Welcoming 2020 and 2021 New Faculty to the McCourt School Community

Get to know the new faculty members, from both 2020 and 2021, and learn more about their research and expertise below. 

2021 New Faculty Members

Gaël Giraud

Gaël Giraud is an economist and a Jesuit who also serves as the director of the Georgetown Environmental Justice Program.

Bradley Hardy (MPP’04)

Bradley Hardy (MPP’04) is a labor economist whose research interests include economic instability, intergenerational mobility, poverty policy, racial economic inequality and socio-economic outcomes.

Rachel Milner Gillers

Rachel Milner Gillers joins the McCourt faculty and will continue to lead Georgetown’s Conflict Transformation Lab and teach Negotiation & Conflict Management in the spring.

Krista Ruffini

Krista Ruffini comes to McCourt from the Minneapolis Federal Reserve’s Opportunity and Inclusive Growth Institute, where she studied how government policies affect labor market, education and health outcomes.

Jasmine Tyler

Jasmine Tyler, a former adjunct professor at McCourt, joins our full time faculty and will also lead McCourt’s Policy Innovation Lab and support the school’s diversity, equity and inclusion work.

Jim Wallis

Jim Wallis, founder of the Christian social justice organization Sojourners, joins the McCourt School as the inaugural Chair in Faith and Justice.

2020 New Faculty Members

Andrea Headley

Professor Headley conducts policy research and teaching on police-community relations, racial equity, public administration and management, and organizational behavior –– critical topics that have long deserved more attention and analysis, as highlighted by recent events in our country. Her most recent research analyzes the effectiveness of police body cameras in increasing accountability and promoting social change.

She received her Ph.D. in Public Affairs and an MS in Criminal Justice from Florida International University. She comes to McCourt by way of The Ohio State University, after completing a postdoc at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley.

Sebastian Jilke

Professor Sebastian Jilke’s research applies insights from the behavioral sciences to public management and policy to study how government reforms affect public employees and the people they serve – especially with regard to social equity in access to public services and programs. In a recent paper, Jilke uses experimental methods to investigate differential rates of discrimination across public and private sector service providers. 

Born in Germany, Professor Jilke received his master’s in public administration from Zeppelin University in Germany and his PhD from Erasmus University Rotterdam located in the Netherlands.

Karen Huang

Professor Karen Huang‘s primary research interests include comparative ethics, moral and political psychology, feminist care ethics, and ethics of technology. Her research examines the individual processes underlying ethical decision-making, alongside the institutional structures that enable and constrain those decisions. Through her findings, she aims to support efforts to build communities and institutions that promote the public interest and elevate the disadvantaged. 

Dr. Huang received her Ph.D. and M.A. from Harvard University, and her B.A. from Yale

University. She has held fellowships at the Program for Science, Technology & Society at Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and the Berkman-Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School.

Parrish Bergquist

Professor Bergquist’s research examines public opinion about the environment and climate change, policy responsiveness to public opinion, and the implications of political polarization for environmental policy in the American states.

In her quantitative work,  she assess the behavioral and institutional mechanisms by which partisan polarization and nationalization affect public policy in the American states. In her qualitative work, she studies the politics of interpretation.

Professor Bergquist comes to McCourt after completing her post-doctoral studies with the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. She earned her PhD from MIT’s Departments of Political Science and Urban Studies & Planning, her Masters degree in environmental policy and urban planning from the University of Michigan, and my B.A. from the University of Virginia.

Dayanand Manoli

Professor Manoli’s research focuses on empirical analyses to document and improve the impacts of government policies. His research interests include income taxation, social safety net programs, retirement policy, and education policy. Professor Manoli works closely with federal and state government agencies and private companies to analyze administrative data using descriptive statistics, large-scale field experiments and quasi-experimental research designs. 

Professor Manoli is originally from Milwaukee, WI, and beyond his research, he enjoys spending time with his family, a good peach and time outdoors. 

Gregory Lyon