The following list includes some examples of University of Maryland,
College Park faculty members and researchers who may be able to offer
Maryland policy-makers their expertise and assistance on pending
issues. These university researchers and their colleagues study a wide
range of issues directly affecting Maryland citizens. This site is
under construction and will become more inclusive.
ECONOMICS
Maryland Economics
Mahlon
Straszheim – Professor and Chair of Economics, University of
Maryland
Expertise: economic underpinnings of the Maryland state budget;
economy
of Maryland and its regions; local labor markets; urban economics
Credentials:
Personal Advisor to Maryland Governors Schaefer
and
Glendening from 1991 through 1998 on Maryland’s economy, budget, and
tax revenues; member of Montgomery County’s Economic Advisory Council
to the County Executive and author of the annual Economic Development
Report Card for Montgomery County; publications in urban and regional
economics include "The Theory of Residential Location," in Handbook
of
Urban and Regional Economics.
Contact: 301-405-3506; straszhe@econ.umd.edu
Web site:
http://www.bsos.umd.edu/econ/efaculty/profiles/straszheim.html
Federal Taxes
Andrew
Lyon –
Associate Professor of Economics, University of Maryland
Expertise: federal tax policy, public finance and social
security
reform; current research areas include the alternative minimum tax,
capital gains taxes, consumption tax reform, dividend taxation, dynamic
revenue estimating, estate tax, international taxation, investment
incentives, tax-deferred savings, tax shelters and tax-exempt bonds.
Credentials: Deputy Assistant Secretary (for Tax Analysis),
U.S.
Department of Treasury, 2001 to 2003; served on Council of Economic
Advisers staff; publications include “Asset Price Effects of
Fundamental Tax Reform,” “Transition Costs of Fundamental Tax Reform,”
“Analysis of Current Social Security Reform Proposals,” “Cracking the
Code: Making Sense of the Corporate Alternative Minimum Tax.”
Links to research papers:
http://www.bsos.umd.edu/econ/lyon/respap.html
Contact: 301-405-3493;
lyon@econ.umd.edu
Web site: http://www.bsos.umd.edu/econ/lyon/
GAMBLING
Charles Wellford – Professor and Chair, Criminology and
Criminal Justice; Director, Maryland Justice Analysis Center,
University of Maryland
Expertise: analysis and measurement of criminal justice
techniques and
administration; analysis and measurement of criminal activity; impact
of gambling on individuals and communities
Credentials: lead researcher on Maryland Safe Neighborhoods
Project;
most recent research analyzed fairness of traffic stops in Maryland,
determinants of sentencing, and factors in police department homicide
clearance rates; Chair, National Academy of Sciences panel on firearms
research; chaired National Academy of Sciences panel on compulsive
gambling; Chair, National Academy of Sciences Committee on Law and
Justice; lifetime National Associate of the National Academy of
Sciences; serves on numerous state and federal advisory boards and
commissions including the Maryland Sentencing Policy Commission and the
Criminal Justice Information Advisory Board; author of numerous
publications on criminal justice issues; former President of the
American Society of Criminology
Link to Compulsive Gambling Report:
http://www.nap.edu/execsumm/0309065712.html
Contact: 301-405-4701;
cwellford@crim.umd.edu
Web site: http://www.bsos.umd.edu/ccjs/faculty/wellford/
William Evans – Professor of Economics, University of
Maryland
Expertise: impact of gambling; impact of education finance
reform;
effects of economic control of tobacco and alcohol on usage; applied
microeconomics involving public finance, industrial organization, and
health economics
Credentials: research includes "The Social and Economic Impact of Native American
Casinos";
"Estimating the Impact of Large Cigarette Tax Hikes: The Case of
Maternal Smoking and Infant Birth Weight"; "The Benefits of Prenatal Care: Evidence from the PAT
Bus strike"; coeditor of the Journal
of Human Resources
Contact: 301-405-3486;
evans@econ.umd.edu
Web Site:
http://www.bsos.umd.edu/econ/faculty/evans.htm
CRIMINOLOGY
Delinquency; Schools; Drugs
Denise Gottfredson – Professor, Criminology
and Criminal
Justice,
University of Maryland
Expertise: delinquency and delinquency prevention, and
particularly
the effects of school environments on youth behavior; drug use
prevention
Credentials: conducted research evaluating Baltimore City’s
Drug
Treatment Court, the Maryland After School Community Grant Program, and
the Maryland After School Opportunity Fund; co-investigator, National
Study of Delinquency Prevention in Schools, as well as a study of
family-based prevention in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area; book
co-editor, Schools and Delinquency (2000)
Contact: 301-405-4717;
dgottfredson@crim.umd.edu
Web site: http://www.bsos.umd.edu/ccjs/faculty/gottfredson/index.html
Terrorism Trends; Crime Trends
Gary
LaFree - sociologist, Professor of Criminology, University of
Maryland
Expertise: trends in terrorism; national and international crime
trends
Credentials: analyzing and expanding the most comprehensive
database
of
terrorist acts (1970-1999) publicly available, in part, to
determine whether incidence of terrorism correlates with political,
economic and social stability; author of Losing Legitimacy: Street
Crime and the Decline of Social Institutions in America
Contact: 301-405-4714;
GLaFree@crim.umd.edu
Web site:
www.bsos.umd.edu/ccjs/faculty/lafree/index.html
Drug Abuse
Eric
Wish – Director, Center for Substance Abuse
Research (CESAR) and Associate Professor of Criminology and Criminal
Justice, University of Maryland
Expertise: Maryland trends and patterns of drug abuse; early
warning
indicators of shifting drug use patterns; substance abuse prevention
and treatment, including alcohol abuse, illegal drug and prescription
drug abuse
Credentials: Under Dr. Wish’s leadership, CESAR provides
state and
local officials and drug abuse practitioners throughout Maryland with a
series of reports designed to track shifting patterns of drug use.
CESAR runs the state’s Drug Early Warning System (DEWS). In 2003 it
published "Drugs in Maryland," offering policy-makers a
guide to the latest drug use patterns and a series of policy options.
CESAR also prepared a series of Maryland county-by-county profiles in
2003; awarded $2.5 million National Institutes of Health grant to
conduct College Life Study – a five-year study of 2,000 college
students to assess health impact of high-risk behaviors.
Contact: 301-405-9770;
ewish@cesar.umd.edu
Web site: http://www.cesar.umd.edu/;
http://www.bsos.umd.edu/ccjs/faculty/wish/
URBAN STUDIES AND PLANNING; SMART GROWTH
Maryland Regional Economic Development; Brownfield Reclamation
Marie Howland – urban economist, Professor of
Urban Studies and
Planning, University of Maryland
Expertise: urban and regional economic planning, with
specializations
in employment, economic development, suburban office development and
telecommunications; economic health and development in Baltimore
region,
Washington, D.C. suburbs and rural Maryland; brownfield redevelopment
in Baltimore
Credentials: research includes estimating Baltimore
industrial health,
the market for suburban business development, the impact of land
contamination on the redevelopment of inner city industrial sites;
publications include “The Baltimore Economy and Economic Development
Policy,” “From Combines to Computers: Rural Development in the
Information Age” and “Plant Closings and Worker Displacement;”
Associate Editor, Economic Development Quarterly
Links to selected research:
http://www.arch.umd.edu/URSP/People/faculty/mhowland/mhowlandpubl.html
Contact: 301- 405-6791;
mhowland@ursp.umd.edu
Web site: http://www.arch.umd.edu/URSP/People/faculty/mhowlandBio.html
Communities and School Reform
Howell Baum – Professor, Urban Studies and
Planning, University
of
Maryland
Expertise: education planning and policy; community action to
improve
and reform schools; history of Baltimore school desegregation;
communities planning for themselves
Credentials: wrote Community
Action for School Reform (2003), book on
how communities, schools, and universities can partner to improve local
schools focusing on Baltimore's experiences; other
publications include “Smart Growth and School Reform: What If We Talked
About Race and Took Community Seriously?,” “Why School Systems Resist
Reform: A Psychoanalytic Perspective,” and “Fantasies and Realities of
University-Community Partnerships”
Links to selected research:
http://www.arch.umd.edu/URSP/People/faculty/hbaumBio.html; awards
include Wilson H. Elkins Professorship, University of Maryland
(2000-2001) and the University of Maryland Presidential Award for
Outstanding Service to the Schools(1998).
Contact: 301-405-6792; hbaum@umd.edu
Web site: http://www.arch.umd.edu/URSP/People/faculty/hbaumBio.html
Housing Issues
James R. Cohen – Director of Graduate Studies
and lecturer, Urban
Studies and Planning, University of Maryland
Expertise: housing; affordable housing; land use planning; smart
growth
and growth management; zoning issues
Credentials: Associate Editor of the journal Housing
Policy Debate; supervised
student team reports analyzing affordable housing policies in Takoma
Park, Maryland, the transfer-of-developments rights program in
Montgomery County, Maryland, and potential for transit-oriented
development at the Capitol Heights Metro station; recently published
marterials include “Abandoned Housing: Exploring Lessons from
Baltimore”, “Maryland’s Smart Growth: Using Incentives to Control
Sprawl”, and
“Housing Affordability and Livability Issues in St.
Mary’s County
Maryland”; community service includes participation on various
planning panels and
commissions
Contact: (301) 405-6795; jcohen@ursp.umd.edu
Web site: http://www.arch.umd.edu/URSP/People/faculty/jcohenBio.html
Smart Growth and Land Use
Gerrit-Jan Knaap – Executive Director, National Center for
Smart Growth
Research and Education, and Professor of Urban Studies and Planning,
University of Maryland
Expertise: smart growth and land use; land use monitoring;
impacts of
environmental policy; measuring urban form; efficacy of economic
development instruments
Credentials: economist with special expertise in
land use issues in Maryland and Oregon; published extensive research on
land market monitoring and related land use issues, including an
assessment of the
price premium home buyers are willing to pay for certain features of
“New Urbanist" communities, and a recent assessment of housing trends in the Baltimore-Washington corridor;
other publications include "Measuring the Price Effects of Growth
Controls," "Managing Urban Growth for the Efficient use of Public
Infrastructure," and "The Effects of Light Rail Plans on Residential
Property Values; "co-author or co-editor of four books including Land
Market
Monitoring for Smart Urban Growth and Environmental Program Evaluation:
A Primer
Contact: 301-405-6083; gknaap@ursp.umd.edu
Web site: http://www.smartgrowth.umd.edu/whoweare/facultyandstaff-gerritknaap.htm
Smart Growth and Public Health
Reid Ewing – Research Professor, National Center for Smart
Growth
Research and Education, and Associate Professor of Urban Studies and
Planning, University of Maryland
Expertise: smart growth; community design; sprawl indices;
traffic
management; relationship between development patterns, mobility and
public health
Credentials: recent research includes the first national
study
of the
relationship between urban sprawl and chronic health problems,
a study of school location and its effects on student travel,
development of sprawl indices for counties and metropolitan areas
around the U.S., and a guidebook on context-sensitive highway design
for the New Jersey Department of Transportation; served two terms in
the Arizona legislature; worked on urban policy issues at the
Congressional Budget Office; Research Director, Surface Transportation
Policy Project in Washington, D.C.; author of Best Development
Practices, Traffic Calming:
State-of-the-Practice, three other books, and many articles on
growth
management, community design, and traffic management
Contact: (301) 405-8751; rewing1@umd.edu
Web site: http://www.smartgrowth.umd.edu/whoweare/facultyandstaff-reidewing.htm
FAMILY STUDIES
Rural Poverty in Maryland
Bonnie
Braun – Assistant Professor of Family Studies, University of
Maryland; Principal Investigator, Maryland Rural Families Speak; state
family life specialist, Maryland Cooperative Extension
Expertise: economic well-being and family situations of poor
families
in rural Maryland; family policy; welfare reform
Credentials: As Principal Investigator of “Maryland Rural Families Speak: Tracking the
Well-Being of Rural Low-Income Families in the
Context of Welfare Reform” (part of a national 10-year
USDA/Maryland
Department of Human Resources study), Braun has interviewed and
followed economic conditions of families in Garrett County and
Dorchester County; author of more than 80 articles and seven family and
consumer science curricula; awards include the Murial Sloan
Communitarian Award and the American Association of Family Consumer
Sciences Ruth O'Brien Research Award.
Contact: 301-405-3581; bb157@umail.umd.edu
Web site:
http://www.hhp.umd.edu/FMST/Faculty/BBraun.html; http://www.hhp.umd.edu/FMST/Research/Rural_Families_Speak.html
Note: This site is under development; additional resources will be
added.
