Public Affairs Faculty
Dana L. Baker, Ph.D.
Dr. Baker is an Associate Professor in the School of Politics, Philosophy and Public Affairs, and Associate Director of College of Arts and Sciences. She has been at WSU Vancouver since 2005. Her research focuses on comparative neuroethics, neurodiversity, disability, and health policy design. Dr. Baker’s teaching assignments have included Introduction to Public Administration, Proseminar in Public Administration, Leadership Skills for the Public Sector, Policy Analysis, Public Budgeting, Public Personnel Administration, Intergovernmental Relations, History of Civil and Human Rights Policy, Politics of the Policy Process, Disability, Aging and Policy, Comparative Social Welfare Policy, American National Government, Perspectives on Disability, Quantitative Skills in Criminal Justice, and the University Scholars Honors Seminar (focused on comparative neurodiversity and neuroethics). Dr. Baker has a Ph.D. in public policy from the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University Of Texas at Austin, a Masters of Public Policy from the University of Southern California, and a Bachelor of Arts in history and religious studies from Rice University. Dr. Baker is has written or edited numerous books, including the forthcoming (2016) Neuroethics in Higher Education Policy, co-written with Brandon Leonard, and The Politics of Neurodiversity: Why Public Policy Matters. She edited and wrote or co-wrote five chapters for the forthcoming (2017) two-volume series Disability and U.S. Politics: Participation, Policy, and Controversy.
Phone: (360) 546-9125
Office: Multimedia (VMMC) 202N
Email: bakerdl@wsu.edu
Laurie A. Drapela, Ph.D.
Dr. Drapela is an Associate Professor of Criminal Justice. She has been at WSU since 2001. Her research focuses on criminal justice issues, including mental health, substance abuse, juvenile offenses, and community correctional programs. Teaching assignments have included Introduction to Criminal Justice, Crime Control Policies, Juvenile Justice and Corrections, Crime and Justice in the Movies, Violence Towards Women, Ethical Issues in Criminal Justice, Criminal Justice Process and Institutions, Quantitative Methods, and Introduction to Research Methods in Political Science. She is a member of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, the American Society of Criminology, and the Pacific Area Sociological Association. Dr. Drapela attended the University of Texas at Austin for her Ph.D. (Sociology and Criminal Justice), Masters (Sociology), and Bachelor in Arts. Dr. Drapela has contributed chapters to several books about autism spectrum disorder, including “Do ‘Best Practices” Exist for Youth who Have Autism Spectrum Disorder? Making the Case for Specific Responsivity Research among Youth with ASD in the Juvenile Justice System,” in D.L. Baker (Ed.), Disability and U.S. Politics: Participation, Policy, and Controversy. She also co-authored “Policy Awareness, Financial Hardship and Work Impact: Correlates of Negative Experiences with Health Care Providers and Health Care Insurers among Caregivers of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder,” with Dr. Dana L. Baker.
Phone: (360) 546-9485
Office: Classroom (VCLS) 208N
Email: ldrapela@wsu.edu
Susan Finley, Ph.D.
Dr. Finley is a Professor in the College of Education and is Affiliate Faculty in Public Affairs, College of Arts & Sciences, and the Ph.D. Program in Prevention Sciences, College of Agriculture, Human, and Natural Sciences. Research methods and social justice courses are her primary areas of teaching responsibility. She has been at WSU Vancouver since 2001. Dr. Finley bases her pedagogy and inquiry in arts-based approaches to understanding social and cultural issues, policies and practices. She is an activist who has implemented community-based educational efforts with people living in tent communities, street youths, and among economically poor children and their families. She is also an artist, poet, and playwright, and the author of more than 50 scholarly articles and book chapters. Her research has been presented in over 100 presentations at professional research meetings, including the American Educational Research Association and the International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry. Major curricular innovations for preK-22 students have been developed through the At Home At School Community Education effort, which Dr. Finley designed and directs. Dr. Finley received her Ph.D (Education) and her Bachelor in Arts degree (Philosophy and English Language & Literature) from the University of Michigan.
Phone: (360) 546-9649
Office: Undergraduate (VUB) 328
Email: finley@wsu.edu
Katrina Leupp, Ph.D.
Dr. Leupp is an Associate Professor in Sociology. She has been at WSU Vancouver since 2014. Her research interests center on the gendered organization of paid and unpaid labor and its consequences for social inequality, health and family functioning. Current projects consider the mental health benefits of employment for mothers, and investigating how intra-household resource distribution, gender attitudes, and life course stages condition the link between employment and mental health. Other collaborative research examines the consequences of gender egalitarianism for marriage. She teaches Sociology of the Family, Introduction to Social Research, and Gender and Work. She is a member of the Population Association of America and the American Sociological Association. Dr. Leupp has a Ph.D. and Masters in Sociology from the University of Washington and a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from the University of California, Santa Cruz. She has published numerous articles and made many presentations on her work, including “Even Supermoms Get the Blues: Employment, Gender Attitudes, and Depression,” a paper presented at the ASA Annual Meeting, Las Vegas. The findings received media coverage from NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, The TODAY Show, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, LA Times, and Huffington Post. In addition, it was named the top parenting finding of 2011 by TIME.com.
Phone: (360) 546-9279
Office: Multimedia (VMMC) 102X
E-mail: katrina.leupp@wsu.edu
Carolyn Long, Ph.D.
Dr. Long is the Sam Reed Distinguished Professor in Civic Education and Public Civility and an associate professor in the School of Politics, Philosophy and Public Affairs. Her research interests focus on American Institutions, Public Law and American Public Policy. She is the author of two books, “Religious Freedom and Indian Rights: The Case of Oregon v. Smith” and “Mapp v. Ohio: Guarding against Unreasonable Searches and Seizures.” She is currently working on a book on Newdow v. U.S. Congress: The Pledge and the Ninth Circuit for the University Press of Kansas. Dr. Long was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Ljubljana School of Social Sciences in 2009-2010. She has taught courses on the American Constitution, Civil Liberties, Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, The Judicial Process, Administrative Jurisprudence, Congressional Politics, Public Policy and American Institutions at WSUV since 1995. Dr. Long received her B.A. with majors in political science and rhetoric and communication from the University of Oregon in 1989 and her Ph.D. in political science from Rutgers University in 1997.
Office: VMMC 102A, WSU Vancouver
Phone: 360-546-9043
E-mail: coelong@wsu.edu
Anthony C. Lopez, Ph.D.
Dr. Lopez is assistant professor of international relations and political psychology at WSU Vancouver. A member of the faculty since 2012, his research interests include revenge, the uses of force, moral psychology, sex differences in aggression, and offense/defense distinctions in war. Dr. Lopez teaches Introduction to International Politics, Nation States and Global Challenges, Psychology of War, U.S. National Security, American Foreign Policy, Political Psychology, Special Topics in American Foreign & Defense Policy, and Seminar in International Political Economy. Dr. Lopez received his bachelor’s degree from Pitzer College, his Master of Arts from the University of Denver’s Korbel School of International Studies, and his Ph.D. in political science from Brown University. He has also received training as a Research Affiliate with the Center for Evolutionary Psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Dr. Lopez’s has numerous peer-reviewed articles and publications, including “The Evolution of War: Theory and Controversy,” published in 2016 in International Theory, and “Psychology and Constructivism: Uneasy Bedfellows?” in “Psychology and Constructivism in International Relations: An Ideational Alliance.”
Phone: (360) 546-9284
Office: Multimedia (VMMC) 202X
anthony.c.lopez@wsu.edu
Alair MacLean, Ph.D.
Dr. MacLean is an associate professor of sociology. She has served WSU Vancouver since 2006, excepting 2012-2013, when she was a visiting scholar at Observatoire Sociologique du Changement in Paris, France. Her research focuses broadly on social inequality, including the question of how wars affect people’s lives, focusing on the effects of military service and combat exposure on work and health. Dr. MacLean has a Bachelor’s of Arts from Reed College, and her Masters in Science and Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. MacLean’s journal articles include “Coming Home: Attitudes toward U.S. Veterans returning from Iraq” in Social Problems and the chapter “A Matter of Life and Death: Military Service and Health” in Life-Course Perspectives on Military Service.
Phone: (360) 546-9177
Office: Multimedia (VMMC) MMC 202H
Email: alair.maclean@wsu.edu
Clayton Mosher, Ph.D.
Dr. Mosher is a professor of sociology at WSU Vancouver. He has served the WSU system since 1995. Dr. Mosher’s research areas include criminal justice issues, bias in policing, drug courts, racial disparity in criminal justice, and substance and mental health services. He has also served on numerous city, county, and state committees and boards examining these issues, including the Vancouver Council for the Homeless 10-Year Planning Commission, the Clark County Safe Communities Task Force, and the Clark County Methamphetamine Action Team. Dr. Mosher’s Bachelors of Arts is from the University of Toronto, his Masters of Arts in Criminology is from Simon Fraser University, and his Ph.D. is in sociology from the University of Toronto. Dr. Mosher’s publications include “Drugs and Drug Policy – The Control of Consciousness Alteration” and “The myth of accurate crime measurement” in Demystifying Crime and Criminal Justice.
Phone: (360) 546-9439
Office: Multimedia (VMMC) 202B
Email: cmosher@wsu.edu
Mark Stephan, Ph.D.
Dr. Stephan is an associate professor of political science. His research is focused on environmental governance, with a current focus on climate change policies at the subnational level. Dr. Stephan has been at WSU Vancouver since 2001. He teaches American Government, American Public Policy, Voting and Elections, Political Parties and Interest Groups, Mass Media and Politics, Contemporary Political Theory, and graduate courses in Democratic Theory and Bureaucratic Politics. He received his Bachelor of Arts from the University of California, Santa Cruz, in 1990, and a Ph.D. in political science from Princeton University in 2000. Dr. Stephan has been published in a variety of academic journals, including “Social Science Quarterly,” “Environment and Behavior,” and “American Behavioral Scientist.” He is currently working on a three-year project focused on climate risk governance. Dr. Stephan’s 2011 co-authored book, Coming Clean: Information Disclosure and Environmental Performance, won the 2012 Lynton Caldwell Book Prize. With Dr. Dana Baker, he co-authored “Mad Cow Disease and Public Policy: Governance, Risk, and the Politics of Science,” a chapter in Science and Politics: An A-to-Z Guide to Issues and Controversies, and co-authored the book Pacific Northwest Dams and the Unintended Consequences of Public Policy, with Dr. Paul Thiers.
Phone: (360) 546-9467
Located in Classroom (VCLS) 208
Email: stephanm@wsu.edu
Paul Thiers, Ph.D.
Dr. Paul Thiers is an associate professor of political science. He has been at WSU Vancouver since 1999. His research focuses on climate change and energy policy and politics, economic policy, China, and international affairs more broadly. He teaches courses related to environmental policy and comparative politics. Dr. Thiers travels to China regularly, and is fluent in Mandarin Chinese. Dr. Thiers has a Master of Arts in social science from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Oregon. He was also a research fellow at the Center for Integrated Agricultural Development at the China Agricultural University. Dr. Thiers co-authored “Examining land use planning outcomes in the Portland, OR-Vancouver, WA (USA) metropolitan area under differing planning regimes,” in Landscape and Urban Planning, and “Pacific Northwest Dams and the Unintended Consequences of Public Policy,” in Science and Politics: An A to Z Guide to Issues and Controversies.
Phone: (360) 546-9466
Office: Multimedia (VMMC) 102S
Email: pthiers@wsu.edu
Thomas M. Tripp, Ph.D.
Dr. Tripp is a professor in management at WSU Vancouver, as well as the Associate Dean of Undergraduate Programs for the Carson College of Business at WSU. Dr. Tripp’s research focuses on customer service, organizational dynamics and leadership, social media management, decision-making, and organizational ethics. Dr. Tripp teaches Leadership Skills, Negotiations, Smart Decision-Making, Organizational Behavior, Environmental Ethics, and Applied Statistics. Dr. Tripp received the Students’ Award for Teaching Excellence from Washington State University Vancouver students in 2015. He has a Bachelor’s Degree in psychology from the University of Washington and a Ph.D. in organizational behavior from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.
Phone: (360) 546-9754
Located in Classroom (VCLS) 308E
Email: ttripp@wsu.edu
Amy Wharton, Ph.D.
Dr. Amy S. Wharton is Academic Director and Associate Dean in the College of Arts and Sciences and Professor of Sociology at WSU Vancouver. She is joined the WSU faculty in 1987 on the Pullman campus and moved to WSU Vancouver in 2000. After receiving her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Oregon in 1984, she completed a post-doctoral fellowship in organizational research at Stanford University. Dr. Wharton’s research on gender inequality, the sociology of work, and work-family policies has been published in the American Sociological Review, Social Forces, and Work & Occupations, as well as many other peer-reviewed journals and edited books. Dr. Wharton is the editor of Working in America: Continuity, Conflict, and Change, the author of The Sociology of Gender: An Introduction to Theory and Research, and co-author of The Sociology of Work: Structures and Inequalities. Her current research examines gender, leadership, and organizational change in the academic workplace. Dr. Wharton was a co-PI on the WSU NSF ADVANCE grant (2009-2014) and remains actively involved in the broader ADVANCE community, serving on an NSF ADVANCE review panel, as a member of several external advisory boards for ADVANCE projects, and as presenter at national conferences. Her many elected positions in professional organizations include service as Chair of the Organizations, Occupations, and Work Section of the American Sociological Association (ASA) and Chair of the ASA section on Sex and Gender. She has served as a journal editor and member of multiple editorial boards. At WSU, Dr. Wharton was the recipient of the 2013 Sahlin Faculty Excellence Award for Leadership and received the Chancellor’s Award for Research Excellence from WSU Vancouver in 2007.
Phone: (360) 546-9617
Located in Multimedia (VMMC) 202A
Email: wharton@wsu.edu
Darryl S. Wood, Ph.D.
Dr. Wood is an associate professor of criminal justice. Dr. Wood has been at WSU Vancouver since 2007. Dr. Wood’s research on criminal justice focuses on domestic violence, sexual assault, alcohol and drug abuse, and indigenous and rural criminal justice issues. Dr. Wood has bachelors and master’s degrees in criminal justice from New Mexico State University, and a Ph.D. in criminology from Simon Frasier University in British Columbia. Dr. Wood also completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Alcohol Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Public Health. Dr. Wood was an investigator in providing technical assistance to the Alaska Statewide Violence Against Women Survey, which was funded by the Alaska Department of Public Safety through the University of Alaska Anchorage in 2010, and the principle investigator for a study of literature and extant Research and evaluation in the area of alcohol and substance use and abuse in American Indian and Alaska Native communities, which was funded by the National Institute of Justice. Dr. Wood has had articles published in Criminal Justice Policy Review, the Journal of Interpersonal Violence, and Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies and Management. Dr. Wood’s publications have been featured in the United States and Canada, at conferences for the American Society of Criminology, the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, and the Western Social Science Association.
Phone: (360) 546-9255
Located in Classroom (VCLS) 208B
Email: darrylwood@wsu.edu
Adjunct Faculty
Ellen Rogers, Ph.D.
Dr. Rogers is an adjunct professor of political science. She received her Ph.D. in political science from Washington State University in 2014, and her MPA from Washington State University Vancouver in 2006. She has taught at WSUV since 2014, and was a graduate student instructor from 2009-2014. Her research interests are environmental politics, public administration, public policy, state and local government, and American institutions. Dr. Rogers has a Bachelor of Science from the University of Connecticut in management information systems and accounting, and a Masters of Business Administration with a marketing focus from Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium. Dr. Rogers teaches undergraduate and graduate courses.
Phone: (360) 921-4235
Located in Multimedia Center (VMMC) 102P
Email: erogers67@wsu.edu