Affiliated Faculty and Staff
Many of the faculty members at Illinois State University have experience with community and economic development in the United States and around the world. This list includes departmental chairs and graduate program advisors, Stevenson Center staff, and the faculty most involved with the programs, either as sequence core instructors or instructors of required degree program courses. Please also see web sites for the Departments of Economics, Politics & Government, and Sociology & Anthropology for further information on these and additional faculty members.
Osaore Aideyan: Ph.D., Claremont Graduate University
Dr. Aideyan is Assistant Professor of Politics and Government whose research and teaching interests include Comparative & African politics, International development, and Poverty. He has written articles and book reviews for peer reviewed journals, including most recently “The Social-Institutional Explanation of Success in Small-Scale Financial Programs” in the Journal of Poverty and Public Policy.
E-mail: oaaidey@ilstu.edu
Frank D. Beck: Ph.D., Pennsylvania State University
Dr. Beck is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Faculty Director of the Stevenson Center. He works in the area of community economic development, local policy, persistent poverty, and the relationship between schools and the economic health of communities. Regarding the latter, Dr. Beck is currently researching the causes and consequences of school closure and consolidation. He is also interested in the way that unemployment varies across space. Dr. Beck regularly teaches the Seminar in Community Development and the graduate statistics course in Sociology.
E-mail: fdbeck@ilstu.edu
Beverly Beyer: M.S., Illinois State University; M.A. College of William & Mary
Ms. Beyer serves as Stevenson Center
Associate Director. A certified Professional Community and Economic Developer, she coordinates the Peace Corps Fellows Program, Applied Community and Economic Development Fellows Program, and Peace Corps Master’s International Program. Ms. Beyer is a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (Bulgaria) and has served with AmeriCorps and non-profit organizations. She is currently on the Board of Mid Central Community Action, and she volunteers with the local AmeriCorps Alums chapter and the Ecology Action Center.
E-mail: babeyer@ilstu.edu
Sherrilyn Billger: Ph.D., University of Illinois
Dr. Billger is an Associate Professor of Economics with research interests in labor economics, education, and applied econometrics. Her work on single-sex education and on incentive pay for teachers and administrators has been presented before the American Education Finance Association, Society of Labor Economists, and the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management. Her research appears in Industrial and Labor Relations Review, Journal of Labor Research, Industrial Relations, Developments in School Finance, and Applied Economics Letters and has been funded by the USDA National Research Initiative. She was a Visiting Scholar at Cornell University and has been named a Research Fellow at the Institute for Labor Studies (IZA) in Bonn, Germany.
E-mail: smbillg@ilstu.edu
; Website
Martha Boudeman: B.S., Illinois State University
Ms. Boudeman serves as staff clerk for the Stevenson Center and supports the center’s operations. She has professional experience as an administrative assistant and an educator of children with learning differences.
E-mail: mjboude@ilstu.edu
Joan M. Brehm: Ph.D., Utah State University
Dr. Brehm is an Associate Professor of Sociology. In July 2011, Dr. Brehm began as Graduate Coordinator for the Department of Sociology and Anthropology. Her areas of specialization are natural resources/environment, community, and demography. Her research interests center around how communities function and what factors influence their various relationships and attitudes towards 'nature' and what those attitudes mean for both sustainable land management and broader community well-being. One avenue of investigation has focused on an examination of the role of natural environment amenities in community attachment and their relationship to community well-being in rural areas in the Intermountain West. More recently, she has focused her scholarship on research that examines the role of values, attitudes, and place attachment in the development of sustainable, watershed-scale stewardship of water quality and natural resources at the community level. Dr. Brehm teaches People in Places: Understanding and Developing Community, Introduction to Social Research Methods, Society and Environment, and Applied Community Project Design and Management.
E-mail: jmbrehm@ilstu.edu; Web site
Thomas Burr: Ph.D., University of California, Davis
Dr. Burr is an Assistant Professor of Sociology. His area of expertise includes economic, cultural, and organizational sociology; the sociology of consumption; and historical sociology, with a special interest in world history and long-term globalization. His research interests include the historical analysis of consumer markets. His current main project is on the national bicycle markets of France and the United States around the turn of the twentieth century. He has also started a research project on industry-wide institutions, including trade shows, professional associations, and the trade press. He has taught Global Development and Economic Change numerous times, and welcomes interdisciplinary collaboration with Stevenson students on macrosocial factors in development.
E-mail: tburr@ilstu.edu
David L. Cleeton: Ph.D., Washington University
Dr. Cleeton is Professor of Economics and Department Chair with areas of expertise in financial economics and European economic integration. His research appears in the American Economic Review, Public Finance Quarterly, Quarterly Review of Economics and Business, Health Care Financing Review, and Southern Economic Journal. He is coauthor (with Nobel Laureate Robert C. Merton and Zvi Bodie) of the textbook Financial Economics.
Professor Cleeton joins Illinois State University having served as
Economics Department Chair at Oberlin College, Dean of Social Sciences
and Business at Christopher Newport University, and in a recent
visiting faculty position with Ohio State University. He was selected
as a Fulbright Chair of EU-US Relations at the College of Europe in
Bruges (Belgium) and recognized as a Fellow of the Euro Area Business
Cycle Network affiliated with the Centre for Economic Policy Research
in London.
E-mail: dlcleet@ilstu.edu
Oguzhan Dincer: Ph.D., University of Oregon
Oz Dincer is an Assistant Professor and Graduate Coordinator in the Department of Economics. His research interests are in Economic Growth and Development as well as Public Economics with particular focus on causes and consequences of institutions. His published work appears in Public Choice, International Tax and Public Finance and Applied Economics. His teaching experience includes Macroeconomics, Public Economics, Econometrics, and International Economics. He joined Illinois State University following three years with Massey University in New Zealand.
E-mail: odincer@ilstu.edu
Robert W. Hunt: Ph.D., Princeton University
Dr. Hunt is Professor Emeritus of Political Science. He has written extensively in the area of political participation and development, focused on the role of the "civil society" in development in Asia and Africa. He has consulted with the World Bank, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the United Nations throughout the world, particularly on issues associated with community economic development. In 1994, Dr. Hunt launched Illinois State University's Peace Corps Fellows Program, the first in the nation in community and economic development (joint with Western Illinois University).
E-mail: rwhunt@ilstu.edu
David Malone: Ph.D., University of Wisconsin
Dr. Malone has been Chairperson of the Department of Geography-Geology since 2000. His major fields of interest are Structural Geology, Stratigraphy, Geologic Mapping, Ore Deposits, and Field Geology. He has authored dozens of research articles, field guides, and geologic maps. He is a strong advocate for geologic mapping, and the publication of geologic maps, which are fundamental infrastructure that is needed for resource development issues.
E-mail: dhmalon@ilstu.edu
Adrienne Ohler: Ph.D., Washington State University
Dr. Ohler is an Assistant Professor of Economics whose research and teaching interests include Natural Resource and Environmental Economics, Public Policy, and Econometrics. Professor Ohler presented her work on renewable energy sources before the Midwest Economics Association and has published in Contemporary Economic Policy, Land Economics, Electricity Journal, and William & Mary Environmental Law & Policy Review.
E-mail: aohler@ilstu.edu ; Website
Aaron Pitluck: Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison
Dr. Pitluck is an Associate Professor of Sociology. From Fall 2011 to Fall 2013 he is on leave to hold a fellowship with the Political Economy Research Group at Central European University (Budapest). His areas of expertise include global development, economic sociology, globalization, and finance. His non-U.S. geographical areas of expertise are Southeast Asia, Asia-Pacific, and Europe. His primary research project is a multi-year study of Islamic finance in Malaysia to better understand the possibilities and constraints facing radical reform of global financial markets. A second research stream focuses on professional investors’ behavior in global financial markets. For example, he’s researched how illiquidity influences investors’ behavior in emerging markets, and why foreigners herd and locals act as their counterparties. By studying such social forces on professional investors, Dr. Pitluck is interested in policy-making to shape fund managers' behavior in ways constructive to development. Most years, he teaches Economic Sociology in the Fall and Global Development & Economic Change in the Spring. Dr. Pitluck welcomes research assistance or collaboration with Stevenson students.
E-mail: Aaron.Pitluck@ilstu.edu
Ali Riaz: Ph.D., University of Hawaii
Dr. Riaz is Professor and Chair of the Department of Politics and Government. In 2012, he is designated University Professor, a companion honor to Distinguished Professor. His areas of interest include: South Asian politics, community development, religion and politics, and political communication. His articles appeared in scholarly journals such as Asian Survey, Journal of Asian and African Studies, Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, and Asian Profile. Dr. Riaz has authored numerous books in English and Bengali. His recent publications include Inconvenient Truths about Bangladeshi Politics (Prothoma, 2012), Religion and Politics in South Asia (Routledge, 2010), Faithful Education: Madrassahs in South Asia (Rutgers University Press, 2008), Islamist Militancy in Bangladesh: A Complex Web (Routledge, 2008). His previous publications are State, Class and Military Rule: Political Economy of Martial Law in Bangladesh (1994), God Willing: The Politics of Islamism in Bangladesh (Rowman and Littlefield, 2004), and Unfolding State: The Transformation of Bangladesh ( de Sitters Publications, 2005). Dr. Riaz has received numerous awards including Dean's Award for Outstanding Scholarship in 2004, Outstanding College Researcher in 2005, and Pi Sigma Alpha Excellence in Teaching Award in 2006.
E-mail: ariaz@ilstu.edu; Website
Rebecca Rossi: M.S., Illinois State University
Ms. Rossi serves as the Assistant Director at the Stevenson Center. Rebecca has spent most of her career in the non-profit sector working in crisis services and affordable housing. She has an interest in sustainability, specifically sustainable development and green building, and she was most recently the sustainability specialist at Heartland Community College. Rebecca has taught residential development and project management. Along with an M.S. from Illinois State University, she holds a graduate certificate in Project Management and is a LEED Accredited Professional.
E-mail: rmrossi@ilstu.edu
Kam Shapiro: Ph.D., John Hopkins University
Dr. Shapiro is an Associate Professor of Political Science and serves as Graduate Advisor for the Department of Politics And Government. His work focuses on somatic and aesthetic dimensions of sovereignty and citizenship. He is the author of Sovereign Nations, Carnal States (Cornell University Press, 2003) and Carl Schmitt and the Intensification of Politics (Rowman and Littlefield, 2008) along with various articles and reviews.
E-mail: jkshapi@ilstu.edu
Fred Smith: Ph.D., University of Michigan
Dr. Smith is Chair of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology. He is a human paleontologist who has spent 40 years studying the paleobiology of European Neandertals and the broader issue of the origin of modern humans. The author of almost 200 professional publications, Smith has been a Fulbright Fellow (Croatia), an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow (Germany), and a National Academy of Sciences Exchange Scholar
(Yugoslavia). This 1984 book, The Origin of Modern Humans, was named the Outstanding Book in the Life Sciences for that year by the American Association of Publishers, and in 2006 he received the initial Hermann Schaaffhausen Prize for the Study of Neandertals from the State Museum of the Rhineland in Germany.
E-mail: fsmith@ilstu.edu
T.Y. Wang: Ph.D., State University of New York at Buffalo
Dr. Wang is Professor and Associate Chair of the Department of Politics and Government. He currently serves as the co-editor of the Journal of Asian and African Studies and was the Coordinator of the Conference Group of Taiwan Studies (CGOTS) of the American Political Science Association. Professor Wang’s current research focuses on Taiwanese national identity, cross-Strait relations, Chinese politics, electoral studies, US policy towards China and Taiwan and research methodology. He has authored, co-authored or edited 6 books/special issues and published more than 30 articles/book chapters in such scholarly journals as the American Political Science Review, Asian Survey, International Studies Quarterly, Issues and Studies, Journal of Peace Research, Political Research Quarterly and Social Science Quarterly. Dr. Wang has received research grants from a variety of foundations, including the National Science Foundation, the Pacific Cultural Foundation and the World Society Foundation. He has been frequently invited to conduct workshops and present papers in China, Germany, Japan, and Taiwan. Dr. Wang is on the International Advisory Board, Election Study Center, National Chengchi University, Taiwan, and the Editorial Board of the Taiwanese Political Science Review and of the Issues and Studies.
E-mail: tywang@ilstu.edu; Website
Anne Wortham: Ph.D., Boston College
Dr. Wortham, a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (Tanzania III, 1963-1965), is an Associate Professor of Sociology. Her scholarship interests are the sociology of culture, the history of social thought, social stratification, and American political culture. She has been a John M. Olin Foundation Faculty Fellow at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, and a Visiting Scholar at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. Dr. Wortham is the author of The Other Side of Racism: A Philosophical Study of Black Race Consciousness (1981), and numerous articles on civil rights policy, American identity and the melting pot ideal, and ethical individualism in American culture. Her two-hour conversation with Bill Moyers for his 1989 PBS documentary series, "A World of Ideas," is widely distributed as a video recording and published in his book, A World of Ideas. Her current research focuses on Booker T. Washington as a cultural carrier of the nineteenth-century success ethic. She is also developing an anthology of her essays on individualism.
E-mail: awortha@ilstu.edu
