Good afternoon! We’re less than a month away from the start of the Fall Semester.

In this edition of The Price Post, students help a nonprofit choir, we remember a beloved faculty member, and artificial intelligence floods the internet with election disinformation.

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Voters may feel pressure to choose between the “lesser of two evils” in close elections, instead of picking, say, a third party candidate who is unlikely to win.

• But what if voters could pick a candidate they preferred without feeling like their ballot would have no influence on the outcome?

Nivea Krishnan, who earned a Bachelor of Science in Public Policy, believes a ranked-choice voting system  – in which voters rank candidates in order of preference – could be the answer.

• “Let’s say I ranked a third-party candidate first and a Democrat second. If that third-party candidate doesn’t get enough votes, my vote doesn’t get discarded. It gets moved to my second choice,” Krishnan explained. “It’s more empowering for the average voter, especially in the system that is so two-party dominated.”

She not only researched ranked choice voting systems for her undergraduate thesis. She put theory into practice by testing the system during this year’s USC Undergraduate Student Government (USG) election.

• The pilot project was successful, with slightly higher levels of election turnout suggesting the new system didn’t confuse voters.
  
  
• The new system affected the outcome, too. The winning ticket didn’t initially have the most first-place votes, but won after second-choice votes were added.
  
  
• USG will continue ranked-choice voting next year.

Read more about Krishnan’s election experiment.

Emeritus Professor Martin H. Krieger, a polymath whose interests ranged from the hard sciences to the humanities, and who was among the most beloved and admired members of the USC Price School of Public Policy’s faculty, has died. He was 80.

• Krieger joined the USC Price School in 1984 as a visiting lecturer and was hired as an associate professor of Urban and Regional Planning and was promoted to professor a year later. He retired in 2020.
  
  
• He published at least a dozen books on topics as diverse as Constitutions of Matter: Mathematically Modeling the Most Everyday of Physical Phenomena to What’s Wrong with Plastic Trees?: Artifice and Authenticity in Design.
  
  
• Along with his intellect, Krieger will be remembered for his kindness, humor and mentoring – not just for students but his colleagues.

What they’re saying: “Martin was one of the most brilliant and unique people I’ve ever met,” said Genevieve Giuliano, Interim Dean of the USC Price School. “He had incredible insight and a range of interests that knew no bounds. He was also an iconoclast.”

• “As devoted as he was to his craft,” Giuliano added, “he was more devoted to his son, whom he introduced to the planning community in the baby stroller at a national conference long before such things were done.”
  

Read more about Krieger’s life and career.

Congratulations to this year’s winners of the Haynes Award for Outstanding Performance: Aurelio Aleman (MPA ‘23), Kevin Bautista (MPA ‘23), Alejandro Faz (MPA ‘23), Lia Jones-Karavokiris (MPA ‘23) and Ayesha Karriem-Mayagoitia (MPA ‘23).

• The student team won the award for their capstone project helping Denver-based Quorum, a nonprofit choir in which artistic leadership and payment is more equally shared among singers.
  
  
• Students advised the startup on how to organize its distinct leadership structure, secure funding, forge partnerships and engage with marginalized populations.
  
  
• The John Randolph and Dora Haynes Foundation Recognition Award for Outstanding Performance is the top honor for capstone projects from the Master of Public Administration and Master of Nonprofit Leadership & Management.

What they’re saying: “The students were easy to talk with, very diligent and organized in their communication,” Quorum Co-Founder Tony Domenick said. “They gave us a super detailed report to explore different ways we could organize a cooperative business, different organizations to work with to bring singing to folks without homes or folks in prison, and stages to aim for as we start this long journey.”

Take a bow, graduates!

The rise of Artificial Intelligence has made it easier than ever to create fake images, phony videos and doctored audio recordings that look and sound real.

Why it matters: With an election fast approaching, the emerging technology threatens to flood the internet with disinformation, potentially shaping public opinion, trust and behavior in our democracy.

• “Democracies depend on informed citizens and residents who participate as fully as possible and express their opinions and their needs through the ballot box,” said Mindy Romero, Director of the Center for Inclusive Democracy. “The concern is that decreasing trust levels in democratic institutions can interfere with electoral processes, foster instability, polarization, and can be a tool for foreign interference in politics.”
  

Romero recently hosted a webinar – titled Elections in the Age of AI – in which experts discussed how to identify AI-generated disinformation and how policymakers can regulate the emerging technology.

• Some tips include being skeptical of political news, confirming information across multiple sources and consuming news from trusted sources.
  
  
• Potential policy ideas include mandating digital watermarks to flag AI-generated content and regulating the use of AI in political ads.
  

Read more about AI fake news and watch the panel discussion.

🏛️ Our Dysfunctional Congress: Political historian Jeffery A. Jenkins joined the PricePod to discuss the increased polarization and dysfunction in Congress. (He also correctly predicted President Biden’s withdrawal from the election). Take a listen

🚗 Making an Impact: Professor Antonio Bento has testified before Congress about his research on fuel economy standards for cars and light trucks. Read more

🏙️ Field Trip to Detroit: The USC Price School sent students to Detroit for the Maymester program, giving students an up-close look at obstacles facing many American cities, such as declining population, high levels of poverty and struggling school systems. Read more

The New York Times quoted Mindy Romero for a story about candidates trying to win over Latino voters. Los Angeles Times talked to Romero about this year’s California propositions.

The Wall Street Journal spoke to Genevieve Kanter for a story about how publicly disclosed payment data has not curtailed corporate influence over doctors.

Politico interviewed Mark Baldassare about how he conducts polls on ballot measures. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace published an article authored by Baldassare about California’s direct democracy system.

Los Angeles Times talked to Christian Grose about how California delegates could be pivotal during the Democratic National Convention. Spectrum News 1 interviewed Grose about the U.S. presidential election.

ABC 7 in Los Angeles featured Genevieve Giuliano for a story about Metro’s efforts to reduce fare evasion and crime on the transit system.

CalMatters spoke to Jeffery Jenkins about efforts to convince President Joe Biden to withdraw from the presidential race.

The Mortgage Note quoted Dowell Myers about trends in where people moved during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Pasadena Star-News talked to Annette Kim about her art exhibition at the Glendale Library, Arts & Culture Department’s ReflectSpace Gallery.

This represents only a portion of recent USC Price faculty media.

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