Joel Aberbach

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Joel D. Aberbach is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Public Policy, and Director of the Center for American Politics and Public Policy, at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is the author of Keeping a Watchful Eye: The Politics of Congressional Oversight (Brookings, 1990), co-author, with Bert A. Rockman, of In the Web of Politics: Three Decades of the U.S. Federal Executive (Brookings 2000), co-author, with Robert D. Putnam and Bert A. Rockman, of Bureaucrats and Politicians in Western Democracies (Harvard, 1981) and, with the late Jack L. Walker, co-author of Race in the City (Little, Brown, 1973). He is also the author of numerous journal articles and book chapters.

His research ranges widely over topics in American and comparative politics, with emphasis on legislative-executive relations and broader issues of executive politics and policy-making. Over the years, he has trained scores of administrators as an instructor in public policy programs at Michigan and UCLA, and he has also served as a consultant to organizations such as the Government Accountability Office, the Carnegie Commission on Science, Technology and Government, and the Commission on the Operation of the Senate.

Aberbach is currently Co-Chair of the Research Committee on Structure and Organization of Government of the International Political Science Association and Co-Chair of the Commission on the Executive Branch convened by the Annenberg Foundation Trust’s Institutions of Democracy Project. A volume from this project, titled Institutions of American Democracy: The Executive Branch, and co-edited by Aberbach and UCLA Professor of Public Policy Mark A. Peterson, was published in October 2005 by Oxford University Press. Aberbach has been a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences and the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study in the Social Sciences, a Visiting Fellow at the University of Bologna’s Institute of Advanced Studies, and a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. In 2005 he was elected a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration.

SELECTED BOOKS & PUBLICATIONS

The Executive Branch
(part of the Institutions of American Democracy Series). New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
Editors: Joel D. Aberbach and Mark A. Peterson
The Executive Branch

Paul Ong

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Professor Ong has done research on the labor market status of minorities and immigrants, displaced high-tech workers, work and spatial/transportation mismatch, and environmental justice. He is currently engaged in several projects, including an analysis of the relationship between sustainability and equity, the racial wealth gap, and the role of urban structures on the reproduction of inequality.

Previous research projects have included studies of the impact of defense cuts on California’s once-dominant aerospace industry, the impact of immigration on the employment status of young African Americans, and the influence of car ownership and subsidized housing on welfare usage.

Dr. Ong is the Director of the Center for Neighborhood Knowledge and editor of AAPI Nexus, and has served as an advisor to the U.S. Bureau of the Census, and to the California Department of Social Services and the state Department of Employment Development, as well as the Wellness Foundation and the South Coast Air Quality Management District.

He received a master’s in urban planning from the University of Washington, and a Ph.D. in Economics, University of California, Berkeley. Along with his quantitative research, his professional practice includes teaching and applying visual forms of communication.

SELECTED BOOKS & PUBLICATIONS

Set-Aside Contracting in S.B.A.’s 8(A) Program
Paul Ong, Review of Black Political Economy Vol 28, No. 3, Winter 2001, pp. 59-71.

Car Ownership and Welfare-to-Work
Paul M. Ong, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Vol. 21, No. 2, Spring 2002, pp. 255-268.

Impacts of Affirmative Action: Policies and Consequences in California
Paul Ong, editor,  Alta Mira Press, 1999.

The State of Asian Pacific America: Transforming Race Relations
Paul M. Ong, editor, Asian Pacific American Public Policy Institute, LEAP and UCLA AASC, Los Angeles, CA, 2000.

The New Asian Immigration in Los Angeles and Global Restructuring
Paul Ong, Edna Bonacich, and Lucie Cheng, editors, Temple University Press, 1994.

Albert Carnesale

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Albert Carnesale is Chancellor Emeritus and Professor Emeritus at the University of California,  Los Angeles (UCLA).  He joined UCLA in 1997, and was Chancellor of the University through 2006 and Professor of Public Policy and of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering through 2015.  His research and teaching continue to focus on public policy issues having substantial scientific and technological dimensions, and he is the author or co-author of six books and more than 100 articles on a wide range of subjects, including national security strategy, arms control, nuclear proliferation, domestic and international energy issues, and higher education.

Carnesale chaired the National Academies Committees on NASA’s Strategic Direction, on America’s Climate Choices, on Nuclear Forensics, and on U.S. Conventional Prompt Global Strike; and was a member of the Obama Administration’s Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future and of the Secretary of Energy’s Advisory Board.  He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Pacific Council on International Policy; and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.  In addition, he serves on the Boards of Directors of the California Council for Science and Technology, Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, and Amicrobe, Inc.

Prior to joining UCLA, Carnesale was at Harvard for 23 years, serving as Lucius N. Littauer Professor of Public Policy and Administration, Dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government, and Provost of the University.  He holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering (Cooper Union), a master’s degree in mechanical engineering (Drexel University), and a Ph.D. in nuclear engineering (North Carolina State University).

Michael Darby

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A recognized authority in macroeconomics and international finance, Michael Darby has achieved great success in both the academic and public sectors. From 1986 to 1992, Darby served in a number of senior positions in the Reagan and Bush administrations including Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy, Member of the National Commission on Superconductivity, Under Secretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs, and Administrator of the Economics and Statistics Administration. During his appointment, he received the Treasury’s highest honor, the Alexander Hamilton Award.

Dr. Darby is the widely-cited author of eleven books and monographs and numerous other professional publications. His most recent research has examined the growth of the biotechnology and nanotechnologies industry in the United States and in California, all science and engineering fields and high-technology industries in the world, and the role that universities and their faculties play in encouraging local economic development. Concurrently he holds appointments as chairman of The Dumbarton Group, research associate with the National Bureau of Economic Research, and adjunct scholar with the American Enterprise Institute. He is also director of UCLA’s John M. Olin Center for Public Policy, a position he has held since 1993. Previous to his Anderson School appointment in 1987, Darby held faculty positions or fellowships with UCLA’s department of economics, Stanford University, and Ohio State University. From his schooling to 1982, he also was vice president and director of Paragon Industries, Inc., a Dallas manufacturer of high-temperature kilns, furnaces, and refractories.

A.E. (TED) Benjamin

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An aspect of health care reform that will grow in importance in coming years involves designing and financing effective service systems for people of all ages with chronic health conditions. Professor Benjamin’s recent research has focused on home health services, hospice care, personal assistance services and other long-term services. This research, supported by federal and state governments and private foundations, has examined the differential impact of public program interventions on the elderly, and younger adults with disabilities.

Professor Benjamin’s most recent work has addressed two related areas of services for people with chronic health conditions. The first has involved the impact of different ways of organizing supportive, home-based services on the well-being of people with chronic health conditions. His research has compared traditional agency-based services with newer models that shift primary authority for services decisions and resource allocation to the recipients of services. Surprising findings of the pros and cons of redefining the roles of professionals and consumers have been reported in several journals and numerous presentations. The second research area involves workforce issues, and specifically what our options are for expanding and improving the supply of entry-level health care workers. This is important because this is the segment of the workforce that provides services to people with chronic health conditions at home or in institutional settings. This research is being done in collaboration with labor economists in the Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies.

SELECTED BOOKS & PUBLICATIONS

Age, Consumer Direction, and Outcomes of Supportive Services at Home
Benjamin, A.E. and R.E. Matthias. “Age, Consumer Direction, and Outcomes of Supportive Services at Home.” The Gerontologist , 41-5 (October 2001), 632-42.

Consumer-Directed Services at Home: A New Model for Persons with Disabilities
Benjamin, A.E. “Consumer-Directed Services at Home: A New Model for Persons with Disabilities.” Health Affairs, 20-6 (November/December 2001), 80-95.

A Normative Analysis of Home Care Goals
Benjamin, A.E. “A Normative Analysis of Home Care Goals.” Journal of Aging and Health 11 (August 1999), 445-68.

Laura Alongi Brinderson

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Laura Alongi is a licensed clinical social worker whose interests lie in mental health issues with children, adolescents, and their families. She is also interested in parenting education and training, and the early childhood bonding process.

As a field consultant with the California Social Work Education Center program, a statewide program that trains social workers to become professional public child welfare workers, she works with first- and second-year students, and is involved in recruiting promising child welfare candidates.

Alongi has worked as a social worker in community mental health clinics including South Bay Child Guidance, the Didi Hirsch Community Mental Health Center, and Aviva Children and Family Services. She worked primarily with emotionally disturbed children and their families, both in individual/family and group modalities. She was also a supervisor for several years, and was involved in program development and administration when she served as a program director for the Didi Hirsch Community Mental Health Center.

Currently, she has a small private practice, and provides supervision and consultation to new and unlicensed social workers.

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Neal Halfon

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Dr. Halfon received an MD from the University of California, Davis, and a MPH from the University of California, Berkeley. He completed his pediatric residency at UC San Diego and UC San Francisco. Dr. Halfon was a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar at both UC San Francisco and Stanford.

He has published the results of research on immunizations for inner-city children, health care needs to children in foster care, trends in chronic illnesses for children, delivery of health care services for children with asthma, and investigations of new models of health service delivery for high-risk children. Dr. Halfon recently co-authored and co-edited Child Rearing in America: Challenges Facing Parents with Young Children with Kathryn Taaffe McLearn and Mark A. Shuster. In this volume Dr. Halfon and a team of experts analyze findings from recent nationwide surveys, offering new insights into parenting beliefs and practices that can help to bring about more family-responsive and holistic child health and developmental services. Dr. Halfon also led the team that developed and implemented the 2000 National Survey of Early Childhood Health, and supervised the analysis of that survey, and the resulting special supplement to the journal Pediatrics which will be published in the fall of 2003.

Dr. Halfon’s primary research interests include the provision of developmental service to young children, access to care for low-income children, and delivery of health services to children with special health care needs — with a particular interest in abused and neglected children who are in the foster care system. His recent work attempts to define a developmentally-focused model of health production across the life course, and to understand the implications of such an approach for the delivery and financing of health care. He is currently co-chair of the Health Services Working Group for the planned National Children’s Study, an effort being led by the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Dr Halfon was appointed to the Board on Children, Youth, and Families of the National Research Council and Institute of Medicine in 2001. He has also served on numerous expert panels and advisory committees including the 1999 Institute of Medicine committee commissioned by Surgeon General Satcher to propose the leading health indicators to measure the countries progress on our National Healthy Peoples agenda. He currently serves on a congressionally mandated Committee of the Institute of Medicine to evaluate how children’s health should be measured in the US.

Neal Halfon, MD, MPH is the Director of the UCLA Center for Healthier Children, Families and Communities, and also directs the Child and Family Health Program in the UCLA School of Public Health, and the federally funded Maternal and Child Health Bureau’s National Center for Infancy and Early Childhood Health Policy Research. Dr. Halfon is a Professor of Pediatrics in the UCLA School of Medicine and Professor of Community Health Sciences in the UCLA School of Public Health, and is Professor of Policy Studies in the School of Public Policy and Social Research and is a also consultant in the Health Program at RAND.

JoAnn Damron-Rodriguez

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Dr. Damron-Rodriguez, Retired Adjunct Professor, was awarded a UCLA 2006 Distinguished Teaching Award. This honor, given to selected faculty since 1963, recognizes exemplary teaching and education innovation. She also received the Robert Stevenson Faculty in Residence Award in 1998 and again in 2000. In 2000 she spearheaded the creation of an interdisciplinary GE Honors Cluster class titled “Frontiers in Human Aging: Biomedical, Social, and Policy Perspectives” to explore the reciprocity of biological, psychological, and social dimensions of human aging (http://www.college.ucla.edu/ge/clusters/ge80.html).

She is Co-PI on a statewide Archstone Foundation grant to research geriatric social work labor force demand in California. She is PI of evaluation of the Hartford Foundation funded Social Work Leadership Institute Practicum Partnership Program involving 65 schools of social work. As the Co-Principle Investigator on the Hartford/Archstone Geriatric Social Work Education Consortium (GSWEC), she played a pivotal role in the creation of a new field-training model that advances preparation of competent geriatric social workers.

Dr. Damron-Rodriguez is a federally appointed member of the Veterans Health Administration Gerontology and Geriatrics Advisory Committee, which reports to congress. For 10 years Dr. Damron-Rodriguez was the Associate Director of the VA Geriatric Research, Education, and Clinical Center (GRECC) of Greater Los Angeles and Co-Principle Investigator of a Health Services Research Development project to examine access to healthcare for minority veterans.

Since 1992 JoAnn has been a core faculty for the Bureau of Health Professions funded California Geriatric Education Center. She is on the Council of Social Work Education (CSWE) National GeroEd Center Board. She is a Past President of the Board of the California Council on Gerontology and Geriatrics (CCGG). She has been instrumental in the organization of state legislative hearings in partnership with the Senate Subcommittee on Aging and Long-Term Care and the Senate Committee on Education. Dr. Damron-Rodriguez has testified at both state and federal levels on policy issues, workforce competency standards, and demographic trends related to California’s aging population. She was appointed by Governor Gray Davis to serve on a Blue Ribbon panel to investigate the state nursing homes. She is currently an advisor to the World Health Organization, Kobe Center for Health Development regarding community-based care in developed and developing countries.

Additionally, Dr. Damron-Rodriguez, L.C.S.W., has twenty years of practice experience in health, mental health, and hospice care. She serves on multiple editorial boards and scientific review committees. Dr. Damron-Rodriguez has published extensively on geriatric education, diversity in aging, and community based elder care.

Todd Franke

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Trained in social work and educational psychology, Professor Franke seeks to achieve a better understanding of, and improve the responsiveness of service systems in the fields of social services, education and health. Using cognitive theory to better define policy issues related to the integration of these two important fields, Dr. Franke’s research has focused in part on the impact of disability and chronic illness on school-age children. He is currently conducting a study, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, on the use of personal assistance services for children with disabilities. In addition, Dr. Franke studies how adolescents solve social problems; urban mobility and its impact on children’s education and social development; and how to successfully integrate health and social services in school settings.

Dr. Franke is active in several local and regional efforts to restructure social services in the schools, helping to conceptualize planning and implementation and the design of evaluation measures in Los Angeles Unified School District, the country’s second-largest school district. He also serves as a consultant to local school districts for the preparation of funding proposals for Healthy Start, a state program to establish linkages between community social service agencies and schools. HIs primary work occurs at the intersection of youth violence (child welfare and gang involved youth) and education. In these areas he designs and undertakes evaluative research and has obtained over $9 million in research funding over the past 7 years. He is currently the Associate Director of the UCLA Center for Healthier Children, Families and Communities.

Dr. Franke has been involved with agencies that serve thousands of families representing unique geographic and cultural communities in California, particularly southern California counties. He recently prepared a report for the Los Angeles City Council which examines the measurement issues involved in assessing the success of gang-related and youth development prevention and intervention programs in the city. The link between involvement in the child welfare system and gang involvement is well documented. Dr. Franke is currently the Co-PI of the Best Start LA Initiative which aims to shape, strengthen and support five Los Angeles communities by building resources and providing access to activities that improve the well-being, development and care experienced by pregnant women, parents of newborns and children age 3 and under.

Dr. Franke was also the Principal Investigator for the First 5 LA-funded Partnership for Families Initiative, which is a secondary prevention initiative that is designed to prevent child maltreatment in vulnerable families. Dr. Franke has been the PI for the Small County Initiative, which was designed to systematically examine California’s efforts to build and enhance child abuse and neglect prevention efforts in 11 rural counties in northern California. Additionally, he has numerous years of experience in conducting cross-sectional and longitudinal research in the fields of education, child welfare and adolescent violence.