News

Ford School faculty members often engage in collective problem-solving--with other scholars, of course, but also with policymakers and practitioners all around the world. The goal of these collaborations? Finding better solutions, and mutually...

On March 24th, 1965 at 8:00PM, about 3,500 faculty and students at the University of Michigan launched the first ever “teach in,” despite bomb threats and condemnation by the Michigan state legislature and Governor George Romney. For twelve hours,...

It seems like a straightforward question. If we produce more innovation, and quickly, then society will benefit. Our economy will grow because there will be markets for new technologies, and citizens will also benefit from access to the technologies...

David Sehat, host of the Mindpop podcast, talks with Joy Rohde about big data for the December 4 episode: “Is big data a force for good?” Rohde recounts the history of projects that use large datasets to try to solve policy problems – from the Cold...

We are pleased to announce a new director of the University of Michigan's Science, Technology, and Public Policy (STPP) graduate certificate program and to welcome applications from interested students. Associate Professor Shobita Parthasarathy,...

Catherine Hausman’s NBER working paper, “Price regulation and environmental externalities: Evidence from methane leaks,” (with Lucija Muehlenbachs) looks at the unintended consequences of cost-of-service price regulations of privately-owned natural...

Shobita Parthasarathy’s research on grassroots innovation in India is featured on this week’s “The Next Idea,” a Michigan Radio series dedicated to game-changing innovations and ideas. Listen here.In “Fostering grassroots innovation: Lessons India...

On March 9, Megan Blair (MPP ’16) led team "Formativity" to a victory in the U-M School of Public Health’s annual Innovation in Action competition.Innovation in Action is a five-month competition that gives multidisciplinary teams an opportunity to...

(left to right) Giorgi Tsimintia, Kenny Fennell, Diego Garcia Montufar, Maureen Lackner, Arman Golrokhian, Benjamin Morse, Harry WolbergLast month, seven accomplished Ford School students were awarded 2016 Dow Sustainability Fellowships, out of 39...

Professor Shobita Parthasarathy has received a 2016 seed grant from Michigan's Institute for Research on Women and Gender (IRWG), which supports individual research activities and collaborative projects in the field of women, gender, and...

How does the creative sector contribute to economic and community development in Michigan? As the director of creative industries at Creative Many, Ford School alum Cézanne Charles (MPA ’15) makes the case using data. Charles leads the...

In the lead up to the UN Climate Change Conference in December, the U.S. will organize a task force to incorporate climate and security analysis into its foreign policy agenda. Secretary of State John Kerry announced the new group at a speech in...

Shobita Parthasarathy has called for serious patent system reforms in a July 31 article she authored in The Conversation. Such reforms, she said, could "include increasing opportunities for the public to participate in patent decision-making,...

Former U.S. Congressman Dr. Joe Schwarz (R-7) and former Michigan Senate Minority Leader Gretchen Whitmer (D-East Lansing) pen MLive op-ed, “New energy plan for Michigan is opportunity to find common ground for cleaner water.” Together, Schwarz and...

Andrew Schroeder (MPP ’07) knows disaster relief. As director of research and analysis for Direct Relief International, Schroeder has helped shape responses to dozens of calamities. He recites the biggies. Haiti, Sandy, Nargis, Tohoku, Haiyan, and...

Beehives in a Michigan cherry orchard Betsy Riley (MPP/SNRE ’14), 2013 Dow Sustainability Fellow Created a resource guide for farmers and beekeepers trying to cope with the negative effects of honey bee colony collapse disorder. Because...

On August 18, Dr. Dan Kelly published an op-ed in the San Francisco Gate. His friend and colleague, a medical doctor, had died in Sierra Leone after serving an Ebola patient without protective gear. It wasn’t negligence, wrote Kelly, an infectious...

In an August 26 Policy Points video, Carl Simon argues that quarantine is the key to containing and eliminating the recent outbreak of the Ebola virus—the most deadly to date. “The first Ebola outbreak was noted about 40 years ago in small...

When Superstorm Sandy struck the northeast coast last October, it struck with a vengeance. It cascaded over seawalls; knocked a roller coaster into the ocean; yanked out chunks of the Atlantic City boardwalk; felled trees and power lines; flooded...

Shobita Parthasarathy's book on the development and implications of gene testing and patenting has been re-released in paperback by The MIT Press.The book, Building Genetic Medicine: Breast Cancer, Technology and the Comparative Politics of Health...