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The has announced leadership appointments for the school’s newly formed public administration and international affairs department, the international relations department and the political science department. All appointments will be effective July 1.

Professor Ross Rubenstein will chair the newly formed PAIA department; Associate Professor John McPeak will serve as vice chair. Professor Mary Lovely will become chair of the international relations department, and Associate Professor Thomas Keck will chair the political science department. In making the announcement, Interim Dean Michael Wasylenko said, “I am pleased that these four dedicated faculty members have agreed to lead their departments as we implement organizational changes within our public administration and international programs. I know that they will do an excellent job, and I look forward to working with each of them.

“Thank you, too, to the former chairs—Stuart Bretschneider of public administration, Catherine Bertini of international relations and Mark Rupert of political science—for their service to their departments and to the school, and also to Francine D’Amico for her strong guidance to the undergraduate international relations program. I want to express my particular gratitude to Catherine and Stu for the integral and thoughtful leadership role they played during the past year to accomplish the merger of the PA and IR programs.”

Rubenstein, a professor of public administration, joined the Maxwell School in 2003. His research focuses on public finance and education policy, including funding equity and adequacy in education; public sector performance and efficiency measurement; budgeting and resource allocation in school districts; and merit-based financial aid for college. He has written scores of journal articles and co-edited two books; received a number of research and teaching awards; and has been funded by organizations including the U.S. Department of Education, the American Education Research Association and the Russell Sage Foundation.

“The merger of the public administration and international affairs programs opens up an exciting array of possibilities for our students and the school. Six signature Maxwell degrees—the M.P.A.; M.A.(IR); executive M.P.A.; executive M.A.(IR); master of public health, which is offered jointly with SUNY Upstate Medical University; and master of public diplomacy, which is offered jointly with the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications—will now be administered through a single unit. The resulting synergy among these top-notch programs will provide even more educational and career opportunities for our students and research opportunities for our faculty,” says Rubenstein.

McPeak has been a faculty member in the public administration department since 2002. His expertise focuses on development economics, natural resource economics and African agricultural development, and he has written extensively on these and related topics. His most recent research is on management of river systems for the future and livestock-related issues in Kenya and Mali, Africa. McPeak says he looks forward to being part of the new PAIA leadership team and “to working with faculty and students from both degree programs as we move toward ensuring the programs’ continued excellence.”

Lovely, a professor of economics, has been on the Maxwell faculty for 25 years and has been involved in the design of innovative and multidisciplinary curricula across the school during that time. Among other things, she was founding director of the Economics Distinction Program, the first such program in the social sciences at SU, and served as a member of the curriculum design teams for the Maxwell Signature Program and executive education’s senior Indian government official training programs. Lovely’s research focuses on international economics, particularly trade and development. Her current work includes investigating the pollution content of Chinese exports and examining differences in China’s integration into American and Japanese production networks. “Recent events highlight the need to prepare students for professional and personal challenges in a rapidly integrating world, and I look forward to working with IR faculty and staff as we ensure the school’s preeminence in undergraduate training in international relations,” Lovely says.

Keck, an associate professor of political science who joined Maxwell in 2002, is Michael O. Sawyer Chair of Constitutional Law and Politics. He is a prolific author, including the acclaimed “The Most Activist Supreme Court in History: The Road to Modern Judicial Conservatism” (University of Chicago Press, 2004). He studies the Supreme Court, American Constitutional development and the use of legal strategies by movements for social change, on the left and the right. Most recently, writing in the Law and Society Review, Keck documented the sweeping policy changes that have resulted from contemporary litigation on behalf of LGBT rights. Combining this research with similar examinations of abortion, affirmative action and gun rights, he is currently writing a book on the courts and the culture wars during the Clinton, Bush and Obama eras.