Faculty

Abi-Hassan recently earned her PhD in Political Science from Boston University. She has taught courses on American politics, law and society, law and courts, and political methodology. Her research focuses on the behavior of Supreme Court justices, and the groups that lobby them. She recently finished her dissertation, which examines the influence that inter-group behavior and coalition formation have on judicial behavior. She currently has several papers under review in the Journal of Politics and the Journal of Political Analysis. Her broader interests include the behavior of U.S. political institutions, political analysis, and quantitative political methodology. In her research, she uses the tools of network analysis and maximum likelihood estimation.

Ashley Adams is a descendant of early settlers of the historic Black town and federally designated site, Nicodemus, Kansas. She has primarily dedicated her research platform to improving Black history preservation practices within national and state preservation systems, such as her long-term preservation planning analysis work at the Allensworth (California) State Historic Park. Adams also serves as board secretary for the Nicodemus Historical Society and Nicodemus site coordinator for the Voices & Votes: Democracy in America 2023 Smithsonian exhibit. Additionally, and in deep alignment with her preservation policy work, she is a founding co-chair for the Black Reparations Project at Mills College at Northeastern University. Adams is also a founding co-chair for the Mills College at Northeastern University Black Faculty and Staff Association and a member of the Black Action Forum.

Adams holds a BA from the University of Kansas, an MPA from Park University, and a PhD from Walden University.

Christopher Bosso is a professor of public policy at Northeastern University. His areas of interest include food and environmental policy, science and technology policy, and the governance of emerging technologies. His newest books are Framing the Farm Bill: Interests, Ideology, and the Agricultural Act of 2014 and, as editor, Feeding Cities: Improving Local Food Access, Sustainability, and Resilience. His 2005 book, Environment, Inc.: From Grassroots to Beltway, received the 2006 Caldwell Award for best book in environmental policy and politics from the American Political Science Association. He also serves as associate director for academic affairs for the School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs, and coordinates the undergraduate minor on food systems sustainability, health and equity.

Mark Henderson is a public policy professor whose areas of interest include environmental policy in the United States and China, urbanization and land use planning, global climate change, and policy applications of geographic information science (GIS). He holds a BA from Williams College; an MA from Harvard University; and a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley.

Mario Hernandez is an assistant professor of sociology. He holds a PhD from The New School.

Professor Ivanova focuses on international environmental institutions, environmental sustainability, and the science-policy interface. The author of The Untold Story of the World’s Leading Environmental Institution: UNEP at Fifty (MIT Press 2021), she has published on global environmental governance, the United Nations Environment Programme, climate change, and the Sustainable Development Goals, among others. Her work has appeared in Nature, Sustainability, Ethics & International Affairs, Global Policy, Global Environmental Politics, Global Governance, and elsewhere.

In June 2022, Professor Ivanova was named one of 66 inaugural Foundation Fellows of the International Science Council, the highest honor awarded by the Council in recognition of remarkable contributions to the role of science in promoting the global public good. She is a member of the Technical Advisory Group (TAG) to the Global Commission on Science Missions for Sustainability co-chaired by Helen Clark and Irina Bokova. She is also an Andrew Carnegie Fellow, a member of the Joint Scientific Committee of the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), and a member of the Executive Science Organizing Committee for the WCRP Open Science Conference (to take place in October 2023 in Rwanda), and an ambassador for Transparency International. She serves as a research scholar at the Center for Collective Intelligence at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, on the Sustainability Advisory Council at Yale University, and on the Carnegie Climate Governance Initiative Advisory Group.

For twelve years, Professor Ivanova served at the John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston, where she directed the Center for Governance and Sustainability and the PhD program in Global Governance and Human Security. Among her recent leadership appointments, Professor Ivanova co-chaired the drafting process for the official letter from scientists and scholars of the world to global leaders at the Stockholm+50 Conference, calling for urgent policy action for a sustainable planet. She served on the Rwandan delegation to the UN Environment Assembly negotiating the resolution on a global treaty on plastics. She has also been a member of the Scientific Advisory Board to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon (2013-2016), chair of the advisory board for UN University-Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability (IAS) in Tokyo, Japan (2019-2021), and chair of the jury for the USD 5 million New Shape Prize to reform global governance administered by the Global Challenges Foundation in Stockholm, Sweden (2017-2018).

Martha Johnson studies African politics, with a focus on Francophone West Africa and an interest in women’s representation and the politics of foreign aid. She has conducted fieldwork in Senegal, Burkina Faso, and Benin, funded by the Fulbright program and the FAO. Most recently, Johnson interviewed nearly 100 women who ran for local office in Benin, which required her to travel around the country for three months in 2017. Her work has been published in several scholarly journals, including the American Journal of Political Science.

Johnson’s interests include comparative politics, African politics, democratization, food politics, and the politics of development. She holds a BA from Smith College and an MA and PhD from the University of California, Berkeley.

Kate Karniouchina’s professional interests include marketing, marketing/finance/strategy interface issues, new product development, motion pictures, Bayesian estimation, and hierarchical data structures.

Karniouchina holds a BA, MBA, and PhD from the University of Utah.

Shantanu Khanna is an assistant professor at the School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs and the Department of Economics. Shantanu is an applied microeconomist with research interests in labor, development, and public economics. His research explores issues like inequality, hiring and wage discrimination, women’s empowerment, and the impacts of public policies (especially place-based policies) on firms and workers.

Neil Kleiman has spent 25 years building a career at the intersection of policy, philanthropy, government, and academia. He founded an urban issues think tank, established new university degree programs, and developed innovative and practical policy solutions for dozens of cities across the United States. He has also written and edited over thirty policy reports, with his work featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and on National Public Radio.

Kleiman is an urban policy professor at Northeastern University’s School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs and School of Criminology and Criminal Justice. He is a senior fellow at the Burnes Center for Social Change and the GovLab. His courses cover policy formation, urban innovation, and new approaches to managing technology and big data. In 2017, he published A New City O/S: The Power of Open, Collaborative and Distributed Governance on Brookings Institution Press. He is the research director of the Mayors Leadership Institute on Smart Cities. a partnership effort with the U.S. Conference of Mayors. With partners at the NYU School of Medicine, he helped build City Health Dashboard: one of the only consistently updated dashboards tracking local level health and public health data for over 900 cities nationwide. In 2022, he published one of the first-ever assessments of public sector organizational culture in partnership with Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Kennedy School at Harvard. At Tulane University, Kleiman developed a new Master of Public Administration program that launched in 2020.

Kleiman was previously director of policy at Living Cities, a collaborative of the world’s largest foundations and corporate philanthropies. He began his career as the founding director of the Center for an Urban Future, a New York-based policy think tank.

Linda Kowalcky is a professor of the practice in the School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs, where she teaches public policy, public administration, and works with the school’s internship programs. Her career includes senior positions in government as well as academia. Most recently, Professor Kowalcky served as liaison to higher education to former Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, with responsibility for higher education policy, city-university partnerships, and campus planning for the 34 colleges and universities in Boston. She also served as senior staff in the U.S. House of Representatives. Professor Kowalcky previously taught American government and public policy as an assistant professor of political science at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, and has also taught at Wellesley College and the University of Pennsylvania. She earned her PhD in political science at Johns Hopkins University.

Darcelle C. Lahr
Professor of Business Practice
John and Martha Davidson Endowed Professsor

Education

BS, Stanford University
MBA, California State University, East Bay
MA, Mills College
EdD, Mills College

Professional Interests

Business growth strategy, business ethics, management consulting, entrepreneurship/small business management, program management

Bio

In addition to her roles at Mills College at Northeastern University, Lahr is president and CEO of Integral Consulting Group, a woman-/minority-owned management consulting practice; she’s also the founder and executive director of L.C. and Lillie Cox Haven of Hope, supporting socially minded entrepreneurs and small business owners in delivering valuable services to vulnerable communities. Lahr brings a unique breadth of professional expertise in business strategy, program management, due diligence, construction, and operations, as well as a keen understanding of the dynamics and challenges of micro- and social-enterprise business leadership. Her passion is in providing compassionate, seasoned guidance to social change agents in transitioning from early-stage visionaries to purposeful, ethical leaders and governance directors. Lahr’s current programs address systemic inequities for marginalized and (re)entering communities through social entrepreneurship. She is a Licensed Mechanical Engineer in California.

Lahr’s professional interests include business growth strategy, business ethics, management consulting, entrepreneurship/small business management, and program management. She holds a BS from Stanford University; an MBA from California State University, East Bay; and an MA and EdD from Mills College.

Ted Landsmark has been a civic planner, civil rights and equity advocate, higher education administrator, arts and culture researcher, and community-engaged social activist in Boston and nationally. He serves on the leadership committee of the Northeastern University Faculty Senate.

As director of the Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy, Professor Landsmark oversees interdisciplinary research on urban policy matters, including housing, gentrification, economic development, civic engagement, school design, comprehensive services, transportation, resilience and public service. Landsmark teaches the Open Classroom on community engagement in policy planning and design, racial equity and civic justice and capstone courses. He has convened an annual conference on equitable policy engagement. His research and practice interests include diversity in environmental design and education, higher education administration, community-based economic development, historic preservation, resilience and sustainability and African American artisanry.

As Mayor Walsh’s first appointment to the Boston Planning and Development Agency’s board of directors, Landsmark has brought to the board a wealth of expertise in architecture, urban design, civic leadership, architectural and construction law and community advocacy. Since joining the board, the agency has rebranded; held hundreds of community meetings annually; planned and facilitated the development of over $50 billion in real estate including 35,000 housing units, ~30% of which have been income-restricted; and generated over $15 million in jobs training and affordable housing funds. During his seventeen-year tenure as president and CEO of Boston Architectural College, Dr. Landsmark led the growth of the school from a design center into an internationally recognized, multidisciplinary higher education institution.

Landsmark has served as academic vice president of the American College of the Building Arts in Charleston and as a faculty member and administrator at the Massachusetts College of Art, MIT, Harvard and UMass Boston. He served as president of the National Architectural Accrediting Board and of the Association of the Collegiate School of Architects. He has also served as a trustee or board member for many nonprofit organizations, including the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the American Architectural Foundation, the Design Futures Council, the Boston Society of Architects, the Trustees of Reservations, the Emerald Necklace Conservancy, the Leventhal Map Center, Historic New England, Historic Boston and the Laguna College of Art and Design.

Kim is an academic-practitioner who is committed to community-driven civic research, innovation in city-university collaborations, and leveraging our collective expertise for the social good. Kim previously served as interim executive director at Metrolab Network and director of civic research for the City of Boston. Kim’s research focuses on early childhood policy and the child care market, and their practical experience includes over a decade of innovation in community-engaged research.

Alicia Sasser Modestino is an associate professor with appointments in the School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs and the Department of Economics at Northeastern University. Since 2015, Professor Modestino has also served as the associate director of the Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy. She is also a nonresident fellow at the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program and an invited researcher of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) at MIT.

Previously, Professor Modestino was a senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, where she led numerous research projects on regional economic and policy issues. Professor Modestino’s current research focuses on labor and health economics including changing skill requirements, youth development, healthcare, housing, and migration. Her work has been funded by the William T. Grant Foundation, the Russell Sage Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the Boston Foundation, the National Security Agency, and J-PAL.

Professor Modestino has published in peer-reviewed publications including Review of Economics and Statistics, Journal of Human Resources, Labour Economics, Health Affairs, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, and Regional Science and Urban Economics. Professor Modestino’s research has been covered extensively in the media including the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Bloomberg, the Christian Science Monitor, the Boston Globe, Politico, and Vox. She has appeared on NPR’s On Point, WBUR’s Radio Boston, WCVB’s CityLine, NBC News, and FOX25 News. Professor Modestino holds both a master’s degree and a PhD in economics from Harvard University, where she also served as a doctoral fellow in the Inequality and Social Policy Program at the Kennedy School of Government.

Richard L. O’Bryant is director of the John D. O’Bryant African American Institute at Northeastern University, named in remembrance of his dad. At the John D. O’Bryant African American Institute, Professor O’Bryant oversees educational and cultural programs, services, and activities focused on African American students. Under his vision and leadership, the John D. O’Bryant African American Institute has become more engaged with Northeastern University including academic components, community outreach efforts, connecting with Northeastern University Black alumni, and the enhancement of the breadth and depth of programs and services offered.

In the fall of 2018, Professor O’Bryant and the Institute hosted the 50th Anniversary Celebration of the founding of the John D. O’Bryant African American Institute in 1968. Hundreds of participants including students, alumni, faculty, staff, and members of the Boston community came together to celebrate the Institute’s rich history and highlight and dialogue about the future. Professor O’Bryant is also a lecturer in the Department of Political Science, the School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs, and the College of Professional Studies.

Selected Publications

• Leader-Managers in the Public Sector: Managing for Results. With Michael S. Dukakis. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, Inc., 2010.
• “Governance and the Boston Public Schools,” in Boston: A Decade of Urban School Reform, ed. by Paul Reville, Harvard Education Press, 2007.
• “Boston: Agenda Setting and School Reform in a Mayor-Centric System,” in Mayors in the Middle: Politics, Race, and a Mayor-Centric
• Approach to Urban Schools, ed. by Jeff Henig and Wilbur Rich, Princeton University Press, 2003.
• “Supporting Education Reform: Mayoral and Corporate Paths,” Urban Education, November 2000.
• City Schools and City Politics: Institutions and Leadership in Pittsburgh, Boston, and St. Louis. Lawrence, KS:University Press of Kansas, 1999 (with Lana Stein and Robin Jones)
• “Problem Definition and Policy Agendas: Shaping the Education Agenda in Boston.” Policy Studies Journal 24:3, 1996
• The Politics of Plant Closings. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1990

Awards and Honors

• 1997 Theodore Lowi Award. From the Policy Studies Organization for the best article in the 1996 issue of the Policy Studies Journal.
• 1993 Involved Citizen of the Year. From the Watertown Chamber of Commerce.

Professional Associations

• American Political Science Association
• American Society for Public Administration
• American Educational Research Association
• Massachusetts Association of School Committees

Professor Prakash is a research fellow at CESifo, Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration (CReAM), The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), HiCN Households in Conflict Network (HiCN), Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) Network Researcher, Global Labor Organization (GLO), and Member of Insights on Immigration and Development (INSIDE-SPAIN). He is also currently serving on the editorial board of the journal PLOS ONE and is associate editor at the Journal of Development Economics.

Born and raised in Bihar, India, he earned a BA in Economics with honors from Shivaji College, an MA in Economics from Delhi School of Economics, Delhi University, and a PhD in Economics from University of Houston, TX. He was a postdoctoral research associate at Cornell University, NY from July 2010 – December 2011. He has been a visiting fellow at Yale, Columbia, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston University, and the Women and Public Policy Program at Harvard Kennedy School.

Siobhan Reilly’s professional interests include public economics, labor economics, economics of the family, health economics, urban economics, and international economics.

Reilly holds an MA from Johns Hopkins University and a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley.

Lorien Rice earned her bachelor’s degree in economics from Oberlin College and her PhD in economics from University of California San Diego. Prior to graduate school, she worked for MDRC in New York, contributing to the evaluation of education and anti-poverty programs. She also served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Morocco, working as a socioeconomic planner for Souss-Massa National Park. Prior to joining Mills College in 2006, she worked as a research fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California. Her research focuses on poverty, inequality, and access to opportunity. She has published numerous journal articles on integration and segregation in public schools and the role of transportation in providing access to employment.

Rice’s professional interests include labor economics, public policy, poverty, education economics, and applied econometrics.

Matthew B. Ross is an associate professor jointly appointed to the School of Public Policy & Urban Affairs and the Department of Economics. He is an applied microeconomist working at the intersection of urban, public, and labor economics. His research and public engagement seek to better inform policy and positively impact society. He has published in peer-reviewed journals such as Nature, Journal of Human Resources, Criminology & Public Policy, and the Industrial and Labor Relations Review. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, Russell Sage Foundation, and the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Ross was previously an assistant professor at Claremont Graduate University and an assistant research professor at the Wagner School of Public Service at New York University. Ross was a postdoc jointly with the economics department at Ohio State University and the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Roger Sparks is a professor of economics at Mills College at Northeastern University. He earned his PhD in economics from the University of California, Davis and joined Mills College in 1989. Sparks is currently director of the Master of Applied Economics program at Mills College at Northeastern and chair of the Economics Department. He has more than 20 research papers published in economics journals, has refereed many paper submissions to professional journals, and currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Kemper Human Rights Education Foundation. His research applies game theory and the economics of information to various topics, including the theory of unemployment, efficiency wages, employee stock offerings, cyclical changes in labor productivity, the determination of mortgage rates, mortgage securitization, environmental policy, utility regulation, psychiatric decision making, the energy paradox, and the price impacts of low-carbon fuel standards.

Sparks also holds a BA from the University of California, Riverside. His broad professional interests include applied microeconomics, finance, and climate change.

Cristina Stanica is an assistant teaching professor of public policy and administration. Most of her teaching is in critical core courses that support the MPA and MPP programs, in particular, Techniques of Policy Analysis and Principles of Public Administration, as well as electives such as Comparative Public Policy and Administration. The central theme of her teaching is active and practical engagement and learning, based on the principles of experiential, democratized, and interdisciplinary learning; inclusivity as part of a global mindset; and critical thinking. She explored new public governance practices in Central and Eastern Europe and is interested in administrative and rules burdens in street-level bureaucracy, coproduction, and trust in government.

Carol Theokary is the Lynn White Jr. Associate Professor of Business at the Lokey School of Business and Public Policy. She earned her doctorate in business administration from Boston University and started her career as an engineer specializing in telecommunications networks. At Mills College at Northeastern University, she enjoys teaching courses in quantitative methods, operations management, and project management. She has worked on many equity initiatives and puts high value on creating an inclusive classroom designed to elevate student voices. Theokary’s research interests lie in empirical modeling across business disciplines and her work has appeared in numerous journals, such as Production and Operations Management, Medical Care Research and Review, Journal of Small Business Management, Service Science, and Journal of Business Research. Her recent research has focused on the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on the restaurant industry and the impact of strategic partnerships on crowdfunding outcomes.

Theokary’s professional interests include service design, healthcare supply chains, service quality, and cost efficiency.

Akua Twumasi is an assistant teaching professor in the School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs at Northeastern University. She holds a PhD in public administration from North Carolina State University. She graduated with a master’s degree in public policy and administration from Mississippi State University. She also earned her Bachelor of Arts in English and Political Science from the University of Ghana. Akua is originally from Ghana.

Most of her teaching at Northeastern focuses on core courses such as Principles of Public Administration and Institutional Leadership and the Public Manager, as well as elective courses that focus on nonprofit management. Her research interests include nonprofit and African NGO management and leadership. She is also passionate about women issues, development, and women empowerment.

Dr. Thomas J. Vicino is the associate dean of graduate studies in the College of Social Sciences and Humanities at Northeastern University, where he is also jointly appointed as professor of political science, public policy and urban affairs. Previously, Dr. Vicino was the chair of the Department of Political Science and the director of the Master of Public Administration Program. In 2014, he was a U.S. Fulbright Scholar to Brazil.

Vicino brings a passion for inclusive excellence to various roles in higher education across 20 years as an academic administrator, researcher, teacher, mentor and strategic planner. His leadership focuses on advancing opportunities through interdisciplinary research, experiential education, innovative programs, global citizenship and lifelong learning with a record of building collaborative partnerships and civic engagement. He weaves a deep commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging throughout his work.

Vicino has dedicated his career to advancing the next generation of scholars and service professionals. As the chief executive officer and chair of the Governing Board of the Urban Affairs Association, Vicino led the foremost international professional organization for urban scholars, researchers and public service professionals.

As an interdisciplinary scholar of public policy, Vicino’s work is motivated by a dedication to shape and improve the public good. Throughout his career, he has taught and mentored scores of undergraduate and graduate students. Fluent in Portuguese, he is a strong advocate for global experiential education. For many years, he has led a study abroad program, “The Twenty-First Century City,” in some of the world’s most dynamic cities — from Rio de Janeiro, to Tokyo, to London.

An internationally recognized scholar of urban affairs, Vicino specializes in the political economy of cities and suburbs, focusing on issues of metropolitan development, housing and demographic analysis. He is the author or editor of five books, including the bestselling book Cities and Suburbs: New Metropolitan Realities in the US. He has also published numerous book chapters, essays, reviews and research articles in leading peer-reviewed journals. He serves on various editorial boards including the Journal of Race, Ethnicity and the City and Urban Planning.

A first-generation college student, he holds a PhD and MPP in Public Policy from the School of Public Policy at University of Maryland, Baltimore County. He holds a BSc, cum laude, with departmental honors in political science and communication studies, from the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida.