Georgiana Vines, Associate Editor (retired) of the Knoxville News Sentinel, will be visiting the Howard H. Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy for a discussion on her latest book, East Tennessee Newsmakers: Where are they Now? 

Vines pays tribute to remarkable individuals and their contributions to Knoxville. Join us as she shares insight into her inspiration for the collection! Her new book will be available for purchase and a book signing will follow the event. 

This event will take place on Tuesday, February 4th from 11:30 am to 12:30 pm in the Toyota Auditorium and is free and open to the public.  

Join Dr. Candace White, Fellow with the Global Security program and Professor in the College of Communications & Information, for coffee and a discussion on the rapidly-evolving data economy and surveillance capitalism.

The business models of companies like Facebook, which sell algorithmic-driven, micro-targetable profiles of individuals, needs to be examined in relationship to the public interest. Importantly, the lack of transparency in Facebook's privacy policies is strategic and permitted due to few government regulations. 

Dr. Benjamin Leard, Environmental Economist and fellow at Resources for the Future, will visit the Center to present his research on the US fuel economy. Fuel economy and greenhouse gas standards affect about half of all vehicles globally. Leard will share comprehensive estimates of the social welfare effects of recent standards. 

Leard is a candidate for a new joint-created position with the Howard H. Baker Jr. Center for Public Policy and the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics (AREC). His work focuses on transportation policy, climate change, and discrete choice modeling.

This event will take place on Friday, February 7th from 10:00 to 11:30 am in the Toyota Auditorium and is free and open to the public.  Parking in the White Hall garage can be validated at the venue. 

Georgia State faculty members, Dr. Dierdre Oakley and Karen Johnson, J.D., will be discussing the rise of dockless electric scooters and the disruption to the urban landscape. These scooters have brought new challenges to Atlanta and cities around the world. This lecture also will discuss the challenges of safely and equitably integrating e-scooters into cities, provide a regulatory overview, and detail the data needed to effectively guide decision-making.

This event will take place on Thursday, February 13th from 1:00 to 2:30 pm in the Toyota Auditorium and is free and open to the public. Parking in the White Hall garage can be validated at the venue. 

Dr. Katie Cahill, Associate Director of the Howard H. Baker Center for Public Policy, will be featured on an upcoming episode of HealthConnections to discuss the economic consequences of poor health in Tennessee. HealthConnections, hosted by Brandon Hollingsworth and Dr. Carole Myers, aims to "bring the often-abstract world of health care, coverage, and policy to a human level." 

The full interview will be posted on the HealthConnections webpage and on the WUOT website for on-demand listening. The episode will be live on air on 91.9 FM Knoxville on Tuesday, Feb. 25th at 5:50 am, 7:50 am, and 5:50 pm. 

Dr. Deborah Penchoff, Director of the Scientific Fellows Program for the Institute for Nuclear Security, was recently awarded a supercomputing allocation for the 2020 Department of Energy (DOE) Mission Science from the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) for investigations of selective extraction of rare earth elements and actinides. This award will contribute to investigations of critical materials of interest in national security.

Dr. David Greene, Senior Fellow with the Energy and Environmental Program, was recently featured on Outside/In, a podcast by New Hampshire Public Radio, an NPR affiliate station. Greene speaks on the effects of changes in policy regarding fuel efficiency standards. His interview was based on a Baker Center Report written with Dr. Jilleah Welch. 

Dr. Greene also has two articles regarding fuel economy standards and electric vehicles which were recently published in Current Sustainable/Renewable Energy Reports and the Journal of Transportation Research.