ASPI News and Events

The designation is granted by the Board of Trustees to faculty who have achieved exceptionally distinguished stature in their academic specialties.

“In my experience from the standpoint of having served as an appointee in the Pentagon and as secretary of the Navy, using such an unsecured channel to coordinate plans is unheard of and would never have occurred in previous administrations,” says University Professor Sean O'Keefe.

“This is one of the most unsettling, tragic pieces of news yet,” says Sean O’Keefe, University Professor and member of the presidential management program’s inaugural class. “This is a firing of convenience. They are looking for a headcount reduction; there is nothing qualitative about this.”

“Military and surveillance tech aren’t bad or unethical as such. Instead, supporting national security and doing so in the right way is incredibly important. And supporting national security is, in fact, arguably the ethical thing to do," says Johannes Himmelreich, assistant professor of public administration and international affairs. 

“The New Glenn rocket is all about significantly reducing the cost of access to space,” says Sean O'Keefe, University Professor and former NASA administrator. “This will give SpaceX some serious competition. ...These are exciting times in the space business.”

“Some people compare AI to the atomic bomb. I don't think this is that kind of risk, but there are risks. There are concerns—ethical, economic, social and cultural—that have to be addressed before it's too late. And I think one of our best tools to do that is policy,” says University Professor Hamid Ekbia.

“All communities need to innovate responsibly. The review will give everyone a say,” says Johannes Himmelreich, assistant professor of public administration and international affairs. “I would not want such drones to fly under the radar of public input.”

“There’s no way for Elon Musk to be unbiased,” says University Professor Hamid Ekbia. “He will use his new-fangled role to insert xAI into a dominant position at the expense of competitors who have a history of divergent agendas and philosophies.” 

“If they had strictly stuck to doing technocratic policy and formulated this as a matter of bureaucratic procedure, avoiding terms to which the Republican administration is allergic, maybe that executive order could have stood a chance,” suggests Johannes Himmelreich, assistant professor of public administration and international affairs.

When it comes to space exploration, “I would think that this next [Trump] administration is going to be a continuation of the success in the first administration,” says University Professor Sean O’Keefe. “[Trump] prides himself on being very unpredictable, so I wouldn’t put certainty on this, but all signs point in that direction.”

“The global regulation of AI will suffer as a consequence [of new controls], despite the circumstances that call for more global cooperation,” says University Professor Hamid Ekbia. “The political and geopolitical ramifications of this can be huge, enabling more authoritarian and oppressive uses of AI across the globe.”

University Professor Hamid R. Ekbia attended the NASPAA conference in Washington, D.C., and led a workshop and panel discussion on AI policy at SEICon in New York City.   

Waymo, the autonomous driving technology company, showcased one of its all-electric Jaguar I-PACE vehicles equipped with the Waymo Driver—the company's automated driving system. 

The Maxwell professor spoke on the role of collaboration in public policy to researchers, policymakers and practitioners from around the world.

The Maxwell School’s 100th anniversary celebration will be held on Oct. 18 in Goldstein Auditorium.

“The risk is greater than zero, that's for sure, and it's certainly higher than anything that has been accomplished on a commercial basis,” says University Professor Sean O'Keefe.

“Levelling Up Innovation in Local Government: An Evaluation of International Smart City Competitions,” co-authored by Austin Zwick, associate teaching professor of policy studies, and Aaron Eben, Maxwell undergraduate student in policy studies, was published by the Institute on Municipal Finance and Governance.

Longer storage periods open the data up to potential hacks and misuse, says Johannes Himmelreich, assistant professor of public administration and international affairs. “Even if SPD is doing everything right, and I expect them to do everything right, the vendor might have their own policies or data leaks that might be problematic,” he says. 

“We think the current civil service system is badly in need of reform. But the blueprints offered by both left and right are problematic. One side is firmly rooted in a status quo that (inadvertently or otherwise) impedes accountability, and the other could end up politicizing the very civil servants who should be politically neutral,” writes University Professor Sean O'Keefe and his co-authors.

“Residential mobility and persistently depressed voting among disadvantaged adults in a large housing experiment,” co-authored by Assistant Professor of Political Science Baobao Zhang, was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.