New Faculty Reflect on First Year at Bloustein

The Bloustein School welcomed four new faculty members this year to its staff, Professors Bob Noland and Hal Salzman, and Assistant Professors Stephanie Curenton and Gabriella Carolini. With the academic year coming to a close, we asked them of their impressions of EJB thus far.

What work were you doing prior to your arrival at EJB?

Bob Noland	Noland: I was a Reader in Transport and Environmental Policy at Imperial College London. My research focused on how transportation policy affects the environment. Some examples included research into methods for mitigating climate impacts of aviation, reducing exposure of pedestrians to pollutants by providing priority for pedestrians at intersections, the negative safety impacts of many road improvements and capacity expansions, and issues surrounding the safety implications of London’s congestion charging scheme.
Hal Salzman	Salzman: I was at the public policy and research think tank, the Urban Institute in Washington. My research was much the same as now -- on workforce and labor market, technology, globalization, and development.
Stephanie Curenton	Curenton: After finishing my PhD, I spent two years as a fellow at the Society for Research on Child Development Policy in Washington, DC. I was looking at early care and education interventions and policies for the Administration for Children and Families, Child Care Bureau. After that I went to Florida State University where I taught Individual & Life Span Development and Child & Family Policy. Since then I have been at the National Institute of Early Education Research in the Graduate School of Education here at Rutgers.
Gabriella Carolini	Carolini: Prior to arriving at Bloustein, I was finishing my PhD in planning at Columbia while also working for the UN Millennium Project, and later, the Earth Institute and the Rockefeller Foundation on a project examining the frontiers of knowledge on pressing urban challenges in the Global South. This included exploring innovations in financing affordable, accessible, and adequate housing, water, and sanitation for the urban poor; building the adaptive capacities of communities and governments to respond to climate change and environmental vulnerabilities; establishing population health systems which comprise both preventative and curative health measures; and finally reconsidering the paradigms of urban planning and design education around the world.

What are your initial impressions of the school and its students?

Salzman: The students at Rutgers and Bloustein are very engaging and I enjoy the discussions with them in and out class…. I was very impressed with the background of the students -- the varied experience and range of interests.

Curenton: My initial reaction to Bloustein is that the building is beautiful and that the people here are friendly and smart. I think what I like best about the other faculty members is the diversity of their interests. There is so much to learn here!

Carolini: I am of course super pleased and excited to find so many students at Bloustein who are interested in studying international development – even if for the first time. Together with other faculty, we have started an interest group dedicated to this area of work (IDIG), and I am sure I will continue to be impressed by their dedication and growing entrepreneurial spirit.

Noland: This semester I am teaching a seminar on Transportation and the Environment. I have not had much exposure to graduate students yet, but those I have interacted with seem to be very good and quite interested in policy issues. There is a great deal of interest in transportation issues among the students, I look forward to increased interaction with them in the next semester.

What are your research interests? Do you have any upcoming publications?

Curenton: My research has focused on school readiness and early care and education. I am particularly interested in the interactions children have with adults, both their parents and their educators. I am currently working with a colleague at the University of Pennsylvania on an article about professional development and school readiness. I am looking for students who are interested in writing about early childhood education.

Carolini: My research interests are in exploring how fiscal policies and public sector accounting standards or guidelines impact or interact with the level of social investments made by governments in low- and middle-income countries. I have two articles currently under review, one of which focuses on empirical evidence emergent from Brazil on the above topic, and the other of which focuses on building a theoretical framework for understanding the privileges assigned in global fiscal and accounting standardization exercises. I am also working with a graduate student at Bloustein on exploring the determinants of budgetary politics both historically in the U.S. and more currently among international financial institutions. My plan is to continue exploring the fundamental drivers shaping both the level and type of social investments to which governments commit, particularly in vulnerable urban neighborhoods. The motivation behind this research is to determine ways of expanding fiscal space for investments which are typically difficult to quantify in market terms, yet which remain critical for sustainable and equitable development. This summer I will be engaged in fieldwork exploring these trends in the peri-urban settlements around Maputo, Mozambique, and eventually I hope to also explore the relationship between fiscal policies and social investments in Sweden.

Noland: My current research topics are focused on the impacts of transportation on economic development, analysis of pedestrian safety, and policies to mitigate climate change impacts of transportation. I have six articles either published or in press this year. My main goal is to study how various climate change mitigation policies can be enacted and implemented successfully, focused on land use/transportation interactions and transportation demand management policies. I have been working with one student to examine pedestrian fatalities in New Jersey. We are conducting statistical analysis on the data and our also using new tools such as Google StreetView to examine how the road infrastructure at specific locations contributes to pedestrian risk.

Salzman: My research focuses on workforce issues, on both the high skill and low skill occupations, on globalization of engineering and science and implications for science and technology policy, on technology development and related issues; on low wage jobs and urban economies; and currently an exciting project on work and village sustainability in the face of climate, social, and economic change in the Arctic. Recent publications include an edited book: "Technology Entrepreneurs in the Emerging Economies: The new shape of global innovation" and several papers on the science and engineering education and workforce. For the next five years I am pursuing two major areas of research: (1) science and engineering workforce and policy issues in an era of globalization; (2) development, work, and social and economic change, particularly as related to climate change -- how rural areas will be able to develop sustainable economies.

Fellow faculty members, as well as students and staff, throughout the Bloustein School have welcomed our four new faculty members and helped with their transition into the school community.

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