SPIAccolades — January 2025
Princeton SPIA Faculty Professional Updates
Atif Mian, the John H. Laporte, Jr. Class of 1967 Professor in Public Policy and Finance and a professor of economics and public affairs, was appointed as a Monetary Authority of Singapore Distinguished Term Professor in Economics and Finance by MAS and the National University of Singapore (NUS).
During his two-week term earlier this month, Mian delivered a public lecture at NUS on the effects of inequality on sovereign debt and financial growth. He also engaged NUS faculty, senior policymakers, and economists on his research around international finance and monetary policy.
Mian is the director of the Julis-Rabinowitz Center for Public Policy and Finance at Princeton SPIA and a co-founder of the Center for Economic Research in Pakistan, a leading research institution in the country.
Ali Nouri, a lecturer at Princeton SPIA affiliated with the Center for Policy Research on Energy and the Environment, has been named a Faculty Fellow for Professional Development Innovation by the Graduate School at Princeton University. During the one-year appointment, Nouri will work with the GradFUTURES professional development initiative to provide Princeton Ph.D. students with leadership skills and public policy knowledge that will empower them to play a greater role in policymaking.
“Working in government taught me how critically we need scholars and researchers in public policy roles — as technical advisors, but also as leaders and decision-makers,” said Nouri, a former deputy assistant to President Joe Biden with extensive experience on Capitol Hill and at the Federation of American Scientists, a global policy think tank. “Through this fellowship, I hope to help familiarize our graduate students with public policy and help them understand how they can advise policymakers or become policymakers themselves.”
Mustafa Basij Rasikh, professional specialist at the Center for Health and Wellbeing (CHW), and Alyssa Sharkey, a lecturer at Princeton SPIA affiliated with CHW and the Office for Population Research, published an article that has been named one of the “Best of 2024 Global Health Stories” by Think Global Health, an online bulletin by the Council on Foreign Relations that examines the ways in which changes in health reshape economies, societies, and everyday lives.
In their article, Rasikh and Sharkey explore the far-reaching consequences of the Taliban's ban on women's medical education. Specifically, they highlight how the ban has prevented female talent from entering Afghanistan's under-resourced health care sector.
Julian E. Zelizer, the Malcolm Stevenson Forbes, Class of 1941 Professor of History and Public Affairs, has been named a senior fellow at Penn Washington, an academic initiative of the University of Pennsylvania to bridge the academic and policy worlds.
Zelizer will work with the initiative’s leaders on the Rebuilding Government & Higher Education Relations initiative, a project that leans on historical research to revitalize and strengthen the relationship between government and universities.
“We plan to take a deep dive into the core elements that have shaped this relationship historically and to start putting forward a roadmap that can rebuild and reenergize this vital alliance,” Zelizer said.