Clockwise from top left: Dave Marcotte, Khaldoun AbouAssi, Tricia Bacon, Fernando Reinares, David Schaefer, Albert C. Hyde

The School of Public Affairs is pleased to welcome new faculty members and visiting scholars. 

Dave Marcotte joined SPA in July 2015 as professor and new director of the Washington Institute for Public Affairs Research. Previously, Marcotte served on the faculty of the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Additionally, he is a research fellow at the Institute for the Study of Labor in Bonn Germany, an independent economic research institute focused on global labor markets. His research is on a variety of topics in the areas of health and well-being, including the effect of mental illness and treatment on labor market outcomes, determinants of achievement in primary and secondary education, and the impact of post-secondary education on employment and earnings.

Khaldoun AbouAssi joins SPA in Fall 2015 as an assistant professor in the Department of Public Administration and Policy. AbouAssi comes to SPA from the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University. His research interests have included nonprofit theory and management, inter-organizational relations, development theory and management, governance, and civil society’s impact on public policies. AbouAssi holds a PhD in public administration from the Maxwell School of Syracuse University.

Tricia Bacon was appointed as SPA Assistant Professor. Bacon brings eleven years of counterterrorism experience at the State Department. Her research – spanning the globe from South Asia, to North Africa and Europe – contradicts commonly held assumptions that terrorist organizations easily form alliances out of ideological solidarity or common enemies.

Albert C. Hyde, joining SPA as a visiting scholar, is considered one of the premier academic authorities on public administration. Hyde is best known for his work, Classics of Public Administration (now in its 8th edition), co-authored with Jay M. Shafritz. He previously advised the U.S. Department of Interior and U.S. Forest Service on federal policy and strategy development and has been a senior consultant for the Brookings Institution. Hyde served as a visiting professor at SPA from 1992 to 1997. He also directed public administration programs at San Francisco State University and the University of Pittsburgh.

David Schaefer joined SPA as a visiting Faculty Fellow from Arizona State University. His research focuses on the radicalization of inmates within prison settings. It draws upon a network perspective to examine how social relations are patterned and subsequently effect individual opportunities and outcomes. In 2012, Schaefer received the Linton C. Freeman Award for Distinguished Scholarship from the International Network for Social Network Analysis.

Fernando Reinares joins SPA as a Visiting Faculty from Madrid, Spain, where he is a Full Professor of Political Science and Security Studies at Universidad Rey Juan Carlos as well as a Senior Analyst on International Terrorism at Elcano Royal Institute. Between 2004 and 2006 he served as Senior Advisor on Antiterrorism Policy to Spain's Ministry of Interior and subsequently as Chairman of the European Commission Expert Group on Radicalization. He served as Adjunct Professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University in Washington, DC (2013-2015). He is Contributing Editor of Studies in Conflict and Terrorism. His recent books include the Spanish bestseller ¡Matadlos! Quién estuvo detrás del 11-M y por qué se atentó en España (Barcelona: Galaxia Gutenberg, 2004) and The Evolution of the Global Terrorist Threat: From 9/11 to Osama bin Laden’s Death (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014; edited with Bruce Hoffman).