Tom Birkland is currently on leave at the National Science Foundation, where he is program director for the infrastructure Management and Hazard Response program in the Division for Civil, Mechanical, and Manufacturing Innovation, Directorate for Engineering. In January 2007 he will return to the College and to his duties as director of the Center for Policy Research (www. albany.edu/cpr). The Center contains numerous scholars from across Rockefeller College, the University, and elsewhere, who engage in research on a wide range of policy questions. The Center is funded by private, state, local, and national funding agencies, including the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and New York State agencies. Professor Birkland is also a co-director of an interdisciplinary Master's program in Biodiversity and Conservation Policy, and is an adjunct member of the Department of Biological Sciences.
Professor Birkland's research and teaching is in the public policy process, with an emphasis of the political, policy, and managerial aspects of natural and human hazards and disasters. He is the author of After Disaster: Agenda Setting, Public Policy, and Focusing Events (1997) and Lessons of Disaster: Policy Change after Catastrophic Events (2006), both with Georgetown University Press. His textbook, An Introduction to the Policy Process (2 nd Ed., M.E. Sharpe, 2005) has been very well received and widely adopted, and in October of 2006, CQ Press released Professor Todd Schaefer of Central Washington University and Professor Birkland's edited volume, Encyclopedia of Media and Politics Professor Birkland has in recent years visited Thailand and New Orleans in his research on disaster policy.
He has published papers in a range of academic outlets, including several articles and book chapters co-written with graduate students. Recent publications include articles in Social Science Quarterly, Review of Policy Research, Natural Hazards Review, Albany Law Environmental Outlook, and in several edited volumes. Professor Birkland's professional experience includes service as an aide to Governor Thomas Kean of New Jersey, and as assistant manager of Strategic Planning at the New Jersey Department of Transportation.
