Inspiring evidence-based policymaking
Hometown Tucson, Arizona Educational/professional background Economics and Public Policy, University of Michigan – Ann Arbor Previous position Postdoctoral Associate, Better Government Lab, McCourt School of Public Policy, Georgetown University What types of questions do you address in your research? I study how U.S. safety net programs mitigate or exacerbate economic instability using administrative data. In …
Hometown I’m from Independence, Missouri, on the eastern side of the Kansas City metropolitan area, home of Harry S Truman. Educational/professional background My PhD is in Political Science, and I completed it at the Truman School of Government and Public Affairs at the University of Missouri. Previous position I was a PhD student at Mizzou …
A few years ago, most Wisconsinites had never heard of data centers. Now it has rapidly become one of the top issues in the race for governor, and a hot-button topic in communities across the state. On September 16, the La Follette School hosted a joint event with the Wisconsin Policy Forum titled The Data …
Associate Professor Lauren Schmitz of the La Follette School was one of just 18 UW–Madison faculty members to receive a coveted 2026-2027 H.I. Romnes Faculty Fellowship this summer. Named after the late Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation Trustee President, the H.I. Romnes Faculty Fellowship is awarded annually by the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research …
Effective this fall, Morgan Edwards will officially be a tenured member of the La Follette faculty. This comes after the Universities of Wisconsin Board of Regents unanimously voted to recommend her for tenure in December 2025. Her new title is associate professor. Edwards’ cutting-edge research focuses on energy responses to the climate crisis and the …
On August 25, the College of Letters & Sciences officially approved the La Follette faculty’s recommendation to appoint Professor J. Michael Collins as the next director of the La Follette School. He will begin his post on January 1, 2027. Collins is an accomplished scholar who studies consumer decision-making in the financial marketplace and the …
This article by Susan Yackee was published in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Ideas Lab as part of the 2026 Main Street Agenda. According to our friends at the Marquette Law School, 19% of Americans say they can never trust the government while only 18% say they can trust the federal government to do what is right all or most of …
50 leading environmental social scientists from around the world converged on Madison this summer for the 2026 Environmental Politics & Governance Conference hosted by La Follette’s Manny Teodoro. The conference, which took place June 29 to July 1 in the Memorial Union, brought together an interdisciplinary group of researchers from the Environmental Politics and Governance …
La Follette School faculty members earned two of UW-Madison’s highest honors in the 2025-26 academic year, showcasing La Follette’s expertise and teaching talents across a variety of disciplines.
Every Friday this month, a bipartisan group of Wisconsin State Legislature staff is turning the Capitol into a classroom, taking a graduate-level crash course in public policy.