New York City Mayoral Debate Watch

Dr. Arriaga’s research interests are in the areas of race and ethnicity, immigration, and crimmigration (criminalization of immigration policy and procedure). Her forthcoming book Behind Crimmigration: ICE, Law Enforcement, and Resistance in America highlights how federal immigration enforcement programs are implemented through local law enforcement in the new immigrant destination of North Carolina. Arriaga considers herself a public sociologist and hopes that her scholarship and community work will contribute to more fruitful discussions around crimmigration/polimigra policies. She’s especially interested in how these policies and procedures relate to issues of criminal justice accountability, transparency, reform, and abolition.

Visit her website: https://feliciaarriaga.com/

Rahul Pathak is an assistant professor of public budgeting and financial management in the Marxe School of Public and International Affairs and the Director of Howard J. Samuels State and City Policy Center. His primary research interests lie at the intersection of public finance and social policy, with a particular focus on strengthening the functioning of subnational governments. He examines related issues in the domestic as well as international contexts. His research has appeared in journals such as Public Administration Review, Regional Science and Urban Economics, Journal of Public Budgeting Accounting and Financial Management and the Municipal Finance Journal. He also serves as Associate Editor for Public Finance and Management.

Rahul is serving as the current President of the ASPA New York Metro and has also served as the Treasurer of the organization. He is also elected the Chair of the Northeastern Conference of Public Administration and serves on ASPA’s Financial Management Committee. Before joining CUNY, he has worked at the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies in Atlanta, the Center for Policy Research in New Delhi and the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad.  Rahul received his Ph.D. in Public Policy from Georgia State University, Atlanta, and Master’s degree in Development Studies from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.

Hilary Botein’s research explores the factors that influence urban development, with special attention to the social politics of policies and programs underlying affordable housing and community development. She also is interested in how housing programs can meet the needs of vulnerable populations – and in how they fail. Prior to her academic career, she worked for eighteen years as an attorney and policy analyst on affordable housing and economic justice issues, primarily in New York City.

She received her Ph.D. from the Division of Urban Planning at Columbia University, her J.D. from Northeastern University School of Law, and her B.A. from Swarthmore College.

Marco DeSena is a Lecturer at the Marxe School of Public and International Affairs at Baruch College. He teaches a mix of courses focusing on public sector communication, political campaigning, and New York City government and politics.

Prior to becoming a full-time member of the Marxe faculty, Marco taught as an adjunct lecturer and served as the Undergraduate Faculty Advisor in the Bachelor of Science in Public Affairs (BSPA) program, and even did a stint as the Marxe School’s interim director of the Career Services Office. Before Baruch he worked as a policy and communications analyst, a public relations professional, and a speechwriter for think tanks, advocacy organizations, and political campaigns.

As much as Marco loves the liveliness of learning that takes place inside the classroom, he is a major proponent of the out-of-class experiences for his students. He has great passion for the preparatory role that faculty and staff have in a college student’s career-building process—a role he takes very seriously. As an alum of the very program in which he now teaches, Marco often reflects on his own life-changing college experiences: studying abroad in London; leading the undergraduate Students for Public Affairs club; and participating in four different internships in his four years.

Marco earned his BS in Public Affairs from Baruch College and his MSc in Comparative Politics from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).

Stephanie is a first-generation Dominican-American student passionate about social policy, local government, and serving vulnerable communities. Currently, she is majoring in public affairs and minoring in Black and Latino studies. Her policy interests include racial equity, criminal justice, and economic security for low-income individuals. She is on a mission to build a world centered on equity, justice, and integrity.

Dr. Grimsley is primarily interested in using quantitative research methods to study the impact of immigration arrests and court processes on racial and ethnic groups in the United States and examinations of the factors that lead to deportations. He previously worked at the Innocence Project as a Senior Case Analyst, where he investigated cases of prisoners convicted of serious crimes they did not commit, ultimately helping to free seven innocent people from prison. Additionally, he worked on post-9/11 immigration detentions and deportations for the ACLU Immigrants Rights Project, investigating arrests and detentions for immigrants in New York City and New Jersey.

Judith Kafka uses a historical lens to examine the social, political, and institutional forces that shape American schooling. Her research focuses on urban education from the postwar era through today, and she is particularly interested in the ways in which educational policies serve to both interrupt and reinforce social and economic inequalities.

Dr. Kafka’s book, The History of ‘Zero Tolerance’ in American Public Schooling (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), explores the intersection of race, politics, and bureaucracy in the context of school discipline, using the case of the Los Angeles City School District. Her scholarship has appeared in the Handbook of Research on Teaching (AERA, 2016), History of Education Quarterly, American Journal of Education, Peabody Journal of Education, and Teachers College Record. She is currently at work on a history of race, space and schooling in Brooklyn, from the nineteenth century through today.

Dr. Kafka teaches courses on school reform and education policy and is an active member of the History of Education Society and Division F (History and Historiography) and Division L (Education Policy and Politics) of the American Educational Research Association.

Dr. Kafka received her PhD from the University of California, Berkeley.

Stacey Lesser is an Advertising and Marketing veteran, having worked for over 40 years in that industry. Her expertise was in Strategic Planning and Marketing Research. Over her years in the Advertising industry Stacey worked for numerous advertising agencies both large and small, serving clients locally, nationally, and internationally. In her last position she was the Chief Strategic Officer for Merkley & Partners, a role she held for close to 20 years. She retired from that position in 2021.

Since retiring Stacey has applied her energies and expertise to civic engagement and currently serves on the Board of the League of Women Voters of the City of New York as V.P. of Communciations.

Don Waisanen is a Professor in the Baruch College, CUNY Marxe School of Public and International Affairs, where he received the Presidential Awards for Distinguished Teaching and Distinguished Scholarship. He teaches courses and workshops in public communication—including executive speech training, communication strategy, and seminars on storytelling, conflict and negotiation, and leadership and improvisation.

All of Waisanen’s research seeks to understand how communication works to promote or hinder democracy. Since “every human advancement or reversal can be understood through communication” (Walter Annenberg), he has written over 50 scholarly publications on the subject, covering topics from strategies in public speaking to the ways that organizations and governments can better communicate with different stakeholders. He is the author of seven books, including States of Confusion: How Our Voter ID Laws Fail Democracy and What To Do About It (New York University Press), Improv for Democracy: How to Bridge Differences and Develop the Communication and Leadership Skills Our World Needs (State University of New York Press, New Political Science series), and Real Money, Real Power? The Challenges with Participatory Budgeting in New York City (with Daniel Williams; Palgrave-Macmillan).

Previously, Waisanen worked in broadcast journalism, as a speechwriter, and on campaigns. He is the founder of Communication Upward and an adjunct lecturer at Columbia University and New York University. For the last two decades, he’s also been an improvisational performer at theaters in Los Angeles and New York.