SPPA Welcomes New Faculty!

This summer, three new faculty members have joined SPPA.

Marc-André Gagnon, who comes to us from a post-doctoral position at the Centre for Intellectual Property Policy at McGill University, studies innovation policies in the Canadian pharmaceutical sector, dominant business models in the knowledge-based economy, corporate influence over scientific research and over doctors’ prescribing habits, rising inequalities in the distribution of income, as well as social policy and Pharmacare.  Marc-André believes that academic research should not be confined to academic publications, but should also be disseminated to concerned social actors. In May of 2010, his knowledge translation initiative about the dominant business model in the pharmaceutical sector earned him the IHSPR-CIHR “Rising Star Award.”

He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from York University and a Masters of Advanced Study in History of Economic Thought from Paris-1 Sorbonne and Ecole Normale Superieure de Fontenay/St-Cloud. He is now part of the Pharmaceutical Policy Research Collaboration, directed by Steve Morgan, and he is a Research Fellow on a project directed by Lawrence Lessig on Institutional Corruption for the Edmond J. Safra Centre for Ethics at Harvard University.

Alexandra Mallett joins SPPA from a position as a research fellow at the Sussex Energy Group, a research unit in the Science and Technology Policy Research (SPRU) Department at the University of Sussex. Her work there included the UK-India Collaborative Project to Overcome Barriers for Low Carbon Energy Technologies. In June 2009, that project received a Green Gown Award for exceptional environmental research from the U.K. Environmental Association of Universities and Colleges.

Her background spans both academia and the public sector, including time spent working for the Canadian Government in relation to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. She holds a Ph.D. in Development Studies from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), a Masters in International Development from Dalhousie University and an honours B.A. in International Relations from the University of Toronto.

Her research has concentrated on energy and environmental policy issues, including climate change and renewable energy, and on urban development issues. Her current work focuses on transitions to a low carbon economy and the nexus between innovation and adoption, particularly in the developing world.

Alex continues to be affiliated with the Sussex Energy Group as a visiting fellow, as well as at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research.

Anil Varughese is currently completing an IDRC-funded Ph.D. dissertation in the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto. Broadly, his research seeks to understand how public policy can be harnessed to create equity-enhancing social outcomes in the developing world. His dissertation examines the politics of state-managed redistribution in two Indian states to explain what political factors impede or facilitate pro-poor public action. In his next project, he plans to expand the research to the rest of India and explore how India’s rapid economic ascent may be reinforcing or transforming a long history of social inequities in public policy.

Anil has just won an award from the American Political Science Association’s Labour Project for the best paper on labour and politics presented at the 2009 APSA Annual Convention. He holds a M.A. and M. Phil. from the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi and has done consultancy work for the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) and for Ontario’s  Ministry of Trade and Economic Development. His principal research and teaching interests are political economy of development, comparative politics, comparative welfare states, South Asian politics, and research methods.