John Fender has three degrees including a D.Phil from the University of Oxford. He was a Lecturer at Lancaster University and an Associate Professor at the Pennsylvania State University in the United States before coming to the University of Birmingham in 1992, where he has been Professor of Macroeconomics since 1998. He is leader of the Macroeconomics and Finance Research Group and Deputy Head of Department. He has published widely in macroeconomics, including open economy macroeconomics but is also interested in political economy issues and in economics and philosophy. Monetary policy, on which he published a book in 2012, is a particular interest. His current research encompasses analysing the effects of fiscal consolidation programmes and developing an appropriate framework for analysing the stock market.
Research interests include the application of geodesy to the mitigation of natural hazards, volcanic, tectonic, oceanographic and meteorological processes, and the impact and mitigation of the atmosphere on space geodetic measurements.
John Affleck, a journalist and leader at The Associated Press who has served most recently as sports enterprise editor/interim deputy sports editor for the news organization that produces content seen by half the world’s population on a given day, was named the Knight Chair in Sports Journalism and Society at Penn State on Aug. 6, 2013. Affleck served as a reporter, editor and national manager at the AP, working regularly with all of the organization’s major editorial departments during his 22-year career. In his most recent role before joining the University faculty, he helped manage day-to-day operations for the roughly 70-member domestic sports team. He directed coverage of the Lance Armstrong saga, coordinated efforts with the news department as the Jerry Sandusky case unfolded and guided the U.S. sports report last summer when the AP’s sports team was split between Olympic and non-Olympic coverage. Affleck has directed coverage of college football and the last five Bowl Championship Series national title games. He also oversaw the wire service’s 2013 Final Four coverage and was a key editor at the World Cup in South Africa. He also represented the AP at the 2012 Associated Press Sports Editors convention and at APSE’s sessions this year with commissioners from major pro sports leagues. He has also covered the Super Bowl and the World Series. Reporters and projects under Affleck’s direct supervision have been honored in dozens of regional and national contests, and have earned awards from a wide array of groups, including the nation’s education writers, religion reporters and the lesbian and gay journalists association. Work under his guidance has captured the AP’s top internal prizes for news enterprise, sports enterprise and sports features. As the Knight Chair, Affleck will serve as director of the John Curley Center for Sports Journalism, housed in the College of Communications. The Curley Center, a first-of-its-kind academic endeavor in U.S. higher education when founded in 2003, explores issues and trends in sports journalism through instruction, programming and research. As Affleck transitions to higher education, he brings a lifelong passion for education and sports journalism to the position. He worked for the AP in Albany, N.Y., Buffalo, N.Y., and Cleveland before moving to the organization’s main office in New York. Along with his leadership and mentoring young reporters, Affleck also has earned writing awards himself. He brings an appreciation of journalism fundamentals and an understanding of the need for innovation in the changing multimedia journalism environment to the position. As director of the Center, Affleck will: teach several courses, including sports writing; serve as a voice about sports journalism issues and trends; and coordinate the Center’s programming, which includes a variety of partnerships at Penn State and off campus for guest lectures and special events. Guests for Center programming have included Christine Brennan, Bob Costas, John Feinstein, Brent Musburger, Bob Ryan and more. Affleck grew up in Syracuse, N.Y., and has been a competitive runner for most of his life, once finishing in the Top 500 at the Boston Marathon. He was ranked nationally as a master’s competitor by USATF in four events (800 meters, 1,500 meters, 3,000 meters and the mile) as recently as 2005. He is married to Jessica Ancker, an assistant professor at the Center for Healthcare Informatics and Policy at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City.
Jim Watson is Professor of Energy Policy at SPRU, University of Sussex, and joined UKERC as Research Director in February 2013. He was previously Director of the Sussex Energy Group at the University of Sussex from Dec 2008 to Jan 2013. Jim trained as an engineer at Imperial College London and has a PhD in science and technology policy from Sussex. He has 20 years’ research experience on a range of energy, climate change and innovation policy issues. His most recent research has focused on the uncertainties facing carbon capture and storage technologies, low carbon innovation in China, community energy in the UK, and the governance implications of sustainable infrastructure systems. He frequently advises UK government departments and other organisations. He was a lead expert with the UK Foresight project on Sustainable Energy Management and the Built Environment (2007-08), and has been a Specialist Adviser with House of Commons Committees on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (2006-09) and Energy and Climate Change (2010-11). Jim has extensive international experience, including over ten years working on energy scenarios and energy innovation policies in China and India. In 2008, he spent three months as a Visiting Scholar at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Jim is a council member of the British Institute for Energy Economics, and was its chair in 2011. He is also a member of DECC and Defra’s social science expert panel.
James Laurenceson is currently Deputy Director and Professor at the Australia-China Relations Institute (UTS), University of Technology, Sydney. He has previously held appointment at the University of Queensland, Shandong University (China) and Shimonoseki City University (Japan). His research focuses exclusively on the Chinese economy and has been published in international, peer-reviewed journals such as China Economic Review, China Economic Journal, Journal of Chinese Economics and Business Studies and China and World Economy. The Australia-China Relations Institute (ACRI) at the University of Technology, Sydney, was launched by Foreign Minister Julie Bishop in May 2014. The Director is former Foreign Minister Bob Carr. The aim of ACRI is to illuminate the bilateral relationship across political, economic, cultural and other dimensions.
Jennie C. Stephens is the Blittersdorf Professor of Sustainability Science and Policy at the University of Vermont’s Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources and the College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences. Professor Stephens’ research, teaching, and community engagement focus on socio-political aspects of energy technology innovation, electricity system change, climate change communication, and facilitating social learning in the transition from fossil-fuel to renewables based energy systems. She has contributed to understanding the social dynamics of wind power, carbon capture and storage, and smart grid, and brings experience in stakeholder engagement and communication among experts, practitioners, academics, and the public. Professor Stephens was previously on the faculty at Clark University (2005-2014), and she did post-doctoral research at Harvard’s Kennedy School (2002-2005). She earned her PhD (2002) at Caltech in Environmental Science and Engineering and her BA (1997) at Harvard in Environmental Science and Public Policy.
