Passionate Researchers: McCourt School welcomes new faculty driving research in criminal justice, education and state politics

September 8, 2025

This story was written by Cady Stanton as part of the McCourt School’s annual alumni magazine, Policy Perspectives.

New McCourt faculty bring research background in policing, education and state politics.

Right now is really a time where we are rethinking what the role of government is in everyone’s daily lives, what the role of policy is and what the power of policy is.

Amanda Lu, assistant teaching professor

Amanda Lu joins the McCourt School as an assistant teaching professor and faculty director for academic programs in policy practice. After receiving her bachelor’s degree in government from Harvard College, Lu moved to New Orleans to teach at a local high school soon after the state overhauled the city’s public school district and created an all-charter system. She saw an insightful policy case study in the reinvention of the school system and has spent much of her career researching how the change reshaped the city’s institutions, people’s relationships with them and democracy.

Lu focused her post-doctoral studies on learning recovery after the COVID-19 pandemic, including ways to get students individualized academic support through high-impact tutoring. In her faculty director role, she plans to focus on ensuring that students can prioritize practical experience and leverage their McCourt School education to flow cohesively into their career after graduation, with an emphasis on faculty mentorship and peer-to-peer thought partnerships.

“At my core, I’m a teacher, especially because I’ve been teaching young people since I was 21,” Lu Said. “Right now is really a time where we are rethinking what the role of government is in everyone’s daily lives, what the role of policy and strong policy is and what the power of policy is.” Lu received her M.A. in education, MPP, M.A. in sociology and Ph.D. in educational policy and the sociology of education from Stanford University.

Amanda sat down with us to share her answers for 5 Questions, an annual video series that introduces new faculty to the McCourt community.

“Gerrymandering is possibly the most important long-term threat for democracy.”

Chris Warshaw, professor

A political scientist researching American democracy at the state and local level, Chris Warshaw joins the McCourt School as a full professor.

Warshaw’s research has explored the links between public opinion, elections and political outcomes in city and state governments and examined how the organization of political systems, such as term limits or direct democracy, influence political representation. Warshaw has also collaborated on two election information websites: Planscore.org, which helps policymakers and advocates score and assess the fairness of new district maps, and TrueViews.org, which displays estimates of public opinion based on geography.

Warshaw plans to focus his teaching philosophy at the McCourt School on instructing students to be critical thinkers and to analyze, interpret and concisely summarize information as they conduct research. He also hopes to eventually teach courses related to redistricting and its impact on society as a structural issue. “I think it continues to be the case that gerrymandering is possibly the most important long-term threat for democracy,” Warshaw said.

Warshaw as a Ph.D. in political science from Stanford University and received a B.A. in economics and political science from Williams College. He previously taught at George Washington University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Chris sat down with us to share his answers for 5 Questions, an annual video series that introduces new faculty to the McCourt community.

Roman Gabriel Rivera stands for professional

“Solid quantitative methods and causal inference hopefully enable us to produce better criminal justice policy.”

Roman Gabriel Rivera, assistant professor

Roman Gabriel Rivera fell in love with the research process documenting policy misconduct in Chicago for a journalistic nonprofit in the city while earning his MPP. He has expanded that passion through quantitative analyses as a labor economist focused on the economics of policing and crime, publishing papers on political diversity in U.S. policy agencies and the role of officer race and gender in interactions with civilians.

Joining the McCourt School as an assistant professor, Rivera says he was drawn to Washington, DC, as a hub for policymaking. He became involved with McCourt’s Massive Data Institute (MDI) because of its utilization of large amounts of data to solve social issues and the school’s partnerships with Georgetown Law School. Rivera hopes to focus his teaching on crime and justice policy, program evaluation and introductory econometrics.

“Solid quantitative methods and causal inference hopefully enable us to produce better criminal justice policy that both reduces crime and reduces the social costs of the criminal justice system,” Rivera said. “There’s no better way to do that than teaching the people who make it happen.”

Rivera received his Ph.D. in economics from Columbia University and his MPP and B.A. in economics from the University of Chicago.

Roman sat down with us to share his answers for 5 Questions, an annual video series that introduces new faculty to the McCourt community.

Passionate Researchers: McCourt School welcomes new faculty driving research in criminal justice, education and state politics

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