Recent Press Coverage

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Denser Cities Could Spare Climate but Also Increase Virus Transmission

March 30, 2020

Marilyn Brown, Regents' and Brook Byers Professor in the School of Public Policy, was quoted in the article "Denser Cities Could Spare Climate But Also Increase Virus Transmission" on March 27 in E&E News.

The article examines a tradeoff involved in making cities more dense, which can decrease their overall carbon footprint but leave them more susceptible to disease outbreaks like that of COVID-19. Brown spoke to how reducing sprawl is essential not just for reducing emissions but also for optimizing response to disease outbreaks.

Excerpt:

“I would say sprawl is the epitome of what we don’t want to do in terms of emissions from transportation and buildings,” said Marilyn Brown, professor of sustainable systems at the Georgia Tech’s School of Public Policy in Atlanta.

Density can make pandemics more manageable because it fosters communication and efficiency in the delivery of essential public services, she said.

Read the full article here.

Published in: E&E News
And the Winners of the 2020 Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards Are ...

March 30, 2020

Ilya Kaminsky, professor in the School of Literature, Media and Communication, was recognized for winning an Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for his book "Deaf Republic" in Crain's Cleveland Business on March 30, 2020.

The Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, "the only national juried prize for literature that confronts racism and explores diversity," is one of a number of prizes that Kaminsky has won for "Deaf Republic."

Excerpt:

Kaminsky, born in Odessa in 1977, is a poet, editor and translator whose first book, "Dancing in Odessa," was published in more than 20 languages. He holds the Bourne Chair in Poetry at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

As a child, he was misdiagnosed by a Soviet doctor who thought he had a cold, and the mistake left Kaminsky hard of hearing.

Via the Cleveland Foundation: Amid rising antisemitism, Kaminsky's family won political asylum from the United States in 1993 and resettled in Rochester, New York, where he was fitted with hearing aids. Kaminsky, adept in Russian, Ukranian and English poetry, became a lawyer first. When "Deaf Republic" arrived, the BBC named Kaminsky "one of the 12 artists that changed the world in 2019." Anisfield-Wolf Juror Rita Dove said the book haunted her, "a parable that comes to life and refuses to die." It describes an unnamed country whose citizens can no longer hear one another, set amid political unrest. The book, which contains pictograms of sign language words, became a finalist for the National Book Award.

Read the full article here.

Published in: Crain's Cleveland Business
Coping With Coronavirus: How Professors Can Support Students in Traumatic Times

March 24, 2020

Karen Head, associate professor and associate chair in the School of Literature, Media and Communication, contributed to the resource "Coping With Coronavirus: How faculty members can support students in traumatic times" in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

In her contributed essay, Head advocates for the prioritization of empathy and understanding in faculty members' teaching plans in the time of coronavirus, as the disease can have wide-ranging consequences that affect every part of a student's life.

Excerpt:

The accompanying sense of insecurity should be a focus of course redevelopment as we move to remote delivery, because we need first to focus on the human part of this experience. Students may not have access. They may be distracted by sick relatives. They may be forced to work to help their families financially. They may have to look after younger siblings. They may not have a safe place to live off campus. They may be ill themselves.

You can submit your email to download the full article at this link.

Published in: Chronicle of Higher Education
Coronavirus Goes Viral: How Online Meme Culture Reflects Our Shared Experience Of A Global Pandemic

March 20, 2020

André Brock, associate professor in the School of Literature, Media and Communication, was interviewed on the Georgia Public Broadcasting program "On Second Thought" on March 20, 2020.

Brock, whose work has examined the online meme culture of the African American community, such as the "Black Twitter" phenomenon, spoke to the connective power of the internet in a time of mandated physical distancing between people.

Excerpt:

Memes tend to draw upon shared cultural commonplaces. And for a large part of it, they draw on shared networks. So it's a group of people, your friends and your family, or usually a group of people who will understand where your humor is coming from. And in return, their friends and family will have maybe not the same understanding, but a similar one. Where memes become huge and become immensely taken up is when that initial content actually turns out to be relatable to many more people than their original user could have even imagined. While there are many deliberate memes, I find that many memes which were not as deliberate have somehow become also influential in helping people understand how to deal with this virus.

Listen and read highlights from the program here.

Published in: Georgia Public Broadcasting
Transcript: Philip Breedlove, former NATO supreme allied commander, on "Intelligence Matters"

March 18, 2020

General Phil Breedlove, USAF (ret.), former NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe and the US European Command Commander and a distinguished professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, was interviewed by Admiral Sandy Winnefeld, a distinguished professor in the Nunn School and former ninth Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in CBS News "Intelligence Matters."

Read an excerpt:

Russia has the ability to quickly move and mass their forces, where NATO has to respond to the area. And I know you understand this better than most because of your naval background, but in the Cold War we almost took-- we fought to maintain the lines of contact with the East Coast of America and Europe.

During the post-Cold War days, we have all but stopped worrying about fighting our way across the Atlantic. In fact, we assume safe passage across the Atlantic. And that's not the case anymore. And so Russia enjoys that ability to rapidly bring forces together. And if you've ever looked at Moscow and the spider network of roads and railroads from there, you understand how quickly they can do this. And then you have to look at what NATO has to do to respond. It's a physics problem.

The interview and transcript is available on the CBS News Website.

Published in: CBS News
U.S. Recession Still a Risk But the Central Bank’s Moves Deserve Applause, Says former Fed Official

March 16, 2020

Dennis Lockhart, former Atlanta Federal Reserve president and now distinguished professor in the Georgia Tech Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, was interviewed by CNBC.

Excerpt:

“I think recessionary conditions are definitely a risk and we’re dealing with so much uncertainty now on how this virus situation unfolds and what the economic impact turns out to be, nobody really knows,” Dennis Lockhart, Atlanta Fed president from 2007 to 2017, told CNBC’s Squawk Box Asia on Monday.

For the full interview, please visit the CNBC website.

Published in: CNBC
Will the Fed’s emergency rate cut work?

March 16, 2020

Dennis Lockhart, distinguished professor in the Nunn School and past Atlanta Federal Reserve president was interviewed in “Will the Fed’s emergency rate cut work?” By Fox Business.

Excerpt:

“I don’t think we can know whether or not it will work,” Dennis Lockhart, the former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, told FOX Business. “First of all, I would say the Federal Reserve is in a support role here. The real frontline of action has to be the health authorities, and to some extent the fiscal authorities as well.”

The complete article can be accessed on Fox Business.

Published in: Fox Business
Lockhart: The Fed has set its position as accommodative as it can possibly be

March 16, 2020

Dennis Lockhart, former Atlanta Federal Reserve president and now current distinguished professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, was interviewed on “Lockhart: The Fed has set its position as accommodative as it can possibly be” on Fox Business.

Watch the full video interview on Yahoo News.

Published in: Yahoo News
These financial moves can help you prepare for a recession

March 16, 2020

Dennis Lockhart, a distinguished professor and former Atlanta Federal Reserve president, was cited in “These financial moves can help you prepare for a recession” by CNBC.

Find an excerpt:

“I think recessionary conditions are definitely a risk and we’re dealing with so much uncertainty now on how this virus situation unfolds and what the economic impact turns out to be, nobody really knows,” former Atlanta Fed president Dennis Lockhart said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on Monday.

Read the article on the CNBC website.

Published in: CNBC
Transcript: Former top defense official Robert Work on "Intelligence Matters"

March 11, 2020

Retired ninth Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Distinguished Professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs Admiral Sandy Winnefeld, USN (ret.), interviewed the 32nd United States Deputy Secretary of Defense, in CBS News “Intelligence Matters.”

Excerpt:

It would be interesting to see if there were ever a point when the advantages conferred on an opponent by using AI start to so eclipse our own capability that we have to consider looking at other ways. Speaking of China, Chinese entrepreneur Kai-Fu Lee says that to have good commercial AI, you have to have four things, a lot of government support, decent engineers, ruthless entrepreneurs and lots of data. Given that, and given China's somewhat serious advantages in commercial AI, can we compete with them in the defense space in AI?

Find an transcript of the interview on CBS News.

Published in: CBS News
Kaye Husbands Fealing Earns Shoutout on "The Georgia Gang"

March 2, 2020

Kaye Husbands Fealing, chair and professor in the School of Public Policy and incoming dean of the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts, was mentioned in the March 1 edition of the public affairs program "The Georgia Gang" on FOX 5 Atlanta.

Tharon Johnson, the CEO of Paramount Consulting Group and a seasoned political consulting veteran, included Husbands Fealing in his list of shoutouts on the show. Husbands Fealing was formally named as dean on February 27, and she will assume the position June 1.

"She's a wonderful person, and I wish her the best," Johnson said.

Watch the full show here.

Published in: The Georgia Gang
Addressing Atlanta's Health Disparities Through Community Service Approaches

March 1, 2020

Jennifer Singh, associate professor in the School of History and Sociology, wrote the article "Addressing Atlanta’s health disparities through community service approaches" in The Saporta Report on March 1, 2020.

Singh, whose background includes education and training in public health as well as sociology, has designed a course in the Serve-Learn-Sustain (SLS) program that explores the sociological determinants of public health conditions in communities. Through a collaboration with the American Heart Association and the Grove Park Foundation, Singh's students taught hands-free CPR techniques to a variety of community organizations in Atlanta.

Excerpt:

The most important take away from service learning is that students connect what they learn in the classroom with their community service experiences. To aid in this process, I challenge students to think and write critically about the social determinants of health that focus on fundamental or upstream causes of health disparities.

For example, living in poverty increases the risk of heart disease and death by sudden cardiac arrest. Based on data collected by Georgia Tech Atlanta’s Neighborhood Quality of Health and Life Project, 40 percent of the residents in Grove Park Neighborhood live below the poverty line, have a much lower household income than the median for the City of Atlanta, and only 9 percent have a college education. These drastic inequities affect the level and kind of resources people have access to, such as quality housing and medical care or, in the case of sudden cardiac arrest, knowledge on how to respond to it.

Read the full article here.

Published in: The Saporta Report
How Black Feminist Scholars Remember Toni Morrison in the Classroom

February 20, 2020

Susana Morris, associate professor in the School of Literature, Media and Communication, wrote about teaching Toni Morrison's short story "Recitatif" in the "How Black Feminist Scholars Remember Toni Morrison in the Classroom" in Ms. magazine on Feb. 18, 2020.

"Recitatif" is "too often overlooked," Morris wrote, but the story's structure and clever themes of people's perceptions of race have made it one of her favorite works to explore with students.

Excerpt:

Morrison’s purposeful obfuscation of race really invites readers to consider what we really know when we “know” someone’s race. This is particularly interesting in the classroom. I invite students to speak openly about racial stereotypes and how they often function as a type of social technology for us to make sense of the world. Often, students’ first reactions is to argue that one character has to be Black or, alternatively, white—because everyone knows that these people are really like this or that. The moment they uncover their own flawed logic is always a transformative one.

Read the full article here.

Published in: Ms.
Interview With Dr. Margaret Kosal, AOMD Episode 031

February 18, 2020

Margaret Kosal, associate professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, was interviewed on the Authors of Mass Destruction Podcast, part of the Authors on the Air Global Radio Network.

Kosal covered a broad range of topics in the interview, including nanotechnology, biotechnology, and "gray goo."

Listen to the podcast here.

Published in: Authors on the Air Global Radio Network
Should California Invest Another $5.5 Billion Into Stem Cell Research?

February 18, 2020

Aaron Levine, associate professor in the School of Public Policy, was quoted in the article "Should California invest another $5.5 Billion Into Stem Cell Research?" in the Long Beach Business Journal on Feb. 17, 2020.

The article looked at the issues surrounding a potential ballot measure in California's general election this year that could put $5.5 billion of state funds towards stem cell research to make up for federal funding shortfalls. Levine has studied the program that had the state to put $3 billion towards research in 2004 and spoke on its effects and future possibilities.

Excerpt:

Dr. Aaron Levine, an associate professor at the School of Public Policy at Georgia Tech, has focused primarily on the intersection between public policy and bioethics. In this context, Levine has followed and reviewed California’s stem cell program for years, and he agreed that its impact has been transformative.

“CIRM stepped in to fill a gap when the National Institutes of Health was restricting its funding in this space,” Levine said. “The research that CIRM has supported, as well as the training programs, has had quite a big impact on the field.”

But Levine also pointed to what he described as “missed opportunities,” as the program enters its bid for renewal. One example is the new proposal’s requirement to commit a certain percentage of funds to finding cures for specific diseases, such as Alzheimers and other neurological disorders.

Read the full article here.

Published in: Long Beach Business Journal
Lawrence Rubin Interviewed in Kurdish Newspaper Gulan

February 13, 2020

Lawrence Rubin, associate professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, was interviewed in the Kurdish newspaper Gulan about the killing of Iranian General Qassem Sulaimani and its implications for the future of Iraq.

You can read the article, which is in Kurdish, at this link.

Published in: Gulan
Scenes & Motions: Not Me. Us: Six Chances to Connect

February 6, 2020

DramaTech's production of Nina Raine's play "Tribes" was mentioned by Creative Loafing in their rundown of local shows running in February. DramaTech, the oldest continually running theatre in Atlanta, is supported by the School of Literature, Media and Communications.

"Tribes", which is running from February 7-15, tells the story of a deaf boy's journey of learning the values of the deaf community and applying them to his own family's values.

Excerpt:

But then Billy meets Sylvia, a hearing woman born to deaf parents who is now slowly going deaf herself. She hates that she’s losing her hearing and begins teaching Billy sign language. After learning about the values of the deaf community, Billy confronts his own family’s beliefs and values. Finally, it is the deaf family member who demands to be heard.

DramaTech, Georgia Tech’s student-run theatre organization, has been around for 73 years. Tribes is an award-winning script, and many productions feature a deaf actor in the role of Billy. This might well be a student production worth seeking out.

Read the full article here.

Published in: Creative Loafing
Who Should Control the Internet's .Org Addresses?

February 5, 2020

Milton Mueller, professor in the School of Public Policy, was referenced in the article "Who Should Control the Internet's .Org Address?" in WIRED on Feb. 4, 2020.

The article covers concerns that the .org address, which has traditionally been the domain of nonprofit groups, could become exorbitantly expensive after the Public Interest Registry (PIR), which controls the domain name, was sold to the private equity firm Ethos Capital. Mueller, an expert in internet governance who worked on the original deal for PIR to manage .org, provided background on potential implications of the deal with Ethos Capital.

Excerpt:

It's not clear what grounds ICANN could use to block the sale. Milton Mueller, a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology School of Public Policy who worked on the ICANN group that approved the original contract for PIR to manage the .org top-level domain, tells WIRED that PIR’s contract with ICANN never specified that the .org domain had to be managed by a nonprofit. But he says that, as a requirement of its approval of the sale, ICANN could potentially put new provisions into the contract that would make PIR more accountable to the nonprofit community.

Read the full article here.

Published in: WIRED
Making Security Cooperation More Effective

January 31, 2020

Eliza Markley, a Sam Nunn School of International Affairs lecturer, wrote "Making Security Cooperation More Effective" in The Cipher Brief.

Read an excerpt:

Today’s security cooperation requires fast, effective, and secure sharing of information across national borders and agency bureaucracies and increasingly emphasizes the role of networks. Effective security cooperation requires more than just joint strategies, structures, forces and missions. It also demands fast, effective and secure sharing of information across national borders and agency bureaucracies. Given the severity and unpredictability of today’s security threats, one way to improving interagency collaboration and cross-border security provision lies in the building of networks of cooperation among security professionals from around the globe. This is one central purpose of advanced education in security policy, defense affairs, and international relations for military officers and defense officials, which can also be referred to as International Security Policy Education (ISPE).

Find the full article on The Cipher Brief website.

Published in: The Cipher Brief
Parental Paid Leave Spreads in Georgia After Years of Resistance

January 27, 2020

Lindsey Bullinger, assistant professor in the School of Public Policy, was quoted in the article "Parental paid leave spreads in Georgia after years of resistance," published Jan. 26, 2019 in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The article examined potential progress in the area of paid maternity leave in Georgia, which does not mandate the practice. Bullinger has studied the impact of California's paid family leave law, which could serve as a model for Georgia and other states.

Lindsey Bullinger, an assistant professor at Georgia Tech, studied data from California, which enacted the country’s first paid family leave law nearly two decades ago. She said the program has led to an “improvement in overall child health” for infants, including a reduction in asthma rates.

“We know that kids who are healthier at birth and in early infanthood are healthier, they have higher education attainment, they’re more likely to be employed and more likely to pay taxes when they’re adults because they’re employed,” she said.

Read the full article here.

Published in: Atlanta Journal-Constitution