
Mark Welsh, Dean of the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University, has announced promotions for faculty members Dr. Lori Taylor and Dr. William Norris.
Dr. Taylor has been promoted to full professor. Dr. Norris has been promoted to associate professor and granted tenure.
In addition to her teaching and research responsibilities, Dr. Taylor is also the director the Mosbacher Institute for Trade, Economics, and Public Policy. Her area of expertise is school finance, and her award-winning research focuses on policies and environmental factors that influence school district efficiency and teacher compensation. She is also a nationally recognized expert on the measurement and implications of geographic variation in the cost of education and has served as the principal researcher for multiple studies commissioned by the Texas Legislature and the Texas Education Agency as well as other state and national educational organizations.
Dr. Norris, whose expertise includes Chinese foreign economic and security policy, directs the Bush School’s Concentration in China Studies program. In 2015, Dr. Norris spent a year in residence at the Carnegie Endowment for Peace in Washington, DC, as a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow, researching US-China escalation dynamics. A frequent advisor to governmental agencies, Dr. Norris recently provided briefings and background information to Rear Admiral James Kilby and his flag staff on the USS Carl Vinson as they began a five-month deployment in the Western Pacific. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Southwest Conference on Asian Studies and serves on the Faculty Advisory Board of the Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs.
Dean Welsh said, “All of us at the Bush School are incredibly proud of Dr. Taylor’s and Dr. Norris’s achievements and this well-deserved recognition of their outstanding scholarship, their significant contributions to public policy and international relations, and their service to the School.”