Meet Our Faculty

Dean of the School of Public Service

Research interests: American politics, specifically women and politics, political psychology, and political socialization.

Associate Dean of School of Public Service
Professor, Criminal Justice

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

Assistant Professor, Interdisciplinary Programs

Research interests: Coastal vulnerability, inclusive adaptation, and equitable resilience; sustainability-peace nexus; and growth management and socio-cultural sustainability

Assistant Professor, Criminal Justice

Research interests: Community and Institutional Corrections, Procedural Justice and Legitimacy, Prisoner Reentry, and Implementation of Evidence-Based Practices.

Professor, Political Science
Faculty in Residence

Research interests: Asymmetric conflict and cooperation, war, US foreign policy, overseas troop deployments, hegemony, hierarchy, alliances, power, trade, and quantitative modeling.

Associate Professor of Sustainable Energy Systems, Innovation, and Policy
Director, Energy Policy Institute

Interests: Strategic planning and management in energy transitions; Sustainable energy; Energy-environmental systems; Comparative policy, innovation systems and better practices in sustainability and resilience; International nuclear safety and cyber security; Science and technology policy.

Professor, Urban Studies and Community Development
Director, School of the Arts
Interim Director, Public Policy and Administration PhD Program

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.

Associate Professor, Political Science
Program Lead, Global Studies
Program Lead, M.A. in Political Science

Research interests: Political economic themes, political regimes, human well-being outcomes.

Associate Professor, Public Policy and Administration

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

Assistant Professor, Interdisciplinary Programs

Research interests: Water and environmental governance in the arid Americas; rural-urban water conflicts; political ecology; Indigenous rights and stewardship; social movements, coalition-building, and unlikely alliances; collaborative and community-engaged research.

Professor, Criminal Justice

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

Professor, Public Policy and Administration

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

Clinical Assistant Professor, Political Science

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

Assistant Professor

Research Interests: Globalization and development, peace and conflict, race, gender, class, migration, urbanization, performance, and social movements, especially in Latin America.

Lecturer, Criminal Justice

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

Assistant Professor, Public Policy and Administration

Research Interests: Public management, government contracting, environmental policy, sustainability, collaborative governance, innovation policy.

Associate Professor, Public Policy and Administration
School of Public Service Faculty Director

Research Interests: Policy implementation, collaboration and collective action, energy and environmental policy, and state and local government.

Professor, Public Policy and Administration

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

Associate Research Professor
Director, Idaho Policy Institute

Research interests: Utilizing multi-sector, evidenced-based solutions to address persistent social, environmental, and economic issues and meet the current and critical needs in communities across Idaho and beyond.

Clinical Associate Professor Political Science 

Research interests: Platonic Political Philosophy, Modern and Contemporary Political Thought, and American Political Thought

Associate Professor, Criminal Justice

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

Lecturer, Conflict Management

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 emotional intelligence in the Conflict Management Program at Boise State. Bayard also consults: presenting workshops, facilitating groups, and mediating disputes.

Professor, Political Science
Director, Canadian Studies

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

Associate Professor, Public Policy and Administration
Program Lead, MPA and Nonprofit Administration programs

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

Lecturer, Criminal Justice

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

Assistant Professor, Political Science

Teaching and research interests: Congressional representation and elections, electoral competition, political methodology.

Associate Professor, Criminal Justice

Research interests: Drug policy, gun violence, developmental and biosocial criminology, policing and forensics, quantitative methods

Associate Professor, Political Science
Director, NEW Leadership Idaho

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

Cheong studies local government management, service delivery/contracting, public budgeting, governance, and government-nonprofit relations. One of his research projects explored how economic recessions impacted service contracting over California cities. He found the impact differed in cities by government form. In another research project, he examined Idaho localities to learn how the for-profit or nonprofit sector affected government growth. Data analysis revealed for-profit or nonprofit sector size was inversely associated with government growth, consistent with theories about market or government failure. His papers are published in the Public Budgeting and Finance journal, International Journal of Public Administration, Social Science Journal, and Journal of Environmental Planning and Management. In his free time, Cheong enjoys hiking because the mountains and lakes in Idaho are beautiful
Cheong’s website

Associate Professor, Criminal Justice

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

Professor, Criminal Justice
Program Lead, Criminal Justice

Research interests: police organizational structure, the life course and disbanding of police agencies, crime lab performance, criminal investigations and forensics, ballistics imaging systems, police executives.

Assistant Professor, Criminal Justice

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.

Assistant Research Professor, Environmental Studies, Public Policy and Administration; Senior Research Associate, Energy Policy Institute – Center for Advanced Energy Studies

Research interests: Energy and environmental policy, political economy, interactive governance, public participation, policy implementation

Associate Professor, School of Public Service

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

Professor,  Environmental Studies and Global Studies

Teaching and research interests: biodiversity conservation, wildlife crime/illegal wildlife trade (IWT), green militarization, environmental displacement, human dimensions of global environmental change, indigenous-led conservation, political ecology, and international borders.

Associate Professor, Political Science
Program Lead, Political Science

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

Frank and Bethine Church Endowed Chair of Public Affairs

Research interests: Public address and political communication, with a particular interest in the public discourses of conservative social movements, especially evangelical voters

Associate Professor, Global Studies
Director, Marilyn Shuler Human Rights Initiative

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

Clinical Assistant Professor, Urban Studies  

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

Program Lead, Conflict Management

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

Associate Professor, Public Policy and Administration

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.

Associate Professor; Interim Program Lead, Environmental Studies; Program Lead, Urban Studies

Teaching and research interests: urban and community sociology; housing, home, and neighborhood; environment; culture and consumption; qualitative methods.

Professor, LEAD Certificates
Program lead, LEAD Certificates

Research and teaching interests: leadership communication, gender, commitment

Core Faculty and Internship Coordinator, Environmental Studies Coordinator, Certificate in Environmental Education

Research interests: environmental education, experiential learning, water resources, sustainable agriculture, waste reduction, and campus sustainability.

Lecturer, Criminal Justice

Research interests: Police personnel issues and criminological theory.

Lecturer, Criminal Justice

Research interests: Victimology and victim services.

Clinical Faculty, LEAD Certificates
Assistant Lead, LEAD Certificates

Teaching interests: Emotional Intelligence, Relational Leadership, Organizational Trust, and Leading Cross-Functional Teams.

Clinical Assistant Professor, Environmental Studies

Research interests: Collaborative conservation in the Intermountain West, place-based environmental governance, public land policy, rural education, and sociotechnical imaginaries.

Lecturer, Environmental Studies

Research Interests: Political philosophy, democracy and public administration, public sector ethics, public trust in democratic institutions and processes, public participation in government program design and decision-making.

Assistant Professor, Political Science 

Research interests: Formal and informal institutions, political parties, legislative politics, citizens’ evaluations of democratic outcomes, political participation, military spending, COVID-19 policy responses.

Professor, Environmental Studies; Cecil D. Andrus Endowed Chair for Environment and Public Lands

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

Dr. Wakild’s personal website

Professor, Political Science
Research Director, School of Public Service

Research interests: New democratic institutions, civil society, diffusion of innovative democratic institutions, human development, participatory budgeting, subnational governance, global cities, Global South, Latin American, Africa.

Assistant Professor, Criminal Justice

Research interests: Biosocial underpinnings of antisocial behavior and associated psychological traits including self-control, aggression, and psychopathy; Stress and development; substance use and abuse; Spatial/environmental criminology; Crime Mapping.

Professor, Public Policy and Administration
School of Public Service Director of Training

Dr. Stephanie Witt is Director of Training for the School of Public Service. She is also a Professor in the Master of Public Administration (MPA) and Political Science programs. Her research interests include intergovernmental relations and human resource management. She is the former Editor of the Social Science Journal, and has served as Department Chair, Associate Dean, and the Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs.

Professor, Political Science

Research interests: Political philosophy

University Distinguished Professor, Emeritus, Public Policy and Administration

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

Professor, Emeritus, Political Science

Research interests: American government and politics.

Professor, Emerita, School of Public Service

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

University Distinguished Professor, Emeritus, Political Science

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

 Distinguished Professor, Emeritus, Political Science

Professor, Emeritus, School of Public Service

Research interests: Cities, Boise.

Professor, Emeritus, Criminal Justice 

Professor, Public Policy and Administration
University Distinguished Professor;
Cecil D. Andrus Chair for Environment and Public Lands, Cecil D. Andrus Center for Public Policy

In Memoriam. The School of Public service mourns the passing of our friend and colleague John Freemuth.