Faculty Research

Faculty members in the School of Public Administration and the school’s Center for Public and Nonprofit Management conduct research that is problem-oriented, theory-driven and interdisciplinary. They strive to study issues that are relevant to diverse stakeholders, including practitioners in local, regional, statewide, national and international organizations, and scholars in public administration, planning, research administration and nonprofit management. The faculty’s research serves as a fulcrum to challenge both practitioners and scholars to strengthen communities.

Research Interests

S An headshot

Seongho An, Ph.D.

  • Online and offline nonprofit advocacy and social change
  • Digital technology and nonprofit management
  • Collaboration between public and private sectors
Thomas Bryer headshot

Thomas Bryer, Ph.D.

  • Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
  • Ethics
  • Citizen Engagement
  • Collaborative Governance

Maritza Concha, Ph.D.

  • Service partnerships
  • Evaluations of social services tailored to hard to reach populations
  • Culturally responsive evaluation practices

Claire Connolly-Knox, Ph.D.

  • Emergency Management
  • Critical Theory
  • Environmental Management and Policy
  • Environmental Disaster Response and Recovery
  • Qualitative Methods
  • Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
Christopher Emrich headshot

Christopher Emrich, Ph.D.

  • Hazards Geography
  • Social Vulnerability
  • Disaster Recovery & Resilience
  • Emergency Management Decision Support
  • Geospatial Information Science
D Goodman headshot

Doug Goodman, Ph.D.

  • Public Human Resource Management
  • Discrimination
  • Public Management
  • Comparative Public Administration
C Hawkins headshot

Christopher Hawkins, Ph.D.

  • Local Governance & Collective Action in Metropolitan Area
  • Inter-local Collaboration for Issues of Urban Sustainability & Economic Development
  • Capacity & Structure of Political Institutions on Urban Policy
  • Urban Resiliency & Environmental Management
Gurt Ge headshot

Yue Ge, Ph.D.

  • Decision Making under Uncertainty
  • Emergency Management and Policy
  • Urban Resilience Policy
  • Survey Methods
  • Statistical Modeling
Jeremy Hall headshot

Jeremy Hall, Ph.D.

  • Public Sector Performance
  • Public Policy Processes
  • Intergovernmental Relations
  • Public Sector Capacity
  • Local & Regional Economic Development
Qian Hu headshot

Qian Hu, Ph.D.

  • Collaborative Governance
  • Organizational Network Studies
  • Strategic Management
  • Policy Informatics & E-governance
Xi Huang headshot

Xi Huang, Ph.D.

  • Immigration Policy
  • Migrant Integration
  • Urban Development
  • Policy Analysis & Evaluation
Naim Kapucu headshot

Naim Kapucu, Ph.D.

  • Collaborative Governance
  • Network Analysis
  • Emergency and Crisis Management
  • Decision Making in Complex Environments
  • Comparative Public Policy and Management
  • Leadership
Stephanie Krick headshot

Stephanie Krick, Ph.D.

  • Nonprofit Management
  • Public Program Evaluation
  • Leadership
Sarah Larson headshot

Sarah Larson, Ph.D.

  • Public Financial Management
  • Public Policy
  • Statistics
  • Local and State Government
Y Lee headshot

Young-joo Lee, Ph.D.

  • Nonprofit management
  • Volunteering
  • Leadership and governance
  • Organizational publicness
  • Workplace diversity
K Liou headshot

Kuotsai Tom Liou, Ph.D.

  • Public Organization Management
  • Public Program Evaluation
D Mitchell headshot

David Mitchell, Ph.D>

  • Local Government Management
  • Implementation
  • Strategic Management
  • Public Budgeting
  • Collaborative Governance
  • Public Policy

Suzette Myser, Ph.D.

  • Financial Management
Melvin Rogers headshot

Melvin Rogers, M.S.

  • Human Resource Management
A Sadiq headshot

Abdul-Akeem Sadiq, Ph.D.

  • Emergency Management
  • Terrorism Policy
Luis Santiago headshot

Luis Santiago, Ph.D.

  • Urban & Regional Planning
  • Ecosystem Services Planning
  • Environmental Management and Policy
D Stephens headshot

Daniel Stephens, Ph.D.

  • Transportation
  • Public Policy
  • Urban & Regional Planning
  • Human Resource Management
K Stevens headshot

Kelly Stevens, Ph.D.

  • Energy & Environmental Policy
  • Environmental Management
  • Science & Technology Policy
A White-Jones headshot

Angela White-Jones, Ph.D.

  • Grant & Contract Management
  • Social Enterprises, NGOs & Community Values
  • Research Administration
  • Research Law
J Yeo headshot

Jungwon Yeo, Ph.D.

  • Emergency and Crisis Management
  • Migrant Resettlement and Integration
  • Organizational Behavior
  • Decision Making in Complex Environments
  • Accountability and Responsibility
C Yu headshot

Chia-Yuan Yu, Ph.D.

  • Transportation Planning
  • Sustainable Transportation
  • Traffic Safety
  • Disparity Issues in Planning
S Zavattaro headshot

Staci Zavattaro, Ph.D.

  • Social Media in Public Administration
  • Public Branding

Current/Recent Grants

The following list of grants and contracts represent amounts awarded to SPA faculty only. Those with an asterisk (*) are part of larger collaborations with faculty outside of SPA and therefore reflect only a portion of the full amount awarded.

New Awards

All of the following grants and contracts were awarded during the 2019-20 fiscal year:

A Secure, Trustworthy, and Reliable Air Quality Monitoring System for Smart and Connected Communities             
National Science Foundation
Co-PI: Thomas Bryer, Ph.D., $399,330
Co-PI: Kelly Stevens, Ph.D. $395,377

Shelter from the Storm: Leveraging Post-Disaster housing policy and design for long term resilience
National Academy of Sciences
PI: Christopher Emrich, Ph.D., $299,671

Phase VII- 2019-2020 Enhancement and Update of the Florida Public Health and Risk Assessment Tool (FPHRAT)        
Florida Department of Health
PI: Christopher Emrich, Ph.D., $98,999

Assessing Equity in Disaster Recovery Funding  
University of Iowa
PI: Christopher Emrich, Ph.D., $96,171

Supporting GLO CDBG-DR Mitigation and Recovery Planning
Texas General Land Office
PI: Christopher Emrich, Ph.D., $77,890

Enabling large-scale adaptive integration of technology hubs to enhance community resilience through decentralized urban food-water-energy nexus decision support         
National Science Foundation
Co-PI: Naim Kapucu, Ph.D., $55,676

2019 Orange County Capacity Building for Nonprofits
Orange County Citizen’s Commission for Children
PI: Deborah A. Carroll, Ph.D., $50,000

City of Cocoa Police Department Strategic Plan 
City of Cocoa
PI: David Mitchell, Ph.D., $50,000

Enhancing Community Resilience to Floods: A Theoretical Framework of Community Participation in Federal Voluntary Programs      
National Science Foundation
PI: Abdul-Akeem Sadiq, Ph.D., $42,544

Bridging Information, Uncertainty and Decision-Making in Hurricanes Using an Interdisciplinary Perspective     
Purdue University
PI: Yue Ge, Ph.D., $42,493

Hurricane Michael Impacts and Unmet Needs in Bay County, Florida
Hagerty Consulting, Inc.
PI: Christopher Emrich, Ph.D., $37,297

Comprehensive Resilience Analysis of Shoreline Changes in South Puerto Rico (Year 1)
University of Puerto Rico Rio Piedras Campus
PI: Luis Santiago, Ph.D., $34,862

Developing the Infrastructure for a Puerto Rico Wood Products Team (Year 1)
University of Puerto Rico Rio Piedras Campus
PI: Luis Santiago, Ph.D., $25,256

Developing the Infrastructure for a Puerto Rico Wood Products Team (Year 2)
University of Puerto Rico Rio Piedras Campus
PI: Luis Santiago, Ph.D,   $22,744

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