Social Policy

Abigail Aiken is an associate professor at the LBJ School. Her research focuses on unintended pregnancy, evidence-based obstetric practice, and the impacts of laws and policies restricting access to abortion, including how and why people self-manage their own abortions outside the formal health care setting. She is currently the PI on Project SANA, examining self-managed abortion in the United States. She frequently testifies on reproductive health issues, and provided expert testimony to the Irish Parliament on the 2018 abortion referendum. She has consulted for the CDC, WHO and UN on various reproductive policy issues. She completed her M.D. at the University of Cambridge, her MPH at Harvard University, and her Ph.D. at The University of Texas at Austin.

Dr. Aiken's research has been published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the BMJ, the American Journal of Public Health and the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Her work has been reported by the Associated Press, Reuters, the New York Times, the Washington Post, The New Yorker, The Economist and the Wall Street Journal, among others.

When not in the field conducting research or teaching in the classroom, Dr. Aiken can usually be found running on the Town Lake Trail, lifting weights in her garage or playing outdoors with her energetic 3-year-old son and somewhat reluctant cat.

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.

Prior to joining the UT faculty, Dr. Joseph was a professor at Tufts University, where he founded the school's Center for the Study of Race and Democracy to promote engaged research and scholarship focused on the ways issues of race and democracy affect people's lives.

In addition to being a frequent commentator on issues of race, democracy and civil rights, Dr. Joseph's most recent book is The Sword and the Shield: The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. He also wrote the award-winning books Waiting 'Til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America and Dark Days, Bright Nights: From Black Power to Barack Obama. His book Stokely: A Life has been called the definitive biography of Stokely Carmichael, the man who popularized the phrase "Black Power." Included among Joseph's other book credits is the editing of The Black Power Movement: Rethinking the Civil Rights-Black Power Era and Neighborhood Rebels: Black Power at the Local Level.

Raj Patel is a research professor in the LBJ School of Public Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin and a senior research associate at the Unit for the Humanities at Rhodes University. He studies the world food system and alternatives to it, and recently completed a documentary project about the food system. He has testified about hunger and food sovereignty to the U.S., U.K., and E.U. governments, and is a member of the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems.

In addition to publications in journals about economics, philosophy, politics, international development and public health, Dr. Patel writes for a range of newspapers and co-hosts "The Secret Ingredient" podcast. His books include Stuffed and Starved and The Value of Nothing. He co-authored with Jason W. Moore A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things: A Guide to Capitalism, Nature and the Future of the Planet, published by the University of California Press. Dr. Patel's latest book, co-authored with Rupa Marya, is Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021).

Philip Uri Treisman is a professor of mathematics at The University of Texas at Austin and executive director of the Charles A. Dana Center. His research and professional interests include mathematics and science education, education policy, and community service and volunteerism. Professor Treisman has received numerous honors and awards for his efforts to strengthen American education. For his research at the University of California at Berkeley of the factors that support high achievement among minority students in calculus, he received the 1987 Charles A. Dana Award for Pioneering Achievement in American Higher Education. In 1992, he was named a MacArthur fellow. In December 1999, he was named one of the outstanding leaders in higher education in the 20^th century by the magazine Black Issues in Higher Education. Professor Treisman received a B.S. (summa cum laude) in mathematics from the University of California at Los Angeles. He received his Ph.D. at the University of California at Berkeley in 1985.

David Warner's major research and teaching interests are in health finance, health policy and economics. A graduate of Princeton University and Syracuse University, he previously taught at Wayne State University and Yale University and was deputy director of the Office of Program Analysis at the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation. In addition to his courses in health care finance and state health policy, he has directed a number of student policy research projects on issues as diverse as the health of Mexican Americans in South Texas, diabetes policy in Texas, cross border health insurance and mental health policy. Professor Warner has served as a consultant to a number of organizations in the health sector and for six years served on the board of Brackenridge Hospital in Austin and was chairman of the Texas Diabetes Council. At UT Austin and the LBJ School, he has served as acting director of the Center for Health and Social Policy, as a member of the advisory board of the Hogg Foundation, as chair of the Student Health Center Advisory Board and as a member of many committees and study groups. His publications include an edited volume "Toward New Human Rights" and several monographs.