George Mason University

Seeking a more fulfilling career, Xhulia Rapo left the corporate world to earn her master’s degree in public policy.

Missy Cummings, one of the country’s first female fighter pilots and the director of Mason’s autonomy and robotics center, calls herself a tech futurist, charged with making tech work and helping it get better. She isn’t shy about calling out bad tech either, including the vision systems in self-driving cars and Tesla’s Autopilot.

Are the midterm elections the most consequential of our time? Maybe, maybe not. Jennifer Victor, associate professor of political science in Mason’s Schar School of Policy and Government and Mason president Gregory Washington wrestle with that, and you might be surprised at the answer. Want more surprises? Then hear why high voter turnout could be a double-edged sword for our democracy.

Larry Pfeiffer, director of Mason’s Michael V. Hayden Center for Intelligence, Policy, and International Security explains Vladimir Putin’s real agenda in Ukraine and why China is taking notes. He also asks Americans to guard against autocracy at home because, as he said, it doesn’t take much for a country's values to be subverted and freedoms suppressed.

Charles Chavis, an assistant professor of conflict resolution and history, and director of African and African American studies, talks about his new book that explores the lynching of a young Black man in Salisbury, Md, and how understanding his story and the Black experience can help find the right ways to fight anti-Black violence today.

Ted Dumas, an associate professor of psychology and an experienced researcher, reveals foods we are losing to climate change, how a pooping bear in Japan can help keep cherries from extinction, and that if we do nothing about the climate, most of the US could be uninhabitable by 2100.

Glenham Smith has received the DACOR Bacon House Foundation Metro Scholarship to further his education in foreign affairs.

Government and International Politics majors Sasha Silva and Sally Kishi won ‘Most Interesting Presentation’ for their research on the rise of populism in the 2017 Chilean general election.

Through problem-based learning opportunities and innovative lesson planning, Justin Gest is teaching his students to be open minded and independent thinkers. Mason just gave him an award for it.

One Schar School professor is turning the classroom into a “laboratory of ideas” amid the coronavirus crisis.