Moving research from academia to application

SPEA’s Evan Lowder effects community change through her research

Posted on December 10, 2018 by Leslie Wells

SPEA postdoctoral research associate Evan Lowder

Sitting in her office on the fourth floor of SPEA, Evan Lowder spends much of her time scanning through spreadsheets and poring over research literature. She’s working to combine the two into analysis she hopes will be used to inform policies and practices throughout Indiana and beyond.

“I think there’s an obligation for researchers to ask how we can advance the state of science and knowledge around these issues to bring that work back into communities,” says Lowder, who earned her doctorate in psychology at North Carolina State University.

Her focus on socially relevant research is what landed Lowder a position as a postdoctoral research associate with SPEA, working primarily with associate professor Brad Ray, who serves as the director for the Center for Health and Justice Research with the IU Public Policy Institute.

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African Americans at increasing risk of lethal fentanyl-related overdose

Posted on December 3, 2018 by Leslie Wells

As stricter prescribing rules make prescription opioids less accessible, those with opioid use disorder are turning to synthetic substances instead. This shift has led to a recent rise in overdose deaths linked to synthetic opioids, like fentanyl. New research from the Center for Health and Justice Research (CHJR) at the Indiana University Public Policy Institute finds a dramatic increase in these deaths in recent years, along with an increasingly high risk of death for African Americans.

SPEA associate professor Dr. Brad Ray leads the CHJR and in his latest research on opioid deaths, published in the journal Addictive Behaviors, examined fentanyl-related overdose trends in Marion County, Indiana from 2010 through April 2017.

During that time, rates of overdoses involving fentanyl rose significantly. Those rates had remained lower than 15 percent from 2010 through 2013. However, they skyrocketed in recent years. By 2017, nearly half of all overdose deaths involved fentanyl. As time passed, there was also a shift from fentanyl simply being one opioid in the victim’s system to being the only opioid.

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Going beyond a business degree

Posted on November 26, 2018 by Leslie Wells

Tasha Phelps standing on IUPUI campus — Tasha Phelps, SPEA alumna and Phelco Technologies president & CEO.

SPEA alumna Tasha Phelps spent more than two decades building her information technology company from the ground up. A business degree helped lay the foundation for Phelco Technologies but as its focus shifted from the private sector to contracts with law enforcement and state government agencies, Phelps knew her business degree alone would not be enough.

“I wanted to be able to communicate better and at a different level with my clients,” she recalls.

Phelps needed—and wanted—to learn more about this new breed of clientele and how her company could help them assess the impact of their IT systems on public safety.

After a conversation with SPEA Executive Associate Dean Tom Stucky, Phelps enrolled in SPEA’s Homeland Security and Emergency Management graduate certificate program. Even though she earned that certificate, she wasn’t finished learning.

“It was the carrot in front of me,” she recalls. “Earning my master’s would … allow me to have more informed conversations with the clients I serve.”

She wanted to learn how criminal justice and public safety organizations operated, and how citizens can impact those agencies. So Phelps continued on, earning her Criminal Justice and Public Safety master’s degree from SPEA in 2016.

“The education at SPEA is what gave me the insight into how public safety professionals are trained to think and behave,” Phelps says. “I can’t put into words how critical that level of information is to someone in this industry.”

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Internship connects O’Neill students with sustainability

Posted on November 19, 2018 by Leslie Wells

SPEA's Gifty Adusei (L) and Keep Indianapolis Beautiful's Kelly DeRolf (R) look at the health of plants and trees in a community green space on the south side of Indianapolis — SPEA’s Gifty Adusei (L) and Keep Indianapolis Beautiful’s Kelly DeRolf (R) look at the health of plants and trees in a community green space on the south side of Indianapolis.

“I want people to see sustainability the way I see it,” Gifty Adusei says, smiling. “I don’t want to talk sustainability; I want to live it.”

She spends much of her time checking local green spaces around Indianapolis. The O’Neill Environmental Policy and Sustainability graduate student is looking at how plants are faring, checking on the health of the trees, and whether the neighbors who partnered with Keep Indianapolis Beautiful to create this space are working to maintain it.

Adusei’s sustainability journey began more than 5,600 miles from Indianapolis. While pursuing her undergraduate degree in her native Ghana, Adusei was introduced to environmental management. She knew she wanted to take that mission further but would need more experience and education under her belt.

While still in Ghana, she worked for a nonprofit focused on community sustainability.

“It was quite obvious that a lot of the problems the local people had were linked to issues with sustainability practices,” Adusei says. “They hadn’t gotten to the point where they appreciated the things that would help them in terms of farming or bodies of water, for example.”

Adusei wants to be the one to change that, but she says the courses she needed to prepare weren’t available in Ghana.

“One of the things I was looking for was a program that emphasized the practical side of sustainability,” she adds. “I saw O’Neill’s internships and capstone project and knew it would give me that practical experience I was searching for.”

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Despite losing Amazon HQ2, Indianapolis region is still leading the new Midwest

Posted on November 13, 2018 by Leslie Wells

After more than a year of intense competition, Amazon has announced its decision for its much sought-after HQ2. Company officials announced Tuesday that they had selected two locations the company selected two locations, rather than one, and will evenly split the 50,000 jobs and its headquarters between Arlington, Virginia, and New York City.

In an unexpected announcement, Amazon also announced that Nashville will become the home of a new operations hub, bringing an additional 5,000 jobs to the city.

For more than a year, communities across North America—including the Indianapolis region—developed and presented proposals to Amazon, all vying for the $5 billion project.

IU Public Policy Institute senior analyst Drew Klacik was among the experts who assisted in developing the city’s pitch. Klacik specializes in looking at the impact and interrelated nature of economic decisions. He says the Indy region worked diligently to communicate the assets that make it competitive among a field of much larger cities.

“Indianapolis and the surrounding communities have a lot to offer for workforce development and economic opportunity, but also in terms of quality of life factors,” Klacik said. “The Indianapolis region as a whole is really redefining what it means to be a Midwestern metropolitan area. They’re leading the way on a new Midwest.”

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