STEP at APPAM Student Conference 2017
Haley
Bloomquist, Brianna Denk, Ally Hillstrom
Over the
weekend of April 7th-8th, we attended the APPAM Student Conference held by
George Mason University, Schar School of Policy and Government in Arlington,
VA. APPAM, Association for Public Policy
Analysis and Management, is a non-profit organization committed to improving public policy and
management by promoting excellence in research, analysis and education. At this
conference, we gained valuable research presentation experience by presenting
our research in panel format, allowing us to receive important feedback from
academics, practitioners, and other students.
We started
our day off by presenting our research as a part of the Clean Energy and
Responsible Sourcing Practices panel. Dr. Eliane Catilina was chosen to be our
discussant and chair of the panel. She is a regulatory economist and works for
the Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics at the U.S. EPA, and is a
professor at the McCourt School of Public Policy, Georgetown University.
Unfortunately, Dr. Catilina was unable to make the conference, however Brianna,
assumed the role of the discussant and successfully facilitated the program and
discussion.
During the
panel, we presented on The Political
Economy of Carbon Offsets: A Comparative Analysis of Post-2020 Sustainable
Development Mechanism Architectures. Two other Humphrey School of Public
Affairs graduate students, Jill Rook and Ashfaqul H Chowdhury, presented on the
Gains from
Collaborative R&D: A Patent Analysis of U.S.-China Co-Invention. The third panel participant,
Nicholas Mastron, from the George Washington University, presented on the Gusher and Roughneck Economies.
After the presentations, Brianna facilitated the discussion between our panel
participants and the audience. Several audience members asked questions about
the presentation and offered insightful feedback. Afterwards, we were each able
to talk one-on-one with audience members for further discussion.
One of our favorite parts of the conference was the
opportunity to attend the session called Policy
Career Paths Workshop. Presenters gave background
information on how they began their public service careers and how they have
achieved their current positions. The workshop session speakers included
Kimberly Arnold, Johns Hopkins University;
Katrina Hubbard Dunlap, George Mason
University; David Johnson, University
of Michigan; Roberto Amorosino, The
World Bank; Tom Barnett, Fairfax
County Government; and Peter Reuter, University
of Maryland. Later in the conference, we were able to continue further
discussion of policy career paths with the panelist Kimberly Arnold at one of
the poster and networking events.
