Sanford School of Public Policy
Duke University

New Faculty

Of the six faculty appointments at the Sanford School in 2009-2010, four are new to Duke—Philip Bennett, Sarah Blodgett Bermeo, Sarah Cohen, and Amar Hamoudi—while two are members of the Duke faculty who have received new appointments: David Schanzer and Edward Skloot.

The new appointments include a consultant, managing editor, Pulitzer Prize winners and a lawyer with experience on Capitol Hill. Bennett and Cohen teach with the DeWitt Wallace Center for Media and Democracy, while the other four expand the core faculty of the Sanford School.

Bennett and Cohen come to Duke from the editorial staff of The Washington Post. While there, Bennett served as the managing editor for the nationally acclaimed paper, while Cohen was a database editor and winner of a Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting. Hamoudi and Bermeo will also receive their first faculty appointments. Bermeo recently completed a post-doctoral program in Yale’s Political Science Department, while Hamoudi comes from the University of Michigan School of Public Health.  Schanzer and Skloot began teaching at Duke in 2005 and 2008, respectively.

Philip Bennett

Eugene C. Patterson Professor of the Practice of Journalism and Public Policy  

Bennett served as managing editor of The Washington Post from 2005 to 2009 and helpedlead the newspaper to 10 Pulitzer Prizes. He joined The Post in 1997 as deputy national editor and became assistant managing editor for foreign news in 1999, overseeing 20 international bureaus. He directed The Washington Post’s coverage of wars in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. Previously Bennett held a series of positions at The Boston Globe. He teaches media ethics and reporting with the Sanford School’s DeWitt Wallace Center for Media and Democracy.

Sarah Blodgett Bermeo

Assistant Professor of Public Policy  

Bermeo's primary area of research is international political economy, with a focus on relations between industrialized and developing countries. She is currently writing a book that examines changes in the way donors use foreign aid in the post-Cold War world. She has also published on the access of developing countries to the Dispute Settlement Understanding of the World Trade Organization. Bermeo joins Duke after having recently completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the political science department at Yale University.

Sarah Cohen

Knight Professor of the Practice of Journalism and Public Policy

Cohen, an expert in computer-assisted investigative journalism, joins the Duke faculty after 10 years as database editor for The Washington Post. Cohen shared the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting or The Post series, “The District’s Lost Children,” which uncovered failures by child welfare agencies that contributed to dozens of children’s deaths. She also was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 2007. She has previously taught journalism courses at the University of Maryland and is the author of Numbers in the Newsroom: Using Math and Statistics in News. She teaches with the Sanford School’s DeWitt Wallace Center for Media and Democracy.

Amar Hamoudi

Assistant Professor of Public Policy

Hamoudi’s research interests lie in areas of intersection between empirical microeconomics, biology, and family demography. One of his major research themes is how social and economic factors manifest in health outcomes, and another is the development of, and economic returns to, nontraditional forms of human capital such as executive functioning and emotional regulation. Prior to coming to Duke, Hamoudi was a Robert Wood Johnson Health and Society Scholar at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. He also has been a consultant to the Harvard AIDS Institute and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. 

David H. Schanzer

Associate Professor of the Practice of Public Policy

Schanzer’s research interests are in homeland security and counterterrorism law and policy. He came to Duke in 2005 to serve as director of the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security and is the principal investigator on a National Institute of Justice grant on “Anti-Terror Lessons of American Muslim Communities.” In 2008, Schanzer launched the Institute of Homeland Security Solutions, a research consortium among UNC-Chapel Hill and RTI International. Previously, Schanzer held staff and counsel positions in the United States Senate, House of Representatives, Department of Defense, and Department of Justice.

Edward Skloot

Professor of the Practice of Public Policy

Skloot’s expertise lies in the areas of philanthropy, social entrepreneurship, and organizational and operational issues in the social sector. He is director of the Sanford School’s Center for Strategic Philanthropy and Civil Society, which includes the Foundation Impact Research Group. Before coming to Duke, Skloot ran a large family foundation, the Surdna Foundation,  and founded a consulting firm to help nonprofits earn money as well as ask for it. He also has worked at high levels of city and state government.  Currently he serves on the boards of Independent Sector, Venture Philanthropy Partners, the National Council for Palliative Care, Citizen Schools and TROSA.