News
January ｜ February ｜ March ｜ April ｜ May
April
James Spillane named Ver Steeg Research Fellow
Education professor and IPR associate James Spillane has been awarded Northwestern's 2013 Van Steeg Research Fellowship, which supports the research and scholarship of a tenured Northwestern professor that enhances the national and international reputation of the University.
Faculty Spotlight: Daniel Galvin
IPR political scientist Daniel Galvin studies how the American presidency and political parties have changed over time and what this means for the nation's political process. His latest book project, Rust Belt Democrats: Party Legacies and Adaptive Capacities in Postindustrial America, will examine the factors that have facilitated or frustrated party adaptation in those states hit hardest by trends related to globalization.
Zeroing in on Teen Stress
All parents know that stress afffects their kids, yet there is little information about the specific ways in which this happens, mainly due to a lack of of comprehensive measures. IPR psychobiologist Emma Adam's many projects are zeroing on exactly how daily and lon-term stress affect children and teens.
Divided We View
IPR mass communcations scholar Rachel Davis Mersey takes a look at why Americans have become so polarized in their news consumption. She uncovers several factors, including how the public responds to news.
In Memoriam: Paul Friesema
H. Paul Friesema, professor emeritus of political science, IPR faculty emeritus, and a leader in environmental and urban policy studies, died on March 8 at age 77 in Evanston, Ill.
March
Policymakers: Caveat Emptor for Research
IPR economist Charles F. Manski discussed his new book, Public Policy in an Uncertain World: Analysis and Decisions, at a March 27 lecture co-sponsored by the British Academy and the Economic and Social Research Council's Centre for Microdata Methods and Practice.
The Future of Healthcare
At the IPR/John H. Hollister Lecture, Jonathan Gruber—one of the nation’s top healthcare economists—retraced the challenges of passing and implementing the nation’s most sweeping reform of healthcare since the 1965 passage of Medicaid and Medicare.
Chase-Lansdale Selected as AAAS Featured Fellow
In honor of the 40th anniversary of their Science & Technology Policy Fellowship, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is choosing one fellow from each class to highlight as part of its commemoration, including IPR developmental psychologist Lindsay Chase-Lansdale as the featured fellow for the 1981-82 class.
Faculty Spotlight: Jennifer Richeson
IPR social psychologist Jennifer Richeson celebrated her investiture as the MacArthur Chair on February 15 at Northwestern University, fitting for this 2006 recipient of a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, popularly known as a "genius grant." Richeson studies how group memberships such as race and gender affect how people think, feel, and behave.
The Death Penalty and Deterrence
Does the death penalty deter murder? At a January 9 event, co-sponsored by IPR and Northwestern School of Law’s Searle Center, Carnegie Mellon criminologist Daniel Nagin, chair of the 2012 National Research Council Committee on Deterrence and the Death Penalty discussed its evaluation of death penalty research. The event also featured commentary by IPR economist Charles F. Manski and law professor and IPR associate Max Schanzenbach.
February
Chase-Lansdale Named to National Academy
IPR developmental psychologist Lindsay Chase-Lansdale was one of 12 scholars elected to the National Academy of Education this February. A highly selective organization, members are elected on the basis of their scholarship in the field of education and are recognized for the extraordinary influence that they have had on education in the United States and abroad.
From “Open Doors” to Fisher
As the Supreme Court contemplates Fisher v. University of Texas, ongoing research by IPR sociologist Anthony Chen and sociologist Lisa Stulberg of New York University is filling out our understanding of how race-conscious affirmative action programs came to be instituted. The researchers have unearthed some unexpected findings, challenging major aspects of the conventional wisdom.
Harnessing Big Data for Policy Research
With support from the National Science Foundation, IPR director and education economist David Figlio is leading a project that teams IPR scholars with colleagues at Duke University to examine construction of “next-generation” data sets. These large-scale, national sets will link administrative data, such as welfare and school records, to population data and could permit quicker evaluations of early childhood investments and interventions.
Time-Sharing Experiments for the Social Sciences
Now under the leadership of two IPR fellows—sociologist Jeremy Freese and political scientist James Druckman—the online data collection platform TESS will expand its array of free survey services with renewed support from the National Science Foundation. Launched in 2001, TESS offers faculty, graduate students, and postdoctoral researchers opportunities to test their experimental ideas on large, diverse, randomly selected subject populations.
The Land of Too Much
In her latest book, The Land of Too Much: American Abundance and the Paradox of Poverty, IPR sociologist Monica Prasad explores the puzzle of why the United States has the most progressive tax system of the advanced industrial world, yet one of the world’s smallest public welfare states. She argues that a strong tradition of government intervention undermined the development of a European-style welfare state, which led to economic growth that met citizen needs through private credit rather than through social welfare policies and resulted in higher poverty, a backlash against taxation and regulation, and a housing bubble fueled by “mortgage Keynesianism.”
January
Naming a Child Policy Czar
In an editorial, IPR economist Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach calls for the appointment of a “dedicated child policy czar"—an expert who can watch out for the needs of all American children by elevating and coordinating policy across different agencies. Citing some of the tough policy decisions that lie ahead for Congress, she shows how by using policy-relevant research, like her own on No Child Left Behind, such a person could help policymakers better identify the consequences of, for example, social spending cuts on children.
Taxing the Wealthy: What Does the Research Show?
In the recently concluded negotiations to avoid the fiscal cliff, a higher tax rate for top earners was one of the biggest sticking points between Republicans and Democrats. A December 7 IPR policy research briefing on Capitol Hill brought together three national experts to cut through some of the verbal sparring on the topic. Panelists were IPR sociologist Monica Prasad, economist William Gale of the Brookings Institution, and rising scholar Charles Varner of Princeton University.
Faculty Spotlight: Thomas McDade
Using biomarkers from finger-stick blood spot samples and data from around the globe, IPR biological anthropologist Thomas McDade is revolutionizing the way population-based biological data is collected and studied. Specifically, he looks at how social and physical environments contribute to variation in human health and affect immune function and inflammation, which contribute to disease risk.
