School of Public Policy

Bexell Bulletin

His prior roles include: a statistical analyst for the Budget Division of the Cameroon Ministry of Finance, work with the non-profit Accountability Lab Liberia, strengthening monitoring, evaluation, and learning for several projects funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development and various United Nations agencies. In 2018, he conducted a nation-wide public opinion poll on the challenges to democracy, good governance, and the rule of Law in Cameroon. Shey is a 2017 Mandela Washington Fellow and a member of the Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI) Emerging Leaders Program.

Most recently, Shey was selected by the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) to serve as an alternate member of the Disability Emergency Management Advisory Council of Oregon (DEMAC). DEMAC works to make disaster response in the state more inclusive of people with disabilities by providing guidance to state agencies in planning for, responding to, and recovering from disasters. As a visually impaired person, this gives Shey the ability to advocate for persons with disabilities to include their voices in broader policy. Shey also notes that his experience with last summer’s heat wave and Covid 19 convinced me that emergency management services in Oregon could use additional insides from new residents who are not integrated enough to understand the language, culture, communication, and emergency protocols.

Ryan Meldrum (Sociology, '04) is a full Professor in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Florida International University. Dr. Becky Warner, his Intro to Soc teacher, had a chance to meet up with him this year. 

His research covers issues of low self-control, sleep quality and adolescent antisocial behavior, and the role of peer associations in delinquency and substance use. He won the 2016 Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences New Scholar Award, was named a 2016 FIU Top Scholar for Research, and a 2019 FIU Top Scholar for Student Mentorship.

Nichole Anderson (Political Science, '17) received her law degree from Gonzaga University ('20) and is currently  serving as an Assistant Attorney General (AAG) for the Washington State Attorney General’s Office (AGO) through their graduate honor’s program. 

Nichole is assigned to the Social and Health Services Section, specifically a specialized team of two attorneys that handles Indian Child Welfare Acts (ICWA) cases or cases involving families with identified native ancestry in a federally recognized tribe.

Jenna Knobloch (MPP '16)  recently joined the Federation of American Scientists as the Wildfire Resilience Impact Fellow.

She is on the USDA Natural Resources and Environment team and her role supports the Wildfire Resilience Interagency Working Group, coordinating with the Wildland Fire Leadership Council and the Wildfire Mitigation and Management Commission as these groups take on the ambitious work of building systems suited to the complexities and challenges of 21st Century wildfires. 

After graduating with her MPP specializing in Environmental Policy in 2016, Stephanie Shepard first worked for Public Policy Coordinator for the Mojave Desert Land Trust.

She then moved onto FirstCarbon Solutions, a California based company, as an Assistant Project Manager working on CEQA and NEPA documents. Fortuitously, she and her family moved back to Morgantown, West Virginia last fall to be near family and works 100% remotely after the pandemic.