Faculty

Ashley Adams is a descendant of early settlers of the historic Black town and federally designated site of 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.

Professor Bruell’s research and scholarship focuses on evaluation research, intersectionality and the criminal justice System, and the role of social support in criminal offending. Formerly, he held a position with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ Executive Office of Public Safety and Security, working in the Research and Policy Division of the Office of Grants and Research where he managed an evaluation of the Commonwealth’s Homeland Security Strategic Plan. He currently teaches courses related to violence (Criminal Violence, American Violence and Victimization), the criminal justice process, and statistical analyses in the social sciences.

Dr. Nasim Ferdows earned her PhD in economics and gerontology at Wayne State University and completed postdoctoral training in health services research and long-term care at Brown University. Her research has mainly focused on disparities in dementia, cognition, and Alzheimer’s disease in the older population.

Dr. Friedman is program director of the Northeastern University Public Evaluation Lab (NU-PEL), where she works to support evaluation efforts at community-based organizations and provides evaluation services to NU faculty. Dr. Friedman is passionate about applying community-engaged, utilization-focused evaluation practices to support the development and maintenance of programs that improve people’s lives, particularly in the realms of formal and information education, youth development, and public health. She has done this work as an external evaluator with the Education Development Center’s Center for Children & Technology (EDC/CCT), where she evaluated programs based in public schools, afterschool programs, and museums. She also served as an internal evaluator with the Girl Scouts of the USA’s Research Institute, where she helped develop a national system for monitoring and evaluating leadership outcomes; supported evaluation capacity building at 112 Girl Scout councils across the US; and led national studies of Girl Scout programs funded by NSF, DOE, DOJ, NASA, corporations, and foundations.

Dr. Friedman currently teaches Techniques of Program Evaluation, a graduate level service-learning based course in the School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs, and each semester co-organizes an evaluation training series for students, staff, and faculty.

Mark Henderson’s research focuses on environmental and social policy issues in the United States and China, often employing spatial analysis methods using Geographic Information Systems. Based on Northeastern’s Oakland, California campus, he has supervised over 200 student projects with local governments and community organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area. He was previously a GIS analyst for UC Davis, MassGIS, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, as well as a visiting scholar at Harvard’s Center for Geographic Analysis and an honorary guest professor at Lanzhou University. Professor Henderson teaches PPUA 6506, Techniques of Policy Analysis; PPUA 7237, Advanced Spatial Analysis of Urban Systems; and INMI 2510, China, Globalization, and the Environment.

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

Areas of focus: institutional leadership, organizational theory

Linda Kowalcky is 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.

Areas of focus: principles of public administration, experiential education

Ted Landsmark is distinguished professor and director of the Kitty and Michael Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy in the School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs in the College of Social Sciences and Humanities at Northeastern University. He holds a PhD in American and New England studies from Boston University and professional degrees in law and environmental design from Yale University.

As Mayor Martin J. Walsh’s first appointment to the Boston Planning and Development Agency’s Board of Directors, Professor Landsmark has brought to the board a wealth of expertise in architecture, urban design, civic leadership, architectural and construction law, and community advocacy. During his seventeen-year tenure as president and CEO of the Boston Architectural College, Professor Landsmark led the growth of the school from a center into an internationally recognized, multi-disciplinary institution. In August 2014, he was named president emeritus of the college. Landsmark has served as academic vice president of the American College of the Building Arts in Charleston, South Carolina, and as a faculty member and administrator at the Massachusetts College of Art, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, and UMass Boston.

Professor Landsmark has also served as a trustee or board member for many nonprofit organizations, including the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, American Architectural Foundation, the Design Futures Council, The Boston Society of Architects, Historic New England, and Historic Boston. He was also president of the National Architectural Accrediting Board and the Association of the Collegiate School of Architects. His research and practice interests include diversity in design, environmental design, design education, higher-education administration, community-based economic development, historic preservation, and African American art and artisanry.

Areas of focus: urban governance

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.

Etai Mizrav, PhD, is a professor, researcher, and consultant specializing in educational policy and inequality. His research investigates 21st-century drivers of educational inequality and discriminatory policies contributing to opportunity and achievement gaps.

Dr. Mizrav is an educational inequality and teaching workforce expert with experience in devising policies, conducting district reviews, and addressing educator shortages at all levels. He’s worked with domestic and international partners, designed tools for identifying educational gaps, and presented his work at national forums.

At Northeastern University, he teaches public policy analysis, research methods, and education policy courses. He previously served as the Manager of Education Policy and Equity for the Washington, D.C., Office of the State Superintendent of Education and was a Senior Researcher at the American Institutes for Research. He holds an MPP from Georgetown University and a PhD from George Washington University.

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.

Areas of focus: economics, labor markets

Sharmila Murthy joined Northeastern University in 2023 as professor of law and public policy within the School of Law and the College of Social Sciences. Initially, Professor Murthy is on leave to serve as director for environmental justice at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, where she previously served as senior counsel. Her scholarship focuses on examining legal barriers to achieving environmental justice, improving access to water, and addressing climate change. Murthy most recently served as professor of law and director of faculty scholarship and research at Suffolk University Law School.

Previously, Murthy was a visiting scholar and fellow at Harvard Kennedy School of Government, where she co-founded the Human Rights to Water and Sanitation Program at Carr Center for Human Rights Policy. Murthy also litigated complex and class action cases as an associate with Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein.

Murthy received her JD from Harvard Law School, her MPA from Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and her BS in natural resources from Cornell University. She clerked for the Honorable Martha Craig Daughtrey on the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, and was also a U.S. Fulbright Scholar in India.

Nishith Prakash is a professor of public policy and economics at Northeastern University, jointly appointed in the School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs and the Department of Economics. He also serves as co-director of the Global Action for Policy Initiative. Before joining Northeastern, he was an associate professor of economics and human rights at the University of Connecticut.

Born and raised in Bihar, India, he earned a BA in Economics from Shivaji College, an MA from the Delhi School of Economics, and a PhD in Economics from the University of Houston. He was a post-doctoral research associate at Cornell University and has held visiting positions at Dartmouth, Ohio University, Yale, Columbia, MIT, Boston University, and the Harvard Kennedy School.

Professor Prakash’s research focuses on empowering human capital in low-income countries, spanning development economics, political economy, education, and behavioral economics. His studies use field experiments, quasi-experimental methods, and large administrative datasets to examine how institutions and policies can promote inclusive growth. He collaborates extensively with governments in India, Nepal, Zambia, and Zanzibar, as well as with the World Bank and other international organizations.

At Northeastern, he teaches Economic Analysis for Policy and Planning, Designing Global Economic and Social Policy, and Development Economics, integrating evidence from his field research into the classroom. He is an affiliate at BREAD, CESifo, CReAM, IZA, HiCN, IPA, and GLO, and serves as associate editor of the Journal of Development Economics and co-editor of the Economics of Education Review. He also co-founded AMIE, the Association for Mentoring and Inclusion in Economics.

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.

Lily Song is an assistant professor of race and social justice in the built environment at Northeastern University. She holds a PhD in Urban and Regional Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an MA in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of California — Los Angeles, and a BA in Ethnic Studies from UC Berkeley.

Song’s research interests lie at the nexus of race, class, and gender politics of space; infrastructure-based mobilizations and experiments; and reparative planning and design in American cities and other decolonizing contexts.

Prior to coming to Northeastern, Song was a lecturer in urban planning and design at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where she was founding coordinator of Harvard CoDesign.

From 2013-2015, Song was a provost fellow at University College London, where her postdoc research informed urban infrastructure planning and governance with “informality” in the decolonizing, multiethnic, climate vulnerable Indonesian context.

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.

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. Dana Wright conducts multi-method, participatory, community-engaged, and qualitative research on pedagogy, curriculum, participatory action research, and creative arts approaches to learning. Central to her work is the recognition of young people as active agents in learning, addressing social inequities, and knowledge production.

A former public middle school teacher in Brooklyn and the Bronx, Professor Wright has over two decades of experience in curriculum development, PAR, youth organizing, and organizational development. She partners with teachers, youth, parents, and community organizers to promote educational justice.

Professor Wright is the author of Active Learning: Social Justice Education and Participatory Action Research and co-editor of Engaging Youth in Critical Arts Pedagogies and Creative Research for Social Justice. Her scholarship is published in journals such as the International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education and Journal of Research on Adolescence, with research support from the National Institutes of Health and William T. Grant Foundation.