Meet Our Faculty

Research interests: Dynamics of power and how these dynamics foster behavior between states both in conflict and cooperation.

Research interests: Strategic planning, policy, and management in energy transitions; innovation systems and technology change; socio-technical and hybrid systems; better practices and critical infrastructure.

Research interests: Urban revitalization through property-based economic development, public/private partnerships, and civic collaboration; defense investments in cities with a focus on the redevelopment of former military bases.

Research interests: Economics, causes and consequences of human well-being outcomes.

Research interests: Public management, performance management, and higher education.

Research interests: Race and policing, domestic violence and criminal justice system response, and the public perception of the criminal justice system.

Research interests: Explanatory factors of cross-national democratization patterns, Canada-U.S. Borderlands and environmental policy, and political culture.

Research interests: State security policy, including defense spending, the role of militias, civil war intervention, and climate change.

Dr. Cook came to Boise State from the University of San Francisco, where he served for six years as the director of the Leo T. McCarthy Center for Public Service and the Common Good, which oversees graduate programs in public affairs and urban affairs and works collaboratively with government and nonprofit stakeholders to solve problems facing the university’s region.

Research interests: Corrections, Violent Crime, Criminal Justice Policy.

Interests: American Foreign Policy, Democracy, Human Rights, U.S. National Security.

Research interests: Policy implementation, energy and environmental policy, state and local government, public management, public budgeting and finance, and organizational theory.

Research interests: Intergovernmental relations and networked governance, public and nonprofit management, organizational behavior/ethics, personnel policy

Research interests: Relationship between science and public policy on issues surrounding public lands.

Vanessa’s passion for education and evidenced-based policy making led her to non-profit leadership roles and educational pursuits across the country.  For the past fifteen years she has worked to balance economic vitality, environmental health and social equity through community engagement, smart planning, economic development and teaching.

Research interests: Correctional policy and practice, Juvenile Justice Policy and Processing, Developmental Criminology, Criminal Careers, The Effect of Court Decisions on Criminal Justice Policy.

Research interests: American National Government, Contemporary Political Ideologies, Constitutional Law, American Political Thought

Research interests: Program evaluation, community policing and problem-solving, organizational change, crime control, crime in public housing, community crime prevention, and domestic violence.

Research interests: 20th century American social, cultural, political, and religious history with a research focus on the post-World War Two period. In addition to the U.S. survey courses, Dr. Gill teaches classes on the 1960s, the Vietnam War, the History of Multicultural America, American Religious History, Sexualities and American Society, Global Human Rights, and Civil Rights Movements in America.

Research interests: Victimization, gender, intimate partner violence, rural crime and justice, capital punishment sentencing.

Research interests: Conflict management, negotiation, mediation, group facilitation and social/emotional intelligence. Dr. Bayard Gregory teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in conflict management, negotiation, mediation, and group facilitation as Associate Director of the Dispute Resolution Program at Boise State. Bayard consults actively—presenting workshops, facilitating groups and mediating disputes.

Research interests: Impacts of environmental pollution on ecosystem and human health, energy economics and technology, agricultural sustainability. Beau Hansen is a Clinical Professor in the School of Public Service at Boise State University, where he is also the Director of the Environmental Studies Program.

Research interests: Comparative courts, judicial selection, judicial decision-making and court-Congress relations.

Research interests: Public management, administration, and policy theory and immigration policy.

Research interests: Environmental, natural resources, energy, and emerging technological and environmental issues.

Teaching interests: Corrections, law, organized crime, juvenile justice

Research interests: Biosocial and developmental/life-course criminology, policing and forensics, perceptions and attitudes in crime and criminal justice, and quantitative methods.

Research interests: American politics with an emphasis on state politics, political parties & interest groups, campaign finance, and women in politics.

Research interests: Local government management and public financial management.

Research interests: Sexual violence, intimate partner violence, victim services, and gender and crime.

Research interests: Courts and sentencing, criminal justice policy, integration of social science research with legal research, inequalities in the justice system, and the female experience of violence, offending, and punishment.

Research interests: Energy and public lands policy, political economy, interorganizational relations, organizational collaboration and adaptation.

Research interests: Public policy and decision processes, agenda setting, earth systems governance, and the impact of focusing events on public policy, as well as environmental policy and science and technology policy

Research interests: American politics, specifically public opinion, political behavior, political psychology, and state politics.

Research interests: Race and ethnicity, human rights, environmental justice, border studies, applied anthropology.

Research Interests: Development at the rural-urban interface, bioregional planning, public land preservation, stakeholder engagement, and community protection and use of natural resources.

Research interests: Conflict Management, Collaboration, Team Dynamics, Process Improvement and Organizational Culture.

Research interests: Conflict Resolution, Alternative Dispute Resolution, the interaction between formal and informal dispute mechanisms.

Research interests: Dynamics that determines different types of policy outcomes, changes, and performances, which is often at the intersection of public administration and political science.

Research interests: water resources, campus sustainability, sustainable agriculture, environmental justice, service-learning.

Research interests: Police personnel issues and criminological theory.

Research interests: Public communication of scientific and environmental controversies, with a particular focus on industry rhetoric and discourses of technical expertise.

Research interests: Effects of partisanship and ideological impurity on candidate evaluations, how moral psychology and social status structure policy attitudes, experimental methodology and causal inference.

Research interests: Victimology and victim services.

Research interests: Language in politics, the development of political attitudes, and how citizens seek out and process political information.

Research interests: How political parties adapt to institutional limits on their power; how US troop deployments influence foreign policy decision making in other countries.

Research interests: Nature Conservation, Resource Use, Science and Society, Latin American and Latina/o history.

Research interests: Criminology, with emphasis on biosocial theories.

Research interests: Participatory Democracy, Brazil and Latin America.

Research interests: Biosocial underpinnings of antisocial behavior and associated psychological traits including self-control, aggression, and psychopathy; the role of stress in development; substance use and abuse.

Dr. Stephanie Witt is Director of the Applied Research Center at Boise State University. She is also a Professor in the Master of Public Administration (MPA) and Political Science programs. She serves as Editor of the Social Science Journal.

Research Interests: U.S. military interventions and occupations in the Caribbean and Latin America, Pan-Americanism and Latinoamericanismo, Puerto Rican military service and militarization in Puerto Rico, 1898-1930s, Inter-American relations.

Research interests: Political philosophy

Research interests: Boise, intersection between global and local interests, Basque culture including issues of identity, immigration, rituals, history, music, song and dance.

Research interests: Environmental policy with attention to the science-policy linkage, the United States-Canada relationship, and borderlands issues.

Research interests: American government and politics.

Research interests: Regional governance and economics, community development, and sustainability.

Dr. Gary Moncrief is a University Foundation Research Scholar and University Distinguished Professor of Political Science.

Research interests: Cities, Boise.