Gary Burtless holds the John C. and Nancy D. Whitehead Chair in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. He does research on issues associated with public finance, aging, saving, labor markets, income distribution, social insurance, and the behavioral effects of government tax and transfer policy. He is co-author of Globaphobia: Confronting Fears about Open Trade (1998); Five Years After: The Long Term Effects of Welfare-to-Work Programs (1995), Growth with Equity: Economic Policymaking for the Next Century (1993), and Can America Afford to Grow Old? Paying for Social Security (1989), and editor and contributor to Aging Societies: The Global Dimension (1998), Does Money Matter? The Effect of School Resources on Student Achievement and Adult Success (1996), A Future of Lousy Jobs? The Changing Structure of U.S. Wages (1990), Work, Health and Income Among the Elderly (1987) and Retirement and Economic Behavior (1984). He is also the author of numerous scholarly and popular articles on the economic effects of Social Security, public welfare, unemployment insurance, and taxes.

His recent research has focused on sources of growing wage and income inequality in the United States, the influence of international trade on income inequality, the job market prospects of public aid recipients, reform of social insurance in developing countries and formerly socialist economies, and the implications of privatizing the American social security system. Burtless graduated from Yale College in 1972 and earned a Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1977. Before coming to Brookings in 1981, he served as an economist in the policy and evaluation offices of the Secretary of Labor and the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare. In 1993 he was Visiting Professor of Public Affairs at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Visit(s):

• March 5-9, 2012
• Public Lecture: March 6, 2012

Director, Energy Security Initiative; Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy

Charles Ebinger has more than 35 years of experience specializing in international and domestic energy markets (oil, gas, coal and nuclear) and the geopolitics of energy, with a particular focus on the Middle East, South Asia, Africa., the Arctic and Antarctic. Ebinger has served as an energy policy advisor to over 50 governments on restructuring their state-owned energy sectors, privatization and the creation of regulatory regimes. He is an adjunct professor of electricity economics at Johns Hopkins Nitze School.

Visit(s):

• September 26-30, 2011
• April 16-20, 2012

Fellow, Governance Studies; Research Director, Center for Technology Innovation

Allan Friedman is a fellow in Governance Studies and research director of the Center for Technology Innovation at Brookings. His current research focuses on information technology policy, with particular emphasis on cybersecurity policy and the dynamics of information privacy.

Prior to joining Brookings, Friedman was a fellow at the Center for Research on Computation and Society in the Harvard Computer Science department, where he worked on cyber security policy, privacy-enhancing technologies and the economics of information security. Friedman was also a fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, where he worked on the Minerva Project for Cyber International Relations.

He has a degree in Computer Science from Swarthmore College (2002), and a PhD in Public Policy from Harvard University (2009).

Visit(s):

• September 12-16, 2011
• January 30-February 3, 2012

Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy, Global Economy and Development; Charles Robinson Chair in Foreign Policy Studies

Carol Graham’s research focuses on poverty, inequality, public health, and novel measures of well-being. Her projects have included a focus on the developing world

She is the author of Happiness around the World: The Paradox of Happy Peasants and Miserable Millionaires (Oxford University Press, forthcoming); Happiness and Hardship: Opportunity and Insecurity in New Market Economies (with Stefano Pettinato, Brookings, 2002); Private Markets for Public Goods: Raising the Stakes in Economic Reform (Brookings, 1998); Safety Nets, Politics and the Poor: Transitions to Market Economies (Brookings, 1994); Peru's APRA (Lynne Rienner, 1992); Improving the Odds: Political Strategies for Institutional Reform in Latin America, with Merilee Grindle, Eduardo Lora, and Jessica Seddon (IDB, 1999); and A Half Penny on the Dollar: The Future of Development Aid, with Michael O'Hanlon (Brookings, 1997). She is the editor, with Eduardo Lora, of Paradox and Perceptions: Quality of Life in Latin America (Brookings, 2009); with Susan Collins, of the Brookings Trade Forum 2004: Globalization, Poverty, and Inequality (Brookings, 2005); and, with Nancy Birdsall, of New Markets, New Opportunities? Economic and Social Mobility in a Changing World (Brookings/Carnegie, 1999), and Beyond Trade-Offs: Market Reforms and Equitable Growth in Latin America (Brookings/IDB, 1988). She is also the author of articles in journals including the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, the World Bank Research Observer, Health Affairs, the Journal of Socio-Economics, World Economics, and Foreign Affairs

Graham served as Vice President and Director of Governance Studies at Brookings from 2002-2004. She has also served as a Special Advisor to the Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund. She has also been a consultant at the Inter-American Development Bank, the World Bank, United Nations Development Program, and the Harvard Institute for International Development, helping to design safety net programs in Latin America, Africa, and Eastern Europe. She has testified in Congress several times on the economic situation in Latin America, and has discussed related topics on NBC News, National Public Radio, the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, and CNN among others. Her research has received support from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the Tinker and Hewlett Foundations. She was awarded a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellowship for 1997-98, during which time she served as Special Adviser to the Executive Vice President of the Inter-American Development Bank. Graham, born in Lima, Peru, has an A.B. from Princeton University, an M.A. from The Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and a Ph.D. from Oxford University. She is the mother of three children.

Visit(s):

• November 15-18, 2011
• February 7-10, 2012
• April 10-13, 2012

Senior Fellow, Economic Studies; Co-Director, Center on Children and Families

A former White House and congressional advisor on welfare issues, Ron Haskins co-directs the Brookings Center on Children and Families. An expert on preschool, foster care, and poverty—he was instrumental in the 1996 overhaul of national welfare policy. Prior to joining Brookings and Casey, he spent 14 years on the staff of the House Ways and Means Human Resources Subcommittee, first as welfare counsel to the Republican staff, then as the subcommittee's staff director. From 1981-1985, he was a senior researcher at the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Center at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He also taught and lectured on history and education at UNC, Charlotte and developmental psychology at Duke University.

Haskins was the editor of the 1996, 1998, and 2000 editions of the Green Book, a 1600-page compendium of the nation's social programs published by the House Ways and Means Committee that analyzes domestic policy issues including health care, poverty, and unemployment. Haskins is a senior editor of The Future of Children, a journal on policy issues that affect children and families. He has also co-edited several books, including Welfare Reform and Beyond: The Future of the Safety Net (2002), The New World of Welfare (2001) and Policies for America's Public Schools: Teachers, Equity, and Indicators (Ablex, 1988), and is a contributor to numerous books and scholarly journals on children's development and social policy issues. He is also the author of Work Over Welfare: The Inside Story of the 1996 Welfare Reform Law (2006) and the co-author of Creating an Opportunity Society (2009) with Isabel Sawhill and Getting Ahead or Losing Ground: Economic Mobility in America (Pew, 2008). He has appeared frequently on radio and television and has written articles and editorials for several newspapers and periodicals including the Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Policy Review, State Government News, American Enterprise, National Review, and the Weekly Standard. He serves as an advisor to Mathematica Policy Research on the evaluation of adolescent pregnancy prevention approaches.

His areas of expertise include welfare reform, child care, child support enforcement, family composition and marriage, and child protection. In 1997, He holds a Bachelor's degree in History, a Master's in Education, and a Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology, from UNC, Chapel Hill. Haskins, who was a noncommissioned officer in the United States Marine Corps from 1963 to 1966, lives with his wife in Rockville, Maryland and is the father of four grown children.

Visit(s):

• October 17-21, 2011
• January 23-27, 2012
• Public Lecture: October 19, 2011

Senior Fellow, Governance Studies

Tom Loveless, a former sixth-grade teacher and Harvard public policy professor, is an expert on student achievement, education policy, and reform in K-12 schools. He also is a member of the National Math Advisory Panel.

He is the author of recent articles in the Wilson Quarterly, Education Next, American Journal of Education, Educational Policy, Educational Leadership, Educational Administration Quarterly, and Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis. Loveless also authors The Brown Center Report on American Education, an annual report explaining important trends in achievement test scores. His op-eds have been published in The Christian Science Monitor, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, Newsday, The Washington Post, USA Weekend, and Education Week.

Loveless' book, The Tracking Wars: State Reform Meets School Policy (Brookings Institution Press, 1999), examines two states' attempts to dismantle tracking in public middle schools. Loveless is editor of Conflicting Missions?: Teachers Unions and Education Reform (Brookings Institution Press, 2000) and The Great Curriculum Debate: How Should We Teach Reading and Math? (Brookings Institution Press, 2001). Loveless co-edited (with John E. Chubb) Bridging the Achievement Gap (Brookings Institution Press, 2002), and Stability and Change in American Education: Structure, Process, and Outcomes (with Maureen Hallinan, Adam Gamoran, and Warren Kubitscheck, Eliot Werner Publications, 2003). Most recently Loveless co-edited a volume on school choice with Julian Betts, Getting Choice Right: Ensuring Equity and Efficiency in Education Policy (Brookings Institution Press, 2005).

Loveless holds a Ph.D. in education from the University of Chicago, an M.A. in special education from California State University, Sacramento, and an A.B., in English from the University of California, Berkeley. From 1979 to 1988, Loveless was a classroom teacher in the San Juan Unified School District, near his hometown of Sacramento, California. While teaching sixth grade, he served on numerous state and local curriculum committees. After receiving his Ph.D. in 1992, Loveless joined the faculty of Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, where he served as both assistant and associate professors of public policy until 1999.

Loveless was selected as a National Academy of Education Spencer Post-Doctoral Fellow in 1995. He is currently on advisory boards of the American Journal of Education and Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis. Since 2004, Loveless has represented the United States at the General Assembly of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Attainment, a sixty nation organization that governs international testing. In May 2006, he was appointed to the President's National Mathematics Advisory Panel.

Visit(s):

• January 17-20, 2012
• Public Lecture: January 17, 2012

Fellow, Economic Studies; Policy Director for Climate and Energy Economics, Economic Studies

Adele Morris is a fellow and policy director for climate and energy economics. She focuses on the economics of climate change and related energy.

She joined Brookings in July 2008 from the Joint Economic Committee (JEC) of the U.S. Congress, where she spent a year as a Senior Economist covering energy and climate issues. Before the JEC, Adele served nine years with the U.S. Treasury Department as its chief natural resource economist, working on climate, energy, agriculture, and radio spectrum issues. On assignment to the U.S. Department of State in 2000, she was the lead U.S. negotiator on land use and forestry issues in the international climate change treaty process. Prior to joining the Treasury, she served as the senior economist for environmental affairs at the President’s Council of Economic Advisers during the development of the Kyoto Protocol. She began her career at the Office of Management and Budget, where she conducted regulatory oversight of agriculture and natural resource agencies. She holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Princeton University, an M.S. in Mathematics from the University of Utah, and a B.A. from Rice University.

Visit(s):

• March 26-30, 2012
• April 23-27, 2012

Senior Fellow, Metropolitan Policy Program

Demographer Audrey Singer is an expert on international migration, race and ethnicity, U.S. immigration policy, and demographic trends in metropolitan areas.

Her recent co-edited book, Twenty-First Century Gateways: Immigrant Incorporation in Suburban America focuses on the fastest growing immigrant populations among second-tier metropolitan areas.

Other recent Brookings publications include, "State of Metropolitan America: on the Front Lines of Demographic Transformation," "Immigrants, Politics, and Local Response in Suburban Washington," "Recent Immigration to Philadelphia: Regional Change in a Re-Emerging Gateway," "From 'Here' to 'There:' Refugee Resettlement in Metropolitan America."

Her articles have appeared in academic journals including International Migration Review, Demography, Urban Geography, Geographical Review, and Ethnic and Racial Studies, and her commentary in the New York Times, Washington Post, Baltimore Sun, Christian Science Monitor, Seattle Times, Huffington Post, San Diego Union Tribune, and Vanguardia Dossier.

Prior to joining Brookings, Singer was an associate in the International Migration Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Prior to Carnegie, she held a faculty position in the Department of Demography at Georgetown University, and was a demographic analyst at the U.S. Department of Labor. She is the current elected chair of the International Migration Section of the American Sociological Association.

Singer earned a Ph.D. in sociology, with a specialization in demography, from the University of Texas at Austin. She has an M.A. in sociology also from the University of Texas at Austin and a B.A. in sociology from Temple University. She conducted postdoctoral research at the University of Chicago.

Visit(s):

• October 25-27, 2011

Director, 21st Century Defense Initiative; Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy

Peter W. Singer is the director of the 21st Century Defense Initiative and a senior fellow in Foreign Policy at Brookings. Singer's research focuses on three core issues: the future of war, current U.S. defense needs and future priorities, and the future of the U.S. defense system. Singer lectures frequently to U.S. military audiences and is the author of several books and articles, including Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century.

Dr. Singer is considered one of the world's leading experts on changes in 21st century warfare. He was named by the President to Joint Forces Command's Transformation Advisory Group. He is a columnist for Armed Forces Journal and has written for the full range of major media and journals, including the Boston Globe, L.A. Times, New York Times, Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, Current History, Survival, International Security, Parameters, Weltpolitik, and the World Policy Journal. He has been quoted in every major U.S. newspaper and news magazine and delivered talks at venues ranging from the U.S. Congress to over 40 universities around the world. He has provided commentary on military affairs for nearly every major TV and radio outlet, including ABC Nightline, Al Jazeera, BBC, CBS-60 Minutes, CNN, FOX, NPR, and the NBC Today Show. He is also a founder and organizer of the U.S.-Islamic World Forum, a global conference that brings together leaders from across the US and the Muslim world.

His first book Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry(Cornell University Press, 2003) pioneered the study of the new industry of private companies providing military services for hire, an issue that soon became important with the use and abuse of these companies in Iraq. Dr. Singer's next book, Children at War (Pantheon, 2005), explored the rise of another new force in modern warfare, child soldier groups. Dr. Singer's "landmark" (Newsweek) work was the first book to comprehensively explore the compelling and tragic rise of child soldier groups. Dr. Singer's most recent book, Wired for War (Penguin, 2009), looks at the implications of robotics and other new technologies for war, politics, ethics, and law in the 21st century. Described as: "An exhaustively researched book, enlivened by examples from popular culture" by the Associated Press and "awesome" by Jon Stewart of the Daily Show, Wired for War made the New York Times non-fiction bestseller list in its first week of release.

Prior to his current position, Dr. Singer was the founding Director of the Project on U.S. Policy Towards the Islamic World in the Saban Center at Brookings. He has also worked for the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University, the Balkans Task Force in the U.S. Department of Defense, and the International Peace Academy. Singer received his Ph.D. in Government from Harvard University and a BA from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University.

Visit(s):

• March 19-23, 2012
• Public Lecture: March 20, 2012