage.
They also pursue research independently. Vigdor has published articles on immigration, residential segregation, housing affordability, civic participation, and racial inequality in the labor market. Each year he tracks national trends in his Index of Immigration Assimilation.
Clotfelter, director of the Center for the Study of Philanthropy and Voluntarism, has written extensively on state lotteries, the economics of education, the nonprofit sector, public finance, and tax policy.
Ladd is a widely respected tax and education finance expert, having chaired a National Academy of Sciences committee, testified to Congress, and been a consultant on tax policy and intergovernmental relations for all three levels of government. In recent years she has explored education reform in post-apartheid South Africa.
Graduate Courses Taught:
Helen “Sunny” Ladd, Edgar T. Thompson Professor of Public Policy, Professor of Economics: Microeconomics and Policymaking; Schools and Social Policy
Charles T. Clotfelter, Z. Smith Reynolds Professor of Public Policy, Professor of Economics and Law: Microeconomics and Policymaking; Big Time College Athletics
Jacob L. Vigdor, Professor of Public Policy and Economics: Urban Policy; Using Data Analysis to Evaluate Public Policy
Trio Tracks Effects of Job Loss on Families and Students
Because North Carolina has suffered a range of job losses across industries, the state can be a laboratory for the rest of the country in studying the effects of job loss on families, says Elizabeth Ananat. Her research partnership with Anna Gassman-Pines and Christina Gibson-Davis is examining how economic downturns affect student achievement and well-being. They are linking North Carolina plant closings and job layoffs to the performance of children in elementary and high school.
It can be difficult to determine the links between job loss and poor educational outcomes, the professors noted, because characteristics associated with a parent losing a job - such as the parent’s level of education - may also predict how their children perform in school. An advantage of this project is that the job losses under consideration are due to globalization and other economic factors, and are not tied to characteristics of the workers. Therefore, any negative educational effects found can be attributed to job loss.
The project relies on a database that records every business closing and layoff in North Carolina between 1990 and 2006. The database was created in-house by Gibson-Davis and Ananat. That database is combined with data from the North Carolina Education Research Center, which has detailed information on the school performance of all public school students. The education data is housed at the Center for Child and Family Policy.
The project combines the disciplines of economics (Ananat), psychology (Gassman-Pines), and demography (Gibson-Davis). All three professors are faculty affiliates of the Center for Child and Family Policy. Their project is one of a series being conducted by Sanford faculty through a Smith-Richardson Foundation grant: “Beyond Test Scores: Schooling and Life-Course Outcomes in Early Adulthood.”
Graduate Courses Taught:
Elizabeth O. Ananat, Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Economics: Poverty Policy
Anna Gassman-Pines, Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Psychology: Quantitative Evaluation Methods
Christina M. Gibson-Davis, Assistant Professor of Public Policy, Psychology, and Sociology: Social Policy
MEET THE FACULTY: INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT POLICY
Professor Works at Grassroots Level to Describe the Dynamics of Poverty
Before turning to academia, Anirudh Krishna worked for 14 years with the elite Indian Administrative Service, where he planned and managed programs for urban and rural development. It was a natural stepping stone to his current research, which explores how people in poor communities in developing countries cope with the structural and personal constraints that result in poverty and powerlessness.
Krishna examines poverty dynamics at the household level, tracking movements in and out of poverty. Over the last eight years, he’s surveyed more than 25,000 households in rural communities across India, Kenya, Uganda, and Peru. He also applied his research methodology to rural communities in North Carolina.
“In each community I find that while some households have escaped from poverty, other households have simultaneously fallen into poverty,” he said. “One set of reasons accounts for descents, but another, different set of reasons is associated with escapes from poverty. Policymakers commonly focus on initiatives to promote escapes, but they largely overlook policies to prevent descents.”
Through his research, Krishna has pioneered the Stages of Progress methodology for assessing poverty. The method starts at the grassroots level, where community members develop local definitions of poverty and economic success. The model takes into account factors that national-level figures - such as percent of population below a specific income level - cannot capture. In many communities, high costs for treating health conditions or loss of a breadwinner who fails to receive adequate care drive households into chronic poverty, Krishna has found.
In addition to teaching in the MPP program, Krishna works with the Sanford School’s Duke Center for International Development, helping lead governance and leadership training for mid-career professionals who are members of the IAS, his former employer. The government of India devised the training regime to respond to rapidly-changing policymaking conditions arising from globalization, as well as the country’s rapid growth and market-oriented policies.
Graduate Courses Taught:
Anirudh Krishna, Associate Professor of Public Policy and Political Science: Politics of Policy Process; Communities and Development; Assisting Development
MEET THE FACULTY: GLOBAL POLICY
Policy Work Informs Teaching
Many professors at the Sanford School bring experience on Capitol Hill or other professional policy experience to the classroom. This is especially true in foreign policy, global security studies, and international relations. For example, Bruce Jentleson, author of a leading college textbook on U.S. foreign policy, is serving as Senior Advisor to the U.S. State Department’s policy planning director.
Jentleson had a similar role during the Clinton Administration, and also served as a senior foreign policy advisor to Vice President Al Gore during the 2000 presidential campaign. He is frequently sought out by media to comment on foreign affairs, and served as director of the Sanford Institute of Public Policy from 2000 to 2005. He combines his Washington, D.C., work with active teaching and advising at Duke.
David Schanzer, a lawyer, was staff director of the House Select Committee on Homeland Security before coming to Duke and launching the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security, which hosts conferences and conducts policy research. Previously, Schanzer served as legal counsel in the Department of Defense, and for several Senate committees. Like Jentleson, he frequently publishes newspaper opinion columns on terrorism and national security.
When Tom Taylor retired from his 27-year career in the Pentagon, he was the U.S. Army’s top civilian attorney, and had provided legal and policy advice to seven Secretaries and seven Chiefs of Staff. His primary interests are national and homeland security, civil-military relations, and constitutional and intelligence law.
“I enjoy helping MPP students move to the next stage of their careers,” Taylor said. “I describe the world based on my experience, and tell them what it’s like to have a public service career.”
Graduate Courses Taught:
Bruce Jentleson, Professor of Public Policy and Political Science: Globalization & Governance; America in a Global Age
David Schanzer, Professor of the Practice of Public Policy: Counterterrorism, Law, and Policy; 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Tom Taylor, Professor of the Practice of Public Policy: Policy Analysis I; Public Management; Contemporary National Security Issues; Principles of Leadership
MEET THE FACULTY: HEALTH POLICY
Research Seeks Causes, Cures for U.S. Health Disparities
Sherman James, a social epidemiologist, is driven to understand why some populations within a given society more vulnerable to certain diseases than other populations. What factors cause some groups to have higher rates of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, or obesity? Understanding these kinds of health disparities, and developing valid community-based and public policy interventions to address them, is the focus of James’ work.
In 2009, he received a prestigious five-year Investigator Award in Health Policy from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to conduct a case study in Pitt County, N.C. James wants to learn how racial desegregation in this eastern NC community - and associated gains in access to medical care, improved housing, employment, and educational opportunities - affected the health of African Americans. He is using a combination of quantitative analyses, oral histories with key players, and media content analyses to construct a detailed picture of health outcomes during the years 1960-1980. This work follows James’ 20 years of NIH-funded research in Pitt County, work known internationally as the Pitt County Study.
James traces his interest in the health of black Americans to a job he started in seventh grade at his hometown pharmacy in Hartsville, S.C. In the afternoons, the pharmacist, physician, and dentist - all prominent black professionals - gathered for conversations about race, health, science, politics, and current events. Their dialogues sparked James’ interest in learning about the factors that affect the health and well-being of African Americans.
In the early 1980s, James’ groundbreaking research on “John Henryism” provided empirical support for the idea that persistent, high-effort coping with chronic psychological stress, induced by historic social and economic inequality, contributes to the excess burden of cardiovascular disease in African Americans. This work and other research led to his election to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences in 2000.
Graduate Courses Taught:
Sherman A. James, Susan B. King Professor of Public Policy; Professor of Sociology, Community and Family Medicine, and African and African American Studies: Poverty, Inequality and Health
MEET THE FACULTY: HEALTH AND POPULATION POLICY
Seeking Patterns Among Populations in Asia
Professors Elizabeth Frankenberg and Giovanna Merli both earned doctorates in demography from the University of Pennsylvania, and both are working on projects that seek to shed light on how population dynamics affect various dimensions of well-being –but it wasn’t until both arrived at the Sanford School that they had opportunities to work together. Their projects, which collect and analyze data on health issues among large populations in Asia, have broad policy applications.
Frankenberg is working with a team conducting surveys on the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami that struck Indonesia. The project has created one of the largest data sets ever collected in the wake of a major disaster, unique in both the size of the population surveyed and the longitudinal scope.
The team is conducting yearly follow-ups of a population-representative sample of 39,500 individuals who were first interviewed by the Indonesian government’s national statistics bureau before the tsunami. The data are being used to identify the groups hit hardest by the tsunami, examine how patterns of mortality, fertility, and migration were reshaped by the disaster, and assess how recovery programs have helped to rebuild stricken communities.
Merli’s current work also has policy implications for populations that have not been well-studied previously. Surprisingly, the prevalence of HIV/AIDS in China has been lower than predicted by UNAIDS and Merli wants to understand how the system of sexual relations may determine the dynamics of HIV transmission.
To explain this, Merli’s survey collects data on patterns of sexual behavior and mixing among population groups, including female sex workers, a crucial population that previously has been scarcely studied. The participants are asked to identify the number and characteristics of their sexual partners. Merli hopes to use the data to identify populations most at risk for transmitting HIV/AIDS, and to better inform forecasts of the epidemic.
Graduate Courses Taught:
Elizabeth Frankenberg, Associate Professor of Public Policy and Sociology; Director of Graduate Studies, MPP Program: Statistics and Data Analysis for Policymakers
M. Giovanna Merli, Associate Professor of Public Policy and Sociology: Population Health and Policy; Master’s Project
“… one of the biggest selling points was
the small size and that you can choose from courses and study disciplines
outside of public policy.” 
Paul Brathwaite
MPP ’93, JD ’96
Principal, The Podesta Group