CPPA Director M.V. Lee Badgett (Economics and CPPA), an expert on the economic characteristics of same-sex couples, played a key role in major decisions in both California and Massachusetts regarding same-sex marriage. In the California court's decision to allow same-sex marriage, Prof. Badgett served as an expert witness and also co-authored an amicus brief in support of gay marriage. Badgett's brief was used numerous times by the California Supreme Court chief justice in oral arguments on the economic characteristics of same-sex couples. In Massachusetts, Badgett co-authored a report commissioned by the State's Department of Housing and Economic Development. The report and its findings were cited frequently in the discourse surrounding the repeal of a 1913 law in Massachusetts that prevented the recognition of a marriage that was not recognized in its home state. Read more on the California decision at the SBS website and the LA Times. Read more about the Massachusetts report and decision at the Boston Globe and the NY Times.

The 'Toxic 100' database, created by Michael Ash (Economics and CPPA) and James Boyce (Economics), ranks the country's air-polluting corporations by the impact their waste products have on humans. According to Prof. Ash, his work seeks to give shareholders, activists, environmentalists and business owners a tool to measure how much pollution is getting into the air - and a prompt to make appropriate changes. While the hard data used to create the Toxic 100 is available to the public through the EPA's Toxics Release Inventory, Ash said the information can be overwhelming and hard to gauge: "We turn the right-to-know laws into something much closer to useful information," said Ash. "Our aim is to draw attention to our release regulations and generate a consumer discussion." Read more in a Hampshire Gazette article and a UMass press release.

Ray La Raja (Political Science) lent his expertise on campaign financing on April 20th in an article entitled "Financing decision looms for Obama." Obama previously claimed he would accept public financing - and the spending limits associated with it - if he won the nomination. However, some past candidates claim that accepting public funds for campaigning was a mistake due to the strict spending limitations. According to La Raja, "I think Obama is very nervous. He watched what happened to Kerry last time. .. . I think Obama recognizes this primary campaign has exposed his vulnerabilities and these conservative groups can figure out targeted messages against him." Read the article.

Krista Harper presented her paper "Across the Bridge: Using PhotoVoice to Investigate Environment and Health in a Hungarian Romani (Gypsy) Community" at the Society for Applied Anthropology meetings in Memphis, TN, on March 28, 2008. Her presentation was part of the panel "Visualizing Change: Emergent Technologies in Social Justice Inquiry and Action," a two-part session organized by Harper and Aline Gubrium (Public Health, UMass). Harper teaches CPPA's course "Qualitative Research Methods for Public Policy and Administration" and established the new PhotoVoice Research Lab as a resource for policy-oriented research and teaching.

Mari Castañeda (Communication) has been appointed the faculty advisor to Student Bridges, a UMass program that aims to increase college access and success for underrepresented students. The program primarily partners with schools and other programs in the Holyoke-Springfield area, and offers UMass students the opportunity to use their talents to coordinate youth-centered events, college preparatory workshops and campus visits for local schools and programs.

Professor Nancy Folbre (Economics) focuses much of her research on the social organization of care, and coordinates efforts to build a network for research on these issues through her blog "Care Talk". As a Family Research Scholar with the Center for Research on Families, Folbre has collected a group of interested faculty and connected with a larger statewide group to form a Massachusetts Care Policy network.

Folbre was recently asked by the journal Science to contribute to their "Perspectives" section. Folbre's "When a Commodity is Not a Commodity" focuses on the impact of personal interactions and emotional connections on the economics of care services.

On March 26th, CPPA hosted Professor Agnes Mwang'ombe from the University of Nairobi in Kenya. Her talk focused on the agriculture, sustainability and arid lands challenges facing rural women in Kenya. Professor Mwang’ombe is Principal of the College of Agriculture and Veterinary Sciences, University of Nairobi, Kenya. She is the Founder and Director of the Arid and Semi Arid Lands Foundation, a Kenya-based NGO. She has a Ph.D. in Plant Pathology from the University of London and conducts research on plant resistance to diseases, pathogens specialization, seed borne pathogens and diseases. She is an expert in agricultural sustainability in arid lands and the impact on climate change. Her work also integrates gender issues in agricultural and education activities.

Professor Agnes Mwang’ombe’s talk is part of the Center for Public Policy and Administration’s Distinguished Lecture Series and is co-sponsored with the UMASS Dept. of Anthropology and the Political Economy Research Institute. For more information, please click here.