Ratna B. Dougherty, an assistant professor in the College of Arts and Sciences School of Public Affairs, has earned the 2024 Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM) Equity & Inclusion Fellowship for Young Professionals.
Dougherty (left) and Witkowski (right) took part in a volunteering opportunity at one of the Maui hubs—Napili Noho. This hub was one of the community organized efforts within days of the Maui wildfires providing impacted community members a place to ‘shop’ for groceries. As of May 2024, this hub was still operational daily, according to Dougherty. (Photo courtesy of Ratna B. Doughtery)
The APPAM provides the fellowship to support the travel and participation of students and faculty from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds at APPAM’s 2024 Fall Research Conference in National Harbor, Md., allowing fellowship recipients to formally network with members of the policy council and diversity committee at a fellowship luncheon recognizing them and their accomplishments.
Fellowship recipients may also network with other students, faculty and practitioners in different policy fields and engage in mentoring activities with professionals during the conference.
Dougherty, who joined USF just a year ago in 2023, has focused her work on interorganizational networks and governance — essentially organizations working together collaboratively — and emergency management.
“I am interested in this field because, increasingly, we are seeing multi-level and cross-jurisdictional responses necessary for the increased scale and scope of disasters coming our way,” she explained. “I want to better understand how these networks operate, how they can collaborate better and what that means for policy decisions.”
The fellowship provided Dougherty with one year of APPAM membership, a two-night hotel stay and presentation guarantee at the annual conference and a $1,000 stipend.
Dougherty took this as an opportunity to present two of her research works that have received funding through the Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado Boulder and the USF Humanities Institute, centered around the socially vulnerable populations and the Maui wildfires in 2023.
One of these presentations includes Savannah Havird and Megan Corn, students in the master of public administration program at USF, who participated in the data collection and analysis.
Across the 31 interviews, 28 images collected from field work, 381 social media images and 12 official documents analyzed, Doughtery shared some interesting initial findings:
- The challenges identified by interviewees included ensuring the recovery process is considerate of culture and the inherent distrust the community has of the government.
- Interviewees noted that there are opportunities in the recovery process to identify and formalize long-term resilience in policies.
- Social media highlighted the extensive and organized community response and recovery efforts that need to be exemplified for other areas.
- Post-disaster reports should further explore and build updated policies and plans to engage the collaborations amongst partner agencies outside of a disaster timeframe.
An image of a fence that is blocking off a burn zone area with a very unique facade. Photographed are “Maui Strong” support images drawn by children in Maui and in the Lahaina area that were displaced by the schools' destruction. (Photo courtesy of Ratna B. Doughtery)
“APPAM is also one of the premier organizations for public policy academy and practice across different disciplines, so having the chance to be surrounded by these different perspectives is critical to my growth as a scholar,” she said. “I believe my network should include people that are outside of my area of expertise, as well as outside of my institution. I believe this has the potential to build a well-rounded faculty. Being a fellow in this program will enhance my faculty experience by engaging me with professionals, not just in academia, but also policymakers and practitioners, which I think will be a benefit to my work at USF in the long run.”
Dougherty is also an alumna of the CAS School of Public Affairs and said she looks forward to reciprocating the support she earned while earning her degree to current students.
“I have the most supportive faculty, the most diverse group of students from different parts of life, and the opportunity and flexibility to explore the public administration issues I believe are most critical.”
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