Past Events

The PPIA Public Service Weekend is a three-day conference empowering undergraduate students from historically underrepresented backgrounds to consider graduate degree programs and careers in public service. Its primary goal is to introduce students to topics in the field of public policy through the lens of justice, equity, diversity and inclusion. The Public Policy and International Affairs Program (PPIA) is a not-for-profit that has been supporting efforts to increase diversity in public service for more than 40 years.

Program Description

This summer, the LBJ School is excited to welcome 30 rising college sophomores, juniors and seniors from across Texas, the South and the Southwest to learn about emerging public policy issues and solutions for the region that also have national implications.

Throughout the weekend, undergraduate participants will focus on the evolving landscape of voting rights, civil rights, civic engagement, immigration, bipartisanship, and housing and affordability across Texas and the South. Participants will learn from leading policy professionals that range the profession, including distinguished academics, nonprofit professionals, policymakers from the field, and community activists — many of whom are LBJ alumni, professors of the LBJ School or currently affiliated with The University of Texas at Austin.

Benefits to Participants

• Network with current LBJ students, LBJ alumni, PPIA alumni and other program participants as you consider graduate programs and careers in public service and public policy.
• Participate in interactive presentations and dialogues that focus on helping the next generation of changemakers bridge the polarization gap, including how to be influential in bipartisan and nonpartisan environments.
• Your voice is important in creating change! Learn the fundamentals of researching, writing and delivering effective, fact-based oral testimony.

2022 Public Service Weekend Cohort

Programming Schedule

Friday:

• Lunch & opening remarks 
  • LBJ School Dean, JR DeShazo
  • NASPAA, Director of Membership Development, David Marshall (LBJ ’00)
  • PPIA, Executive Director, Simone Gbolo
• Panel: Civic Engagement & Voting Rights
  • Angie Razo, Texas State Director, Mi Familia Vota
  • Juan Cardoza-Oquendo, Director of Public Policy, Houston in Action (LBJ ’18)
  • Brencia Berry, Director of Coalitions & Community Engagement, DNC (LBJ ’16)
  • Moderator: Sareta Davis, Chair, City of Austin Human Rights Commission
• Panel: Policymaking in a Bipartisan Environment
  • Fedora Galasso, CEO, Texas Network of Youth Services (LBJ ‘12)
  • Rudy Metayer, President & ED, Texas Black Caucus Foundation (LBJ ’16)
  • Jamarr Brown, Co-Executive Director, Texas Democratic Party
  • Moderator: Amy Kroll, ED, LBJ Women’s Campaign School (LBJ ’20)
• Lecture: Delivering Effective Oral Testimony
  • Sherri Greenberg, LBJ Professor of Practice
• Dinner with LBJ Students 
• Movie Night: The Fight (2020)

Saturday:

• Breakfast Lecture: Race, Democracy & Public Policy
  • Dr. Peniel Joseph, LBJ Associate Dean for Justice, Equity, Diversity & Inclusion, Director of LBJ Center for the Study of Race & Democracy
• Private Tour of the LBJ Presidential Library & Museum
• Lunch Panel: Housing & the Affordability Crisis
  • Walter Moreau, Executive Director, Foundation Communities (LBJ ’94)
  • Awais Azhar, City of Austin Planning Commission (LBJ ’16)
  • Pilar Sanchez, County Executive HHS, Travis County (LBJ ‘95 & 15)
  • Moderator: Kendra Garrett, Betco Housing Lab (LBJ ’18)
• Keynote Lecture: Latino Identity & Border Issues
  • Dr. Sergio Garcia-Rios, LBJ Assistant Professor, Assistant Director, LBJ Center for the Study of Race & Democracy
• Individual Work: Producing Oral Testimony
• Networking Dinner & Reception with PPIA & LBJ Alumni
  • Victor Sáenz, Professor, Education, The University of Texas at Austin (LBJ ’99)
  • Barbara Kufiadan, Senior Consulting Analyst at Accenture (LBJ ‘21)
  • Julián Castro, Former Secretary of Housing & Urban Development (Keynote)

Sunday:

• Breakfast Session: Individuals Deliver Oral Testimony. Featured judges include:
  • Jose “Chito” Vela, City of Austin Councilmember, District 4 (LBJ ‘99)
  • Gene Wu, Texas State Representative, Houston (LBJ ‘04)
  • Sherri Greenberg, LBJ Professor of Practice, Former State Representative
• Advising Session: Graduate School Admissions with the LBJ Office of Student Affairs & Admissions
• Lunch Panel: The LBJ Experience with Current Students
• Closing Remarks

Contact Us: For additional information or questions, please reach out to Estevan Daniel Delgado, Director for Justice, Equity, Diversity & inclusion at the LBJ School.

The LBJ School's 2022 PPIA Public Service Weekend is co-sponsored by the Public Policy & International Affairs Program (PPIA) and the Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs, and Administration (NASPAA).

State legislatures are a key partner in the provision of the transportation systems and services that drive metro area regions and their economies. State governments and their local government partners are responsible for nearly three-quarters of total U.S. expenditures on transportation, and that share has been increasing over time.

On Monday, July 11, Brookings Metro will host an event exploring the future of U.S. transportation policy through a state-level lens. Dr. Andrew Waxman, an environmental economist at the LBJ School, and other speakers will highlight findings from a recent University of Texas study surfacing how lawmakers are framing the prospects for state-level policy innovation, particularly with respect to transportation funding and energy transition. A panel of state legislators will follow, discussing their priorities, strategies for aligning key stakeholders, and how new federal funding is affecting legislative agenda-setting.

Viewers can submit questions by emailing events@brookings.edu or tweeting to @BrookingsMetro using the hashtag #StateTransportation.

Speakers

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The LBJ School of Public Affairs and the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy at The University of Texas at Austin bring you the 2nd annual Juneteenth Freedom Summit: Reflections on Freedom. Leading voices will offer candid reflections on freedom and concepts of race, equity and citizenship amid a modern-day civil rights movement.

Juneteenth commemorates the end of slavery in the United States. On June 19, 1865, over two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, federal troops informed enslaved Black Americans in Galveston, Texas, that they had been freed. This online event, led by Dr. Peniel Joseph, the CSRD's founding director, is a celebration of the day that all Americans knew they were free.

WATCH ON DEMAND NOW:

Dr. Peniel Joseph on Juneteenth:

Peniel Joseph on FOX 7 promoting the Juneteenth Freedom Summit, providing details about the theme and speaker lineup, and reflecting on what it means to truly celebrate and honor Juneteenth.

Peniel Joseph, founder of The Center for the Study of Race and Democracy, joins Amna Nawaz to discuss Juneteenth on the PBS NewsHour.

Peniel Joseph on C-SPAN talking about the history of Juneteenth and the significance of it being recognized as a federal holiday for the first time.

Summit Participants

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Peniel Joseph, Ph.D
Dr. Peniel Joseph holds a joint professorship appointment at the LBJ School of Public Affairs and the History Department in the College of Liberal Arts at The University of Texas at Austin. He is also the founding director of the LBJ School's Center for the Study of Race and Democracy (CSRD). His career focus has been on "Black Power Studies," which encompasses interdisciplinary fields such as Africana studies, law and society, women's and ethnic studies, and political science. Dr. Joseph's upcoming book, The Third Reconstruction: America's Struggle for Racial Justice in the Twenty-First Century, comes out this fall.

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LBJ School Dean, JR Deshazo
JR DeShazo is the 12th dean of the LBJ School of Public Affairs. He previously served as the founding director of the Luskin Center for Innovation at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), one of the nation's leading environmental policy research centers. He is a distinguished scholar focusing on clean technology policies, policy design to enhance environmental equity, methods for valuing changes in environmental quality, and the performance of public agencies.

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Sharon B. Lewis
Sharon B. Lewis, a retired GISD educator and a lifelong District 1 resident, serves as the District 1 council representative for the seven-member Galveston City Council, having garnered 80 percent of the votes in a three-way race. Miss Lewis attended the University of Texas at Austin and Lamar University, earning her bachelor's degree in education and social work. As a council member, Lewis is committed to various issues, such as improving infrastructure and city services, increased access to affordable housing, bolstering youth & elderly initiatives, and preserving culture & history. She has served on the boards of the Galveston Historical Foundation, the Galveston County Community Action Council, and Parents & Concerned Citizens.

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Richard Reddick, Ed.D
Dr. Richard J. Reddick is the inaugural associate dean for equity, community engagement, and outreach for the College of Education at The University of Texas at Austin. He is also Professor in the Program in Higher  Education Leadership in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy (ELP) at The University of Texas at Austin, where he has served as a faculty member since 2007. Dr. Reddick is a faculty member by  courtesy in the Department for African and African Diaspora Studies, the John L. Warfield Center for African and African American Studies, and a fellow at the Institute for Urban Policy Research and Analysis. 

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Ya'Ke Smith
Ya’Ke Smith’s films have received world-wide acclaim, screening, and winning awards at over 100 film festivals. The Director’s Guild of America, the Student Academy Awards, HBO, Showtime, the City of Buffalo, NY, which proclaimed February 23, 2013 as Ya’Ke Smith Day and the city of Cincinnati, OH which proclaimed October 6, 2019 as Ya'Ke Smith Day, have honored him. He recently directed an episode of the BET series TALES. He is currently an Associate Professor of film and the Associate Dean of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the Moody College of Communication. Variety magazine named him one of the best film educators in the world.

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Keffrelyn Brown, Ph.D
Dr. Brown is the Suzanne B. and John L. Adams Endowed Professor of Education and Distinguished University Teaching Professor of Cultural Studies in Education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction. She is the co-founder and co-director of the Center for Innovation in Race, Teaching, and Curriculum.  She holds a faculty appointment in the Department for African and African Diaspora Studies, the John L. Warfield Center for African and African American Studies and the Center for Women and Gender Studies.

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Rudy Metayer
The son of Haitian immigrants, Councilman Rudy Metayer is of the first generation in his family to complete higher education, graduating from not only the University of Texas College of Liberal Arts with a B.A., but also a Master in Public Affairs from the LBJ School of Public Affairs, and a Doctor of Jurisprudence from the University of Texas School of Law. Before joining Graves Dougherty Hearon & Moody, a premiere litigation law firm in Central Texas, Rudy served as Special Counsel to the Health and Human Services Commission.

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Latoya Smith, Ph.D
Dr. LaToya Smith is the Vice President for Diversity and Community Engagement at the University of Texas at Austin. She previously served as Senior Associate Director for Student Services in Texas Athletics, providing strategic leadership over academic and student services in Intercollegiate Athletics and establishing one of the most robust student support networks in all of college athletics. As a pioneer in strategic planning, she has been instrumental in developing campus programs such as Student Emergency Services, the Behavior Concerns Advice Line (BCAL), and Student Veteran Services.

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Skyller Walkes, Ph.D
​Dr. Walkes is a deeply impassioned diversity, equity, accessibility and inclusion leader who champions critical dialogue with the hopes of impacting positive change within shared communities. As a graduate of the Adult, Professional, and Community Education doctoral program at Texas State University, her scholarship focuses on Critical Race Theory, Afro-Latinx identity, art activism, race and intersectionality. In her current role as the inaugural Assistant Dean of Diversity & Inclusion and Assistant Professor of Instruction in the College of Pharmacy at the University of Texas at Austin, Dr. Walkes serves as chief College of Pharmacy spokesperson for diversity and inclusion.

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Ryan Sutton, Ph.D
Dr. Ryan Sutton is a Director with the Longhorn Center for Academic Excellence (LCAE), which is based in the Division of Diversity and Community Engagement at the University of Texas at Austin.  He directs two initiatives and spearheads mental health support for students within the center, while overseeing the personal development suite of the center. Dr. Sutton holds a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from Howard University, where his research and clinical interest was rooted in academic and behavioral outcomes for students of color.

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Brett Hurt
Brett Hurt is the CEO and co-founder, data.world, which is building the most meaningful, collaborative, and abundant data resource in the world as a Public Benefit Corporation (Certified B Corporation®).  Brett holds an MBA in High-Tech Entrepreneurship from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and a BBA in Management Information Systems from the University of Texas at Austin.

This event was made possible by our generous supporters:
 

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Class of 2022: Rising to the Challenge

This class — the 51^st group of LBJ School graduates — experienced a tenure at the school unlike any other. They began their studies online in the midst of a global pandemic, navigating an educational model that was being created and implemented at the same time, and finding new ways to learn, work and collaborate. We are thrilled to reconvene in person on May 21 to celebrate the resilience and accomplishments of these 125 graduates from all over the world.

Announcements

• The LBJ School is proud to announce that Ambassador Vilma Martinez has been named 2022 graduation speaker
• Chelsi Chang (MPAff '22) chosen as student speaker
• The LBJ School graduation will also be livestreamed via our YouTube channel
• Find all the details of the UT-wide festivities at the UT Commencement 2022 website

Details

From tickets to security to parking to accommodations for students and visitors with different abilities, we've got you covered.

Schedule at a Glance

• 9 AM: Student Check In and Arrival in the North Lobby
  Students must be checked in by 9:45 AM.
• 9:30 AM: LBJA Doors Open for Guests
• 10:30 AM: Ceremony Start Time
• All graduates and guests are invited to attend the LBJ Graduation Celebration on the Plaza immediately following the program

Guest Tickets

Seating is limited; all guests must have a ticket to enter the Lady Bird Johnson Auditorium. Graduates will be given five tickets each for guests. There will be overflow seating in Bass Lecture Hall.

Security

Food, drinks and large purses and bags are not permitted in the Auditorium. We are unable to provide storage for personal items.

Parking

First come, first serve parking is available in Lots 37-39. If surface parking becomes full, guests are encouraged to park in the Manor Garage (MAG), San Jacinto Garage (SJG), or any of the other seven university parking garages. Here are additional parking options.

Services for Graduates/Visitors with Disabilities

LBJ Auditorium is ADA accessible through elevators located on the first floor lobby or through the downstairs entrance near the LBJ Library steps. Additional information on ADA parking.

#LBJGrad22: Bring Graduation to your social media feed

On Thursday, May 5, the Clements Center for National Security will host Lech Wałęsa, former Polish president and Nobel Peace Prize winner, for an event: "Russia's War on Ukraine and its Global Impact." Join us at 5:30 p.m. at the AT&T Hotel and Conference Center in Amphitheater 204. Doors open at 5 p.m.

The Polish Club at UT, the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies, the Center for European Studies, the Department of Government, the Liberal Arts Honors Program, the McCombs School of Business Department of Business, Government & Society, and Texas Global are co-sponsoring this event.

     REGISTER     

Lech Wałęsa is a Nobel Peace Prize winner (1983) and the first president of Poland (1990–95). He was the co-founder and leader of the Solidarity movement that led to the first democratic elections in Poland in 1989 and the fall of communism in Poland, and helped lead to the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. At its height, Solidarity had over 10 million members. Wałęsa was TIME magazine's Person of the Year in 1981 and was included in its 100 most important people of the 20^th century. He holds over 40 honorary degrees, including from Harvard, Columbia and the Sorbonne. He is the recipient of the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Knight Grand Cross of the British Order of the Bath, and the French Grand Cross of Legion of Honour. In 1989, Wałęsa became the first foreign non-head of state to address a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress. He was the first democratically elected leader of Poland since 1926 and the first-ever Polish leader elected by popular vote. He presided over Poland's transition from communism to free-market capitalism and liberal democracy.

For more information about this event, contact Elizabeth Doughtie: elizabeth.doughtie@utexas.edu.

On Tuesday, May 3, the Strauss Center and Asia Policy Program are pleased to virtually welcome Molly Roberts, associate professor of political science at the University of California San Diego, for a talk: "U.S. Science in the Era of U.S./China Tensions." This is part of our Brumley Speaker Series.

     REGISTER     

Registration is required. You must register using your connected Zoom account.

Roberts will speak about her upcoming joint paper, "The Impact of U.S.-China Tensions on U.S. Science," published in collaboration with Ruixue Jia, Ye Wang and Eddie Yang. The paper studies how recent investigations of foreign influence in research have affected productivity of U.S. scientists working in the life sciences. Using data from PubMed and Dimensions between 2010 and 2020, Roberts and her co-authors compared publications of scientists who collaborated exclusively with Chinese scientists with those working with scientists from other countries outside of China and the United States. The authors identified a decline in both the productivity and quality of publications by U.S. scientists whose work involved collaboration with scientists in China. Roberts will discuss their research and its implications in the era of tensions between the United States and China.

Biography

The research interests of Margaret (Molly) Roberts lie in the intersection of political methodology and the politics of information, with a specific focus on methods of automated content analysis and the politics of censorship in China. She received a Ph.D. from Harvard in government (2014), an M.S. in statistics from Stanford (2009) and B.A. in international relations and dconomics (2009). Currently, she is working on a variety of projects that span censorship, propaganda, topic models and other methods of text analysis. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in the American Journal of Political Science, American Political Science Review, Political Analysis and Science.

As the pandemic hit, the American economy received the greatest shock of our lifetimes, with millions of people thrown immediately out of work and a threatened collapse of entire industries and of the financial system. We learned hard facts about what the government could and could not do. Helaine Olen from the Washington Post joins the LBJ School's James Galbraith to discuss what the pandemic taught us about American attitudes toward government, money and work — and how our politics is responding.

     REGISTER     

Democracies need strong voter turnout to function, and participation in the United States changes dramatically from election to election. On April 28, the Sumners Foundation, the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy (CSRD) and the LBJ School's Office of Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion presented Strengthening Democracy Through Civil Dialogues: The Future of Voting, a nonpartisan conversation exploring the current landscape of voter participation nationally and in Texas, as well as issues that have sparked debate across the political spectrum since the 2013 Shelby County v. Holder ruling.

Panelists discussed voter registration and access, voter databases and governance, and voting integrity and security, and debated how the future of voting could evolve in the midst of our current polarization, or if there are potential bipartisan policy solutions.

Panelists:

James Slattery, Senior Staff Attorney, Texas Civil Rights Project
James Slattery serves as a senior staff attorney with the Voting Rights Program at the Texas Civil Rights Project, leading the organization's election protection efforts during the 2020 election and voting rights advocacy during the 2021 Texas Legislative Session. Previously, he also led TCRP's initiative to boost high school voter registration rates in Texas and encourage voting and civic participation by young voters. Slattery originally came to Texas as deputy voter protection director for the Wendy Davis campaign in 2014 and worked on voting rights issues on President Barack Obama's 2012 campaign and the Terry McAuliffe for Governor of Virginia campaign in 2013. He also served in the Obama administration as director of the Office of the Executive Secretariat at the U.S. Department of Commerce. Slattery practiced law as an associate attorney at Wiley Rein LLP from 2007 to 2012 and served as a law clerk for a U.S. District Court and U.S. Court of Appeals Judge from 2005 to 2007. He graduated magna cum laude from Pepperdine University School of Law in 2005 and received a B.A., summa cum laude, in political science from Lipscomb University. @jcslattery

Dr. Richard Johnson III, Director, Booker T. Washington Initiative, Texas Public Policy Foundation
Richard A. Johnson, Ed.D., is the director of the Texas Public Policy Foundation's Booker T. Washington Initiative, which examines the effects of public policy on African-American communities. An educator for more than 20 years, Johnson has extensive experience in teaching and research. He worked as a research assistant at the University of Texas Mental Science Institute, studying the efficacy of counseling and pharmacological therapy on cocaine and heroin addicts. He began counseling inner-city adolescent males and founded an academy for troubled boys, which provided education, discipline and residential substance abuse treatment. In 2007, Johnson began teaching and researching in the areas of psychology and academic performance. He was the president of the Louisiana Prison Chapel Foundation for nearly two decades, building more than 20 churches inside prison walls. In addition, he served as the co-founder and second president of 100 Black Men Metropolitan Houston, vice president of development for 100 Black Men San Antonio, and co-chair of the education committee of the NAACP, Houston.

Moderator: Jen Rice, Houston Public Media
Jen Rice is the City Hall reporter at Houston Public Media, where she covers topics like Houston City Council and housing. She graduated from Barnard College at Columbia University and has a master's degree from the LBJ School of Public Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin. @jen_rice_

Strengthening Democracy Through Civil Dialogues
The Strengthening Democracy Through Civil Dialogues event series consists of conversations at the LBJ School featuring thought leaders, scholars, and activists from a wide variety of backgrounds who will offer insight, analysis, and provocation regarding the challenges and opportunities facing our democracy now and in the future. Our intention is to introduce our community of students, faculty, staff and alumni to a series of speakers who can challenge us to grow in new and unexpected ways.

We believe that Strengthening Democracy Through Civil Dialogues preserves freedom for all people to enter the civic arena in ways that cultivate respectful, constructive, and thought-provoking dialogue and debate that will inspire our community to better construct policy solutions.

On Wednesday, April 27, 2022, The University of Texas at Austin's Intelligence Studies Project, Strauss Center for International Security and Law, Clements Center for National Security, the Asia Policy Program and the Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies will host Dr. Seth Jones, director of the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and author of Three Dangerous Men: Russia, China, Iran, and the Rise of Irregular Warfare for a book talk.

An expert panel including Dr. Michael Dennis, a senior analyst at the Army Futures Command; Dr. Sheena Chestnut Greitens, associate professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs and founding director of the Asia Policy Program; and Dr. Bianca Adair, CIA Resident Intelligence Officer at the LBJ School will discuss "gray zone" conflict and irregular warfare as practiced by the Russian, Chinese and Iranian governments. The expert panel will be moderated by Paul Pope, a professor of practice at the LBJ School and ISP Senior Fellow.

Speaker

Seth G. Jones is senior vice president, Harold Brown Chair, director of the International Security Program, and director of the Transnational Threats Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). He leads a bipartisan team of over 50 resident staff and an extensive network of nonresident affiliates dedicated to providing independent strategic insights and policy solutions that shape national security. He also teaches at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and the Center for Homeland Defense and Security (CHDS) at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School. Prior to joining CSIS, Jones was the director of the International Security and Defense Policy Center at the RAND Corporation. He also served as representative for the commander, U.S. Special Operations Command, to the assistant secretary of defense for special operations. Before that, he was a plans officer and adviser to the commanding general, U.S. Special Operations Forces, in Afghanistan (Combined Forces Special Operations Component Command–Afghanistan). In 2014, Jones served on a congressionally mandated panel that reviewed the FBI's implementation of counterterrorism recommendations contained in the 9/11 Commission Report. Jones specializes in irregular warfare, counterterrorism and covert action. He is the author of Three Dangerous Men: Russia, Iran, China and the Rise of Irregular Warfare (W.W. Norton, 2021); A Covert Action: Reagan, the CIA, and the Cold War Struggle in Poland (W.W. Norton, 2018), Waging Insurgent Warfare (Oxford University Press, 2016), Hunting in the Shadows: The Pursuit of al Qa'ida after 9/11 (W.W. Norton, 2012), and In the Graveyard of Empires: America's War in Afghanistan (W.W. Norton, 2009). Jones has published articles in a range of journals, such as Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy and International Security, as well as newspapers and magazines like the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal. Jones is a graduate of Bowdoin College and received his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.

Panelists

Bianca Adair, an officer in the Directorate of Operations at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), is the Resident Intelligence Officer at The University of Texas at Austin's LBJ School of Public Affairs (2020–22). She has more than 16 years of federal government service in leadership positions in Washington, DC, and foreign field posts. In her nine years at the CIA, Adair has worked in the Middle East, Europe and North Africa on security, counterterrorism and foreign policy, with a special focus on Iran. Prior to her time in the CIA, she served in Iraq and the United Arab Emirates as a foreign service officer in the U.S. Department of State. The recipient of a Fulbright Research Grant on Austrian-Hungarian Relations and conversant in Persian (Farsi), French, Tajiki, German and Hungarian, Adair holds a Ph.D. in political science from The University of Alabama.

Michael P. Dennis has over 20 years of experience researching irregular warfare and is a leading expert on Chechnya, the North Caucasus insurgency, and the Russo-Chechen Wars. He spent over five years living with Chechen rebels and refugees in the Pankisi Gorge along the Chechen-Georgian border, Azerbaijan, Poland, Belgium and Turkey exploring the conditions under which displaced populations attitudinally support political violence. His post-doctoral research focused on Chechen attitudes toward foreign fighters in Ukraine and Syria. In the Second Russo-Chechen War, he served with the International Rescue Committee in the refugee tent-cities in Ingushetia and helped rebuild infrastructure in the then-Russian occupied cities of Samashki, Urus-Martan, and Grozny, Chechnya. From 2004 to 2011, he directed the Chechnya Advocacy Network, an international humanitarian organization, and briefed Congress on multiple occasions to raise support for refugee assistance. He later joined the National Ground Intelligence Center (NGIC) and served as the senior intelligence analyst for the Middle East. During this time, he was also an instructor at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School. He taught U.S. Army Special Forces a novel diagnostic analytical framework on insurgency and civil war, which he co-developed, and lectured on conceptualizing Gray Zone warfare and "Lessons Learned from Living with Insurgents." After NGIC, he joined the Army Futures Command where he served as the Chief of Intelligence Operations and later Chief of Strategic Futures. His awards include the U.S. Army Civilian Service Commendation Medal, NGIC's Russel B. Hardin Analyst of the Year Award for Analytical Excellence, and an Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) Exceptional Analyst Research Fellowship. Dennis's research has been published in Security Studies, and he recently completed an academic book manuscript on his work with Chechen refugees. He holds a Ph.D. in government from The University of Texas at Austin. He was a Fulbright scholar and speaks Chechen and Russian. Prior to university, he was an enlisted rifleman in the United States Marine Corps, deploying to East Africa to support combat operations in Somalia and later, the emergency evacuation of American personnel from Rwanda during the 1994 genocide. He spent his final year with the Marine National Wrestling team.

Sheena Chestnut Greitens is an associate professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin and founding director of the Asia Policy Program. Her work focuses on East Asia, authoritarian politics and American national security policy. She is currently working on two main research projects: one on China's internal security policies and their implications for China in the world, and another on authoritarian diasporas, particularly focused on North Korea. Greitens is currently a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Previously, she was a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, an adjunct fellow with the Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and an associate in research at the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University. From 2015 to 2020, Greitens was an assistant professor of political science at the University of Missouri, and co-director of the University's Institute for Korean Studies. Her work on China and North Korea has appeared in academic journals and edited volumes in English, Chinese and Korean, and in major media outlets. She has also previously testified to Congress on security issues in the Indo-Pacific. Her first book, Dictators and their Secret Police: Coercive Institutions and State Violence (Cambridge, 2016) received the 2017 Best Book Award from both the International Studies Association and the Comparative Democratization section of the American Political Science Association. From 2017 to 2018, Greitens served as the first lady of Missouri, where she helped lead the state's trade mission to China and South Korea, and successfully advocated for major legislative and administrative reforms to Missouri's policies on foster care, adoption and child abuse prevention. She holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University; an M.Phil from Oxford University, where she studied as a Marshall Scholar; and a bachelor's degree from Stanford University.

Paul Pope retired from the CIA after multiple foreign tours, service as chief of station, and assignments as a chief, deputy chief, and chief of ops in the Directorate of Operations' three largest components. As chief of Training and Tradecraft Division, he was responsible for DO training, capture of "lessons learned," and adapting to emerging technical challenges and mission imperatives. He was acting ADNI for Partner Engagement for an extended period and Head of Delegation to NATO's Civilian Intelligence Committee. Pope was DNI/DCIA Representative to Commander, U.S. Pacific Command and his component commands. Prior to the NCS, he served on the National Intelligence Council for the Near East and South Asia and led an analytic unit in the Directorate of Intelligence. Pope was an Army officer, with service on the Army General Staff after twice commanding at the company level, including command of the only active firebase in the Army on the Korean DMZ. He received his M.A. With Distinction from the Naval Postgraduate School and BS from the United States Military Academy at West Point. He is a distinguished graduate of Command and General Staff College and a graduate of the National War College's CAPSTONE course.

For questions regarding the event, please email: intelligencestudies@austin.utexas.edu

On Tuesday, April 26, the Clements Center for National Security and the UT-Austin Department of History will host Paul Kennedy, J. Richardson Dilworth Professor of History at Yale University, for a book talk on his upcoming release Victory at Sea: Naval Power and the Transformation of the Global Order in World War II. Join us at 12:15 p.m. in Bass Lecture Hall at the LBJ School of Public Affairs.

Paul Kennedy is the J. Richardson Dilworth Professor of History, director of international security studies at Yale, and distinguished fellow of the Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy. He also coordinates the ISS programs funded by the Smith Richardson Foundation. He is internationally known for his writings and commentaries on global political, economic and strategic issues.

Born in June 1945 in the northern English town of Wallsend, Northumberland, Kennedy earned his B.A. at Newcastle University and his DPhil at the University of Oxford. He is a former fellow of the Institute for Advanced Studies, Princeton University, and of the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung, Bonn. He holds many honorary degrees, and is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society, the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was made Commander of the Order of the British Empire (C.B.E.) in 2000 for services to history, and was elected a fellow of the British Academy in June 2003.

Kennedy's monthly column on current global issues is distributed worldwide by the Los Angeles Times Syndicate/Tribune Media Services. He is the author or editor of 19 books, including The Rise of the Anglo-German Antagonism; The War Plans of the Great Powers; The Realities Behind Diplomacy; and Preparing for the Twenty-First Century. His best-known work is The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, which provoked an intense debate on its publication in 1988 and has been translated into over 20 languages.

In 1991, Kennedy edited a collection entitled Grand Strategies in War and Peace. He helped draft the Ford Foundation-sponsored report issued in 1995, The United Nations in Its Second Half-Century, which was prepared for the 50^th anniversary of the UN. His 2006 book, The Parliament of Man, contemplates the past and future of the United Nations. His book Engineers of Victory views history through the eyes of problem-solvers during the Second World War, was published in 2013.

For more information on this event, contact Elizabeth Doughtie: elizabeth.doughtie@utexas.edu.