The ISTPP Fellows program recognizes individuals who have made a significant contribution to the development of the Institute for Science, Technology and Public Policy and to its mission, aims, and objectives. Participation as an ISTPP Fellow is by invitation from the Institute. Fellows are selected based upon current and past collaboration with the Institute on interdisciplinary proposals, projects, and scholarship, as well as distinguished accomplishments within the individual’s discipline.
Zach N. Adelman
Dr. Adelman is a professor in the Department of Entomology in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Texas A&M University. Dr. Adelman’s research interests include developing new methods for controlling mosquito-borne infectious diseases, including gene editing and gene drive technology. These research efforts also include participating in projects and planning documents designed to include public perceptions about new genetic approaches to managing pest species.
Bjorn Birgisson
Dr. Birgisson is a professor and chair for the School of Environmental, Civil, Agricultural and Mechanical Engineering in the College of Engineering and the University of Georgia. Dr. Birgisson’s research brings an interdisciplinary, collaborative approach to developing and managing infrastructure that improves community resiliency, encompasses smart technologies, uses sustainable materials, and is built to last.
R. Patrick Bixler
Dr. Bixler is an assistant professor in the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Bixler has a joint appointment in the community and regional planning program in the School of Architecture. His current research focuses on climate and environmental governance, urban sustainability and resilience, hazard preparedness and response, and network science. He is particularly interested in how public, private and nonprofit institutions collaborate to solve complex social and environmental problems and promote social innovation.
Ann O’M. Bowman
Dr. Bowman holds the Hazel Davis and Robert Kennedy Endowed Chair in Government and Public Service and is a professor in The Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University. She specializes in state and local politics and management; public policy, especially the substantive areas of environment, economic development, and land use; and intergovernmental relations.
Samuel D. Brody
Dr. Brody holds a joint appointment as a professor in the departments of Marine Sciences at Galveston and in Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning at College Station Texas A&M University. He holds the George P. Mitchell ’40 Chair in Sustainable Coasts and directs both the Institute for Sustainable Coastal Communities at Galveston and the Center for Texas Beaches and Shores. Dr. Brody is conducting research in environmental planning, coastal sustainability, ecosystem management, and geographic information systems.
Leah W. Buchman
Dr. Buchman is a Senior Research Analyst in the North American Crop division with Kynetec, a global market research company. Dr. Buchman’s interests include plant-insect-microbe interactions and their role in Integrated Pest Management (IPM) agricultural systems as well as public perception and public policy of emerging biotechnologies in agriculture. Dr. Buchman brings strong scientific acumen and analytical skills through collaborative and interdisciplinary approaches.
Bassel Daher
Dr. Daher is an Assistant Research Scientist at the Texas A&M Energy Institute at Texas A&M University where he leads its Convergence Research Incubator. He is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Department of Biological & Agricultural Engineering. Dr. Daher is interested in bridging physical and social science to develop analytics that catalyze an evidence-based, multi-stakeholder dialogue around trade-offs associated with technological, policy, and social interventions to address the interconnected water, energy, and food security challenges.
Nehemia Geva
Dr. Nehemia Geva is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at Texas A&M University. His research interests are in the areas of foreign policy decision-making and political cognition (perceptions, information processing, and images in politics). Dr. Geva’s current research projects address: he role of affect and emotions in political decision; international terrorism; reactions to military interventions and collateral damage and gender politics. His research methodology emphasizes experiments and computer simulations.
Kirby Goidel
Dr. Goidel is a professor in the Department of Political Science at Texas A&M University. His research is motivated by questions of democratic governance, including whether citizens are up to the task of self-governance, the willingness and ability of elites to manipulate public opinion, and the institutional mechanisms that translate democratic inputs into policy outcomes. Dr. Goidel has also studied the concerns, risk perceptions, and policy preferences of residents living in communities located along the Gulf of Mexico.
İnci Güneralp
Dr. İnci Güneralp is an associate professor in Geography in the College of Arts and Sciences at Texas A&M University. Dr. Güneralp is a fluvial geomorphologist and hydrologist. Her research aims to develop creative and effective pathways for sustainable management of surface water within lowland landscapes where nature, people, and built environment interact and coevolve. She is also interested in how public policies can impact these interactions and co-evolution and enhance the resilience of these landscapes.
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Bryce Hannibal
Dr. Hannibal is the administrator for the U.S. Census Bureau’s Wasatch Front Research Data Center at the University of Utah. He specializes in environmental sociology, social networks, complex organizations, and public policy. Dr. Hannibal worked at ISTPP from 2014-2020 in various research capacities and was a key contributor to multiple interdisciplinary research projects including national public opinion surveys on the water-energy-food nexus and lone wolf terrorism, and stakeholder surveys on resilient cities, water-energy-food nexus governance, hazard mitigation planning, and post-Harvey resilience in Houston.
Elizabeth Heitman
Dr. Heitman is a Professor in the Program in Ethics in Science and Medicine and Department of Psychiatry at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas. Dr. Heitman’s research focuses on cultural aspects of ethics in medicine, biomedical science, and public health, particularly international standards of research ethics and the responsible conduct of research. She is a National Associate of the US National Research Council.
Hyunseok Hwang
Dr. Hwang is an assistant professor for the department of Sociology in the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Houston. His academic interests include organization theory, environmental sociology, community resilience, philanthropic studies and social entrepreneurship. His research has an overarching theme of identifying how organizations respond to institutional heterogeneity, grand societal challenges (i.e., massive social and environmental issues) and challenges to organizational sustainability.
Bryan D. Jones
Dr. Jones holds the J.J. Pickle Regents Chair in Congressional Studies and is a professor in the Department of Government at the University of Texas. Dr. Jones co-directs the Policy Agendas Project currently housed at the University of Texas. He studies models of decision-making and choice, fiscal policy, agenda-setting, and public policy processes.
Anthony Knap
Dr. Knap is a Professor and the James R. Whatley Chair in Geosciences in the department of oceanography in the College of Geosciences at Texas A&M University. He is also the director of the Geochemical & Environmental Research Group (GERG). Dr. Knap’s research areas include oceanography, environmental science, effects of contaminants on the marine environment, ocean health and human health interactions, and multiple aspects of global environmental change.
Robert Korty
Dr. Korty is an associate professor in the department of atmospheric sciences for the College of Geosciences at Texas A&M University. He specializes in research and teaching in the areas of hurricanes, convection, large-scale dynamics, climate dynamics, and climate variability.
Sungdae Lim
Dr. Lim is an assistant professor in the political science department at Sam Houston State University. His research focuses on public- and nonprofit-sector innovation, leadership, and partnerships with particular agendas on coproduction, social equity, community engagement, and social construction in public service governance.
Raul Medina
Dr. Medina is a professor in the Department of Entomology in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Texas A&M University. Dr. Medina’s research interests center on the role that ecological factors play in the population genetics of insects. He is particularly interested in the incorporation of evolutionary ecology considerations into pest control practices. His laboratory conducts research aimed to understand how species interactions among parasites and their hosts get modulated by their microbiota and by the structuring of their genetic variation. Dr. Medina is also interested in understanding the factors that modulate public perception of novel products of biotechnology.
Itza Mendoza-Sanchez
Dr. Mendoza-Sanchez is an assistant professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupation Health in the School of Public Health at Texas A&M University. Her research examines the transport, transformation, and persistence of contaminants in the environment. Her work covers the transport of antibiotics and associated development of antibiotic resistance in the soil environment. Dr. Mendoza-Sanchez also researches the physical and biological factors that control bioremediation of contaminated groundwater. She is also interested in how people perceive the effect of environmental pollutants on their health.
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Michael R. Migaud
Mr. Migaud is an assistant project manager with Public Management, Inc. His research focuses on community resilience to natural disasters, the governance of outer space activity, and the regulation of emerging science and technology. Mr. Migaud worked at ISTPP from 2017-2020 in various research positions and contributed to multiple interdisciplinary research projects including stakeholder surveys on telehealth medicine, gene drive technology, and water-energy-food nexus issues.
Jason B. Moats
Dr. Moats serves as the Director for the Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service (TEEX) Testing and Innovation Center. He is also a lecturer in the online Graduate Certificate of Homeland Security Program in the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University. In addition to three decades of experience in emergency services, Dr. Moats has published articles on crisis management and training and development.
Rabi Mohtar
Dr. Mohtar is a Texas Engineering Experiment Stations Research Professor, in the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering and Zachry Department of Civil Engineering, Texas A&M University, where he founded the Water-Energy-Food Nexus Initiative and serves as Advisor to the Energy Institute. His primary research priority is the development of a modeling framework to quantify the interlinkages of the water-energy-food nexus that is constrained by climate change and social, political, and technological pressures.
Ali Mostafavi
Dr. Mostafavi is an associate professor for the Zachry Department of Civil Engineering in the College of Engineering at Texas A&M University. His research focuses on complex system-of-systems modeling, resilience of interdependent infrastructure, disaster resilience, and resilience intelligence. Dr. Mostafavi is also a research affiliate of the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station.
Ren Mu
Dr. Mu’s research is in the empirical microeconomics area of development economics. Her research goal is to enhance the understanding of decision making of households and individuals in the developing world and to provide evidence for designing and implementing sound public policies. Dr. Mu’s studies mainly focus on China and can be grouped into four sets of topics: (1) the public opinions of certain socioeconomic issues, for example, inequality and environmental problems; (2) the determinants and impacts of human capital outcomes; (3) the opportunities for and obstacles to rural-urban migration and the migration impacts on rural communities and households; and (4) the effectiveness and allocations of public investments.
Robin Murphy
Dr. Robin R. Murphy is the Raytheon Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at Texas A&M University and a director of the Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue. She has deployed ground, aerial, and marine robots to over 29 disasters in five countries including the 9/11 World Trade Center, Fukushima, and Hurricane Harvey. Dr. Murphy conducts research in artificial intelligence, robotics, and human-robot interaction for emergency management.
Stratos Pistikopoulos
Dr. Pistikopoulos is a professor in the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering in the College of Engineering at Texas A&M University and the director of the Texas A&M Energy Institute. His research aims at gaining fundamental understanding, and developing theoretical and practical advances and computational tools in the areas of energy and process systems engineering, process intensification, sustainable smart manufacturing, and multi-parametric optimization and control.
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Ellie Heng Qu
Dr. Qu is an assistant professor for the department of Public Service and Administration in The Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University. Dr. Qu’s research interests are nonprofit management and philanthropy. Her primary research areas include nonprofit finance and individual prosocial behavior, and her research covers a range of topics that have practical implications for capacity building and resource development of nonprofit organizations. These include nonprofit revenue management, nonprofit endowment management, nonprofit financial reporting and accountability, charitable giving, and volunteering, as well as the effects of prosocial behavior on people’s health and wellbeing.
Garett T. Sansom
Dr. Sansom is a research assistant professor for the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health in the School of Public Health at Texas A&M University. Dr. Sansom’s research focuses on health and sustainability, urban planning, environmental justice, community resilience, and community health assessments. He is particularly interested in assessing the efficacy of urban farming and other food-based programs and policies as a means to improve the health of people living in low-income communities with limited access to health care.
Farzan Sasangohar
Dr. Sasangohar is director of the Applied Cognitive Ergonomics Lab and an associate professor for the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering in the College of Engineering at Texas A&M University. His research focuses on designing, testing, and implementing innovated technologies that help people make better perform better in challenging work environments. His work connects people with technologies that improve health and safety such as remote patient monitoring, air-traffic control, and surface transportation user-centered designs. Dr. Sasangohar is also a research affiliate of the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station.
Joel D. Scheraga
Dr. Scheraga is the senior advisor for climate adaptation in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). He led EPA’s design of its Climate Change Adaptation Plan and now leads implementation of the plan. Dr. Scheraga has expertise in the area of climate change science and policy, environmental economics, the integration of science and policy, and applied and theoretical microeconomics.
Debalina Sengupta
Dr. Debalina Sengupta is the Coastal Resilience Program Director for Texas Sea Grant at Texas A&M University. She leads and manages extension activities that focus on building resilient communities and economies along the Texas Gulf Coast. Dr. Sengupta works collaboratively with coastal communities to implement strategies that strengthen their resilience and sustainability through science and technology-based interventions. Her research interests span a plethora of topics fueled by her current and past experiences including process systems engineering, sustainability analysis, life cycle assessment, technoeconomic analysis, environmental justice, resilient systems modeling for application areas such as energy transition, gas processing and utilization, sustainable manufacturing, eco-industrial parks, food energy water nexus and others.
Robert R. Shandley
Dr. Shandley is the associate dean for Undergraduate Programs and professor on the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University. He has written widely on German and American film and television, as well as the history and memory of the Holocaust and World War II in Germany.
James W. Stoutenborough
Dr. Stoutenborough is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at Idaho State University. His research interests include public policy, U.S. state politics, public opinion, and political psychology with a substantive interest in science and technology issues like climate change and renewable energy. Dr. Stoutenborough currently researches institutional and behavioral paradigms and integration of these paradigms.
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Sierra C. Woodruff
Dr. Woodruff is a AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow at the Department of State Office of Global Changes. She previously was an assistant professor for the Department of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning in the College of Architecture at Texas A&M University. Dr. Woodruff’s research focused on climate change adaptation, resilience, ecosystem services, plan integration, planning networks, multi-level governance, and hazard mitigation.
Xinyue Ye
Dr. Ye is a Fellow of American Association of Geographers and the Harold L. Adams Endowed Associate Professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture & Urban Planning, College of Architecture, at Texas A&M University. He is also associate director of the Center for Housing and Urban Development. His research focuses on developing and implementing new spatiotemporal and network methods in physical, virtual, and perceived spaces to better understand inequality, mobility, and diffusion. His work connects people with technologies that improve health and safety such as social distancing and pandemic, air pollution, and massive movement analytics.
Youlang Zhang
Dr. Zhang is an associate professor in the School of Public Administration and Policy at Renmin University of China. His research focuses on bureaucratic politics, policy process, and collaborative governance. Dr. Zhang has empirically examined these topics in the areas of education, lobbying, environmental policy, and administrative reform.
