2023 Distinguished Associate Professors

The Provost Office is pleased to announce the 2023 Distinguished Associate Professors:

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Meg Leta Jones is Associate Professor in the Communications, Culture, and Technology Program in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. She is core faculty of the Science Technology and International Affairs program in the School of Foreign Service, and affiliated faculty at the Law Center, Kennedy Institute of Ethics, and the Center for Digital Ethics. She has a PhD in Engineering and Applied Science from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Described as a rare “superconnector”, Dr. Jones’ work bridges law, policy, ethics, information studies, and public opinion.  She uses comparative, interpretive, legal, and historical methods to study issues of global digital governance. Through multiple books with top-tier publishers such as NYU and MIT Press, and numerous journal articles in top technology, public policy and law review journals, Dr. Jones addresses social, legal and technical issues surrounding digital oblivion, digital consent, and privacy. At Georgetown, she has been highly instrumental in building the Tech & Society Initiative, the Masters in Law & Technology, and the Center for Digital Ethics, including design of the Tech, Ethics, & Society undergraduate program. She serves on program committees of key conferences in the areas of technology policy and law.

Dr. Jones teaches courses in technology policy, comparative international privacy and governance of emerging technology and mentors senior and masters theses and Fritz fellows.

Justin Thaler is Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science in the College of Arts and Sciences. He holds a Ph.D. from the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University. 

Dr. Thaler’s research addresses fundamental computational problems with practical implications in today’s digital world. He works on verifiable computing, quantum computing, massive data algorithms and learning theory. Dr. Thaler’s work has been recognized with numerous “Best paper” awards for his peer-reviewed publications, NSF CAREER award, and substantial grant funding from NSF and DARPA. He has also published two monographs, one on the theory and practice of cryptographic protocols and another covering analytical techniques in theoretical computer science. Dr. Thaler is the co-creator of an open-source library of streaming algorithms. At Georgetown, Dr. Thaler has served on the steering committee of the Data Analytics programs in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. He is active in his discipline, serving on the editorial board of the prestigious SIAM Journal of Computing and on the program committees of multiple conferences, and organizing workshops on algorithms. 

Dr. Thaler teaches graduate level courses and mentors graduate students in computer science. 

Alexandre Poirier is Associate Professor in the Department of Economics in the College of Arts and Sciences. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California at Berkeley. 

What is the causal effect of roads on trade? Of job training on future earnings? As an econometrician, Dr. Poirier answers such questions by developing statistical methods to assess the sensitivity of causal conclusions. With papers appearing in some of the most influential journals in economics such as Econometricia and Journal of Econometrics, Dr. Poirier’s research has wide impact on applied questions including policy evaluation.  He disseminates his methods by writing software modules for commonly used statistical software. He serves as Associate Editor for the Journal of Business & Economic Statistics and on the scientific program committee of the International Association for Applied Econometrics, and is a frequent reviewer for journals in econometrics. 

Dr. Poirier teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in econometrics and mentors graduate students in economics.

Brian McCabe is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology in the College of Arts and Sciences and affiliated faculty in the McCourt School of Public Policy. He has a Ph.D. in Sociology from New York University. 

Working at the intersection of urban sociology, housing policy, and politics, Dr. McCabe’s research impacts contemporary debates on housing and urban development. His publication record includes books with top-tier publishers such as University of Chicago Press, journal articles in premier outlets such as American Sociological Review, Urban Affairs Review, op-eds in the Washington Post, and policy reports on housing voucher programs and evictions. A testament to Dr. McCabe’s impactful scholarship is his recent two-year appointment as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy Development in the Office of Policy Development and Research in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Dr. McCabe has served as the Faculty Director for Research and Scholarship at Georgetown’s Center for Social Justice. He is active in professional service, in editorial roles at urban studies journals (City and Community, Housing Policy Debates), as reviewer for sociology, political science, urban studies journals, and as elected council member of the Community and Urban Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association.

Dr. McCabe teaches introductory and specialty seminar courses in sociology and active learning courses on gentrification that take students out of the classroom. His own out of the classroom activity includes a 4000-mile Transamerica cycling tour!

Sebastian Jilke is Associate Professor in the McCourt School of Public Policy. He has a Ph.D. from Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands. 

Dr. Jilke is an emerging leader in behavioral public administration, an area of public management in which experimental designs are employed to test insights from psychology in public administration settings. His work aims to identify behavioral factors that increase inequality in citizen-state interactions and shape public service delivery. Supported by numerous external grants, Dr. Jilke’s work is published in top-tier journals in public administration and has won the prestigious Beryl Radin Award for the best article published in the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory. He is one of the co-founding directors of McCourt’s Better Government Lab, and engages directly with federal agencies like the US Office of Evaluation Services. Dr. Jilke is the founding editor of the Journal of Behavioral Public Administration and co-editor of the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, a top public policy journal.  

Dr. Jilke teaches graduate courses in public management and mentors graduate and postdoctoral scholars.