IAS News

IAS faculty member Charlie Collins co-authored the top-cited paper in the Journal of Urban Affairs in 2018: “Transforming social cohesion into informal social control: Deconstructing collective efficacy and the moderating role of neighborhood racial homogeneity.”  Drawing on collective efficacy and social disorganization theories, the article found a positive relationship between social cohesion ...

Alum Amber (Monson) Shirk has always been involved in her community, but her engagement has only deepened since graduating from the M.A in Policy Studies (MAPS) program in 2017. This June, Shirk will receive a City of Destiny Award from Tacoma Mayor Victoria Woodards and the City Council for her contributions to the city’s economic development.  Shirk is Digital Marketing Chair for Tacoma Waterfront Association, Event Coordinator for Friends of the Foss’s annual Free Summer Concert Festival Series, and ...

Hana Bloedel has been selected for a U.S. Student Fulbright grant to Estonia, where she will serve as an English Teaching Assistant. Hana completed her B.A. in Global Studies and Society, Ethics & Human Behavior, with a minor in Human Rights, in June 2018. Mariah Crystal (formerly Ortiz) has been granted a Fulbright award to conduct research in Namibia during the 2019-2020 academic year. She will be analyzing the oral history narratives of Namibian women who contributed the anti-apartheid movement and ...

As IAS faculty members, Ted Hiebert and Jin-Kyu Jung have been colleagues for a long time. But they seldom had occasion to talk until they found themselves commuting on the same bus. Those commuter conversations a few years ago led to a creative collaboration of researchers from two different fields. Recently, Jung and Hiebert received a UW Royalty Research Fund (RRF) Scholar award for nearly $39,000 for a research project called “Imagining the Details: Creative-Critical Engagement of Mapping and Imagining.”

Last year M.A. in Policy Studies alum Ericka Weathers joined Penn State as an Assistant Professor of Education in the Department of Education Policy Studies. Education policy wasn’t always Weathers’ long-term goal. After graduating with a bachelor’s in psychology from Hampton University in Virginia, she moved to Seattle for a research position with the University of Washington Division of Public Behavioral Health and Justice Policy (PBHJP) where she ...