Faculty Member In:Finance; Center for Business and Public Policy (Director)

Expertise:
Economic Climate
Economics
Public Pension Policy
Taxes & Tax Policy

Jeffrey R. Brown joined the IGPA faculty in 2011 and is a nationally known expert on public pension policy. He is the William G. Karnes Professor in the Department of Finance at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and director of the Center for Business and Public Policy in the College of Business. Brown also serves as associate director of the National Bureau of Economic Research's Retirement Research Center. Before joining the Illinois faculty, Dr. Brown was an assistant professor of public policy at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. During 2001-2002, he served as senior economist at the White House Council of Economic Advisers where he focused primarily on Social Security, pension reform, and terrorism risk insurance. Professor Brown holds a PhD in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a Master of Public Policy degree from Harvard University, and a BA from Miami University

Faculty Member In:Law

Expertise:
Civil Rights
Racial Discrimination & Equality

Menah Pratt-Clarke joined the IGPA faculty in 2011. She works as Associate Chancellor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Pratt-Clarke received a BA and MA in Literary Studies from the University of Iowa. She received JD and a PhD in Sociology from Vanderbilt University. She served as University Compliance Officer, University Counsel, and Assistant Secretary of the University at Vanderbilt University and has more than 15 years of legal experience as a licensed attorney in Illinois and Tennessee. Dr. Pratt-Clarke was an adjunct law professor at Vanderbilt Law School, and adjunct professor at Fisk University and American Baptist College in Nashville, Tennessee. She joined the University of Illinois as the Assistant Provost and Associate Director for the Office of Equal Opportunity and Access in October 2006.

Faculty Member In:
Department of Sociology

Expertise:
Demographics
Immigrant Populations
Immigration Policy
Racial Discrimination & Equality

Matthew Hall is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Illinois-Chicago and a faculty member of the Institute of Government and Public Affairs. Dr. Hall is an urban demographer with main interests in the residential and economic incorporation of new immigrants. Dr. Hall received his Ph.D in sociology and demography from Penn State in 2010.

Faculty Member In:
Department of Economics
School of Labor and Employment Relations

Expertise:
Early Childhood Education
Economics
Education Policy
Employee Benefits
Health Care Policy & Regulation
Immigration Policy
Impact of Public Policy on Families
Labor Markets

Darren Lubotsky joined the IGPA faculty in August 2008. He has been a faculty member at the Urbana-Champaign campus since 2002, holding appointments in the Department of Economics and the School of Labor and Employment Relations. Lubotsky received his BA from Washington University in St. Louis and his PhD from the University of California-Berkeley in 2000.

Faculty Member In:
Department of Finance

Expertise:
Energy Policy
Government Regulation
Taxes & Tax Policy

Don Fullerton, once a deputy assistant secretary of the treasury, joined IGPA in August 2008. He began his appointment as Gutsgell Professor in the Urbana-Champaign’s Department of Finance in 2008 after spending a year as visiting professor in the department. Fullerton spent 14 years as Addison Baker Duncan Centennial Professor of Economics at the University of Texas. He also served on the faculty at Carnegie-Mellon University, the University of Virginia and Princeton University. He served in the Treasury Department from 1985-87, during debate on the Tax Reform Act of 1986.

Faculty Member In:
Political Studies
Center for State Policy and Leadership, UIS

Expertise:
Campaign Finance
Elections
Illinois Constitution
Illinois Politics
Illinois State Government
Leadership & Public Service
Legislation and the Legislative Process
Political Polls
Politics & Political Campaigns

Kent D. Redfield is a professor of political studies and public affairs with a joint appointment in political studies and the Center for State Policy and Leadership at the University of Illinois at Springfield, a position he has held since 1979. He also has an appointment in the Institute of Government and Public Affairs. Redfield received a B.S. from the University of Utah in 1969 and a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Washington in 1975. In 1979 he joined the faculty at Sangamon State University, which was merged with the University of Illinois in 1995. Since 1997 Redfield has served as the director of the Sunshine Project, a campaign finance project fund by the Joyce Foundation.

Redfield served as the coordinator of the Illinois Legislative Staff Internship Program from 1979 to 1999. This program continues to provide internship opportunities for students with the Illinois General Assembly. It was directed by former IGPA director Sam Gove from 1964 to 1974. Among the many outstanding alumni of the program is former Illinois Governor Jim Edgar, who is now a distinguished fellow with the IGPA.

Faculty Member In:
Department of Economics

Expertise:
Demographics
Early Childhood Education
Economics
Impact of Public Policy on Families
Opinion Surveys
Pre-School/After-School Programs
Social Policy
Welfare Policy

Elizabeth Powers is an associate professor of Economics and a faculty member in the Institute of Government and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois at Urbana‐Champaign. Prior to joining the University of Illinois in 1996, Dr. Powers was an economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland and a junior staff economist with President George H.W. Bush's Council of Economic Advisers. She holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania and a B.A. in Economics from Vassar College.

Dr. Powers has undertaken extensive public services activities in the area of human services in her time at IGPA. Her arrival at IGPA coincided with welfare reform and led to numerous public education efforts and policy briefings on that topic. She is an expert on reimbursement policies for private human service providers and directed a major study of the reimbursement rate system for providers of services to the developmentally disabled pursuant to a direct appropriation from the Illinois General Assembly. She currently serves on the work group on rate setting and performance accountability, advisory to Governor Quinn’s Human Services Commission, and recently participated in the Donors Forum’s Public/Nonprofit Partnership Initiative that developed principles for state contracting with private human service providers.

Faculty Member In:
Department of Political Science

Expertise:
Illinois Politics
Illinois State Government
Leadership & Public Service
Legislation and the Legislative Process
Political Polls
Politics & Political Campaigns

Christopher Mooney is a professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Illinois at Springfield. He studies comparative U.S. state politics, with special focus on state legislatures. From 2001 to 2007, Mooney was the founding editor of the top academic journal in his field, State Politics and Policy Quarterly, and he co-authors one of the leading undergraduate textbooks on the subject. In honor of his scholarly contributions to the study of state politics, in 2010, the State Politics and Policy organized section of the American Political Science Association endowed the Christopher Z. Mooney Award, awarded annually for the best Ph.D. dissertation in the field. Mooney joined the Institute of Government and Public Affairs in 2004.

Before joining the faculty at UIS in 1999, Dr. Mooney served as the Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Political Science at West Virginia University. He has also taught at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and the University of Essex in the UK. He received his undergraduate degree at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and his Master’s and Doctorate degrees at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.