EJB Talks: Rutgers Bloustein School Experts

In this eye-opening episode of EJB Talks, Stuart Shapiro welcomes Professor Soumitra Bhuyan to discuss his research on why hospitals are losing the cybersecurity battle. Dr. Bhuyan discusses how data security breaches often arise from physical causes, not just digital ones, and how human error and managerial misses are a root cause.  They also discuss how current Bloustein students are being...

In March 2020 the spread of COVID-19 was rampant and New Jersey was at the epicenter of the outbreak. Hospitals and their administrators were faced with unthinkable challenges. In combatting these challenges, hospitals had to change their way of operating. For our third episode this season, Professor Stuart Shapiro welcomes Assistant Teaching Professor Susan Krum to discuss the rapid response...

The effects of COVID-19 on the economy will be deep and long lasting. One of the more important impacts may be on housing markets.  In this episode of EJBTalks, Stuart Shapiro has a revealing conversation with Assistant Professor Eric Seymour about the rental housing market and the looming eviction crisis. Professor Seymour talks about his research on predatory institutional landlords, includ...

EJB Talks returns! In the first episode of our second season, Professor Stuart Shapiro talks with Associate Teaching Professor Patti O'Brien-Richardson about her research and advocacy on natural hair discrimination.  She discusses the CROWN Act, a statute adopted by a number of states to address this form of discrimination. She also describes the connection between hair discrimination an...

The economic casualties of the pandemic are all around us--shops and restaurants shuttered, entertainment venues closed indefinitely, casinos limited to minimal visitors, and much more. As New Jersey begins the slow move towards reopening, the downstream effects of COVID-19 will continue to be visible for a long time. Stuart Shapiro and Michael Lahr, Distinguished Research Professor and Director o...

COVID-19 has monumentally changed how we have lived for the last five months, with most of the population quarantining at home. In previous episodes, we examined the effect the quarantine has had on some of our most vulnerable populations. This week on EJB Talks, we explore a population that can be particularly affected by stay-at-home orders--those facing intimate partner violence. Stuart Shapiro...

2020: It's an election year like no other. In this episode of EJB Talks, we get back to national politics. The Bloustein School's Director of Engagement and Special Projects Amy Cobb MPAP '18 returns to ask Professor Stuart Shapiro some pressing questions concerning the presidential and congressional races.  Where does the race stand?  How will the conventions, and VP Biden's selection o...

Stuart Shapiro welcomes Associate Professor of Public Policy Julia Rubin to our next episode of EJB Talks.  She shares her personal experience starting an NJ based educational grassroots organization, that exposed her to the various institutional aspects of New Jersey politics. She discusses her recent article on the role of political machines in New Jersey and how the design of ballots favor...

Will the nature of college be forever changed by the pandemic and the ensuing recession? This is just one of the questions discussed on EJB Talks this week. Stuart Shapiro and Marc Weiner, Executive Director of Undergraduate Programs for the Bloustein School, examine why the sudden, emergency transition to online education was not an easy one. They also discuss how schools like Blou...

Professor Stuart Shapiro speaks with senior research specialist Charles Brown of the Alan M. Voorhees Transportation Center  on the subject of disparities in transportation planning this week on EJB Talks. Mr. Brown, also an instructor in transportation policy and planning for the school, connects transportation to social disparities, social justice, equity, and COVID-19. In addition to consi...

This week on EJB Talks Stuart Shapiro sits down with Bloustein School Senior Policy Fellow and former New Jersey Budget Director Richard Keevey, who reflects on his years of budgeting at both the state and national levels. Mr. Keevey gives his take on how the pandemic, and the ensuing economic downturn, have put enormous pressure on state governments. The pandemic has increased the needs of reside...

EJB Talks welcomes Jeanne Herb, executive director of the Bloustein School's Environmental Analysis and Communications Group to talk about the intersection of the climate crisis, COVID, and economic inequality with Stuart Shapiro. They discuss the work that her center and the University are doing to help New Jersey address the disparate impacts of climate change on our most vulnerable populations,...

Stuart Shapiro welcomes Lisa Gulla, epidemiologist, disease investigator, and Bloustein lecturer in this week's episode of EJB Talks for a candid discussion about the challenges facing local level disease investigators during the COVID-19 pandemic. She reveals how data can be misconstrued and misinterpreted by well-meaning officials, information-hungry media, as well as "arm-chair" epidemiologists...

Over a period of four days in 1967, Newark was one of over 150 U.S. cities rocked by rioting, looting, and property destruction, with 26 deaths and hundreds injured. This week on EJB Talks Associate Dean Stuart Shapiro takes a look back at those tumultuous events with Linda Stamato and Sandy Jaffe , co-directors of the Bloustein Center for Negotiation and Conflict Resolution . Sandy chaired the Li...

In this episode of EJB Talks, Associate Dean Stuart Shapiro speaks with Bloustein School alumnus Storm Ervin MPP '18.  Now an analyst for The Urban Institute in Washington D.C. Ms. Ervin was a central organizer for the protests at the University of Missouri after the murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson MO in 2014. She shares her experiences from the Missouri protests and draws lessons fo...

The murder of George Floyd has resulted in protests across the country.  In this episode of EJB Talks, Associate Dean Stuart Shapiro , author of the Not Normal blog on the Trump Administration, discusses the president's response to the protests and the likely electoral implications.  With the protests layered on top of a still-persistent pandemic and a deepening economic recession, will...

"Supply chain" became the buzz phrase at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic when supermarket shelves--and online retailers--were emptied of hand sanitizer, cleaning supplies, and toilet paper. Most of the time how the products we want, or need, arrive at the retailers is not on our minds--unless you drive by an 18-wheeler emblazoned with a particular logo. But as the director of Freight Planning a...

With the guarded hope that we are on a downward trend of coronavirus activity, the discussion has turned to the reopening of the state. EJB Talks host Stuart Shapiro broaches the topic with Bloustein alumnus Brandon McKoy, MCRP '13 , president of New Jersey Policy Perspective , and a member of New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy's commission to reopen the state. Brandon touches on some of the issues t...

When we think of people engaging in unhealthy lifestyles, we are quick to blame the offender. What we often fail to recognize is that not everyone has the same opportunities. In this episode of EJB Talks, Stuart Shapiro delves more deeply into the area of health disparities with professor Dawne Mouzon , a medical sociologist specializing in health disparities across vulnerable populations. Dr. Mou...

The Rutgers Urban and Civic Informatics Lab (RUCI Lab) was recently founded at the Bloustein School, with the mission of using new sources of data and emerging technologies to study the health of cities, and by doing so, improve the quality of urban life. This week, Stuart Shapiro talks with the Bloustein School's newest employee, Gavin Rozzi , who joined the school as a Research Computing Special...

The New Jersey/New York region is one of the most densely populated in the United States with some of the most widely traveled public transit systems. Thousands of New Jerseyans take NJ Transit bus and rail to New York City; thousands more crowd the New York bus and subway systems. These heavily-used systems have been flagged as possible reasons for the spread of COVID-19. Today on EJB Talks, Stua...

There has been both in- and out-migration from cities now for years depending upon economic conditions, but the pandemic has hit our cities and high-density areas the hardest. After years of re-urbanization, are we going to see a new wave of urban flight? Has the shift to staying home, working from home, and having all of our necessities being delivered to our homes going to fundamentally change t...

Returning to the healthcare field amidst the COVID-19 crisis, host Stuart Shapiro welcomes Professor Soumitra Bhuyan , who teaches in the Bloustein School's health administration program and Dr. Sabiha Hussain from Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital. Their discussion focuses on the social determinants of health; what they are and how they are affecting the outcomes of COVID-19 patients. The r...

The unemployment numbers in this first month of the COVID-19 pandemic have been staggering. What can we do to help those who are finding themselves newly unemployed, desperately waiting for their benefits to start and not sure where to turn? In this episode of EJB Talks, our host  Stuart Shapiro , Associate Dean of Faculty and Professor of Policy at the Bloustein School, talks to Carl Van Hor...

The battle against Covid-19 has required a society-wide response.  One of the key underappreciated components of that response has been the people who keep our hospitals running.  We talk with Professor Ann Marie-Hill who teaches in the Bloustein school health administration program about the role that health administrators are playing in the Covid-19 response.