Posted: February 13, 2017
Social Science and Public Policy: Insights and Challenges in Applying a Social Lens to Policy Research presented by Jenifer Buckley, Ph. D.
Social science generates new insights into public policy and can improve policy outcomes. This seminar presents an ethnographic approach to analyzing a US EPA program and argues that such an approach is critical to program analysis. It examines the practicalities of non‐academic research and the social questions that technical programs and policies raise. Stakeholders of federal programs may include a complex series of decision makers and field staff within an agency as well as state and local offices and private entities. Analyzing the benefits of programs and policies requires first understanding how each of these stakeholders defines "benefits."
Jenifer Buckley is an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Science & Technology Policy Fellow hosted by EPA. She has worked on local food issues for 20 years in non‐profit and academic contexts. She has a PhD from Michigan State University (Community Sustainability) and an MS from Wageningen University in the Netherlands (Ecological Agriculture). Her PhD research was an ethnography of food safety inspections of artisan food processing facilities in Michigan. She will speak about becoming a AAAS Fellow and about how the Fellowship expands and furthers a social science career. Friday, February 24, 2017 2:30--3:30 pm 215 Armsby Building.
