Lecturer in Criminology, Edinburgh Napier University Kirstin is currently working on a number of research projects including, ‘Examining the health and well-being of older people with cognitive frailty and dementia in prison’, funded by the Dunhill Medical Trust; ‘Stories of Social Justice in a time of State Building’, funded by the British Academy and ‘Communication through music: Mothers and babies in prison’, funded by the Royal Society of Edinburgh. She completed her PhD at the University of Edinburgh, her thesis Music Education and Experience in Scottish Prisons contributes to the developing research on the benefits of arts provision for people in custody and provides a baseline for further work on music education in Scottish prisons. Kirstin taught music at Polmont Young Offenders Institution in Scotland, designed a workbook on teaching music in prisons as part of a Knowledge Transfer grant from the University of Edinburgh and was the lead researcher on the national project Inspiring Change in 2010. She has worked as a researcher with the Scottish Prison Service, the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research, the Institute for Music in Human and Social Development and the Scottish Human Rights Commission.
PhD Candidate in Economics, University of Kentucky Kyle Jones is an economist interested in the intersection of public, health, and labor economics to evaluate the impacts of the social safety net and public policies. He is a PhD Candidate in Economics at the University of Kentucky.
Assistant Professor of Political Science, Purdue University Kaylyn Jackson Schiff is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Purdue University and Co-Director of the Governance and Responsible AI Lab (GRAIL). Kaylyn studies American politics and policy, with a focus on quantitative and experimental methods. Her research addresses how citizens share information with government and examines the drivers of policymaker and bureaucrat responsiveness to citizen input. Additionally, she devotes particular attention to the impacts of emerging technologies on government and society. For example, she considers how technological developments are changing citizen-government contact and explores implications for service provision, misinformation, policing, education, and government use of artificial intelligence. Kaylyn’s research has been published in journals such as the Journal of Politics, Nature Human Behaviour, Policy Studies Journal, the Journal of Experimental Political Science, Public Opinion Quarterly, State Politics & Policy Quarterly, and Public Administration. In addition, her dissertation — "The Digital Citizen: The Impact of Technology on Public Participation and Government Responsiveness" — won the 2023 Leonard D. White Award for Best Dissertation in the Field of Public Administration by the American Political Science Association. Kaylyn received her Ph.D. and M.A. in Political Science from Emory University and completed a B.A. in Public Policy from Princeton University and an M.Ed. from Fordham University. For the 2022-2023 academic year, she was a Postdoctoral Associate with the Institution for Social and Policy Studies at Yale University. Previously, Kaylyn worked in K-12 education as a teacher and as a school administrator focused on curriculum design, assessment, and educational data use.
Pediatric Nurse Practitioner, Adjunct Instructor of Nursing at Purdue Global, Purdue University Kristin Ahrens, DNP, RN, CPNP-PC, Purdue Global University, is an Adjunct Instructor at Purdue Global School of Nursing. She earned her Bachelor’s in Kinesiology from the University of Michigan and her MSN and DNP from Case Western Reserve University. She has worked as a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner in a school-based health clinic for over 22 years. In addition, she has taught Master’s level nursing courses for 10 years and continues pursuing her own learning. Her doctoral focus was on cardiac risk factors in children and she has special interest in adolescent health. She served as the Nurse Practitioner representative on the State of Michigan Board of Nursing from 2017-2021.
Assistant Professor, University of Maryland, Baltimore County Kerri Evans, Ph.D., LCSW, is currently an Assistant Professor in the School of Social Work at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) and earned her Ph.D. from Boston College School of Social Work. Dr. Evans' research stems from her social work experience with refugees and unaccompanied immigrant children in the US. She has held many roles including an in-home bilingual case manager, a program manager for immigrants in foster care, a cross-border permanency specialist for immigrant families impacted by the child welfare system, a community organizer working to increase access to higher education for immigrants, and an ESL teacher. Dr. Evans remains a licensed social worker. Utilizing partnerships with nonprofit organizations, Dr. Evans works to answer service providers' questions to improve service delivery and make policy recommendations that will improve the lives of immigrants and refugees in the US. Topically, most of her research focuses on unaccompanied and refugee children's well-being, school welcome for immigrants in K-12 settings, and higher education access. Dr. Evan’s also does research around teaching pedagogy and hopes to increase knowledge gain and satisfaction among university students.
Postdoctoral Researcher in Supply Chain Finance, University of Western Macedonia Konstantinos Melas is a Post-doctoral researcher in Supply Chain Finance at the University of Western Macedonia (Kastoria, Greece), and a Programme leader of Business programmes at Metropolitan College (Thessaloniki, Greece). His research interests cover maritime economics, commodity markets, logistics and corporate finance. He has published his papers, in established refereed journals, such as, International Economics, Maritime Economics & Logistics, Review of Behavioral Finance, among others. He holds a Ph.D. in Commerce, Finance and Shipping from Cyprus University of Technology, a M.Sc. in International Accounting and Finance from City University, London and a B.Sc. in Economics from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Before joining the academia, he has worked in junior managerial positions in the shipping and the asset management sectors.
