CLEAR Core

Dr. Yongjin Ahn is a tenured-track assistant professor in the Department of Public Administration at Korea University Sejong Campus. Continuing his research as an associate research fellow at CLEAR, he helped lead CLEAR's "Estimating the Public Sector Workforce Labor Market: Supply and Demand in the Los Angeles Regions," funded by the Haynes Foundation and the Volcker Alliance. The project examines the U.S. federal government in terms of incoming talent and the environmental dynamics of the public sector labor market. Alongside research and teaching, Yongjin is serving as the Managing Editor at the Journal of Behavioral Public Administration.

Dr. Cynthia Barboza-Wilkes is an Evaluation Specialist with the Office of Evaluation Sciences through a post-doctorate IPA agreement between the US General Services Administration and CLEAR. As an interdisciplinary scholar, she weaves together insights from organizational behavior, critical race theory, and emotional labor scholarship to look at how organizations reproduce inequity. Her goal is to enhance our understanding of the differential interpersonal burdens experienced by diverse employees navigating social and institutional power asymmetries. She is involved in several program evaluation projects, exploring topics that range from the introduction of federal coworking, to child care centers in federal buildings, to defining and measuring organizational health and employee well-being.

Esther González is a PhD Candidate in the Price School of Public Policy and Management program at the University of Southern California. Prior to USC, Esther completed her Master’s in Public Administration (MPA) at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona and her Master’s in Business Administration (MBA) at Cornell University. Her research domains are organizational behavior and diversity management with particular interests in diversity investment outcomes and the impact of executive leadership diversity. Her research is multidisciplinary and applies methods and fields in public policy, management, political science, and sociology. Her passion for diversity, inclusion, and the future of representation in leadership is at the core of all her work. Recently, Esther was awarded the prestigious USC Graduate School Endowed Fellowship for her dissertation titled "Three Essays on the Analysis of the Impact of Equity Efforts on Local Government Employees and DEI Leaders."

Nisa Gürbüz is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in the Public Policy and Management Department at the USC Price School of Public Policy. Prior to her doctoral studies, she obtained her master’s degree in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) as a Fulbright Scholar. Her professional background includes a role as a Project Manager in the IT sector before she embarked on her academic journey at USC. Her research focuses on exploring the dynamic relationship between technology utilization and organizational learning, with a particular emphasis on understanding decision-making processes within organizations.  

Dr. Nathan Hodson is a doctoral student at the Sol Price School of Public Policy at the University of Southern California. Prior to his doctorate, he undertook a Master of Public Health degree at Harvard School of Public Health and practiced psychiatry in the UK’s National Health Service. In clinical practice, he realized “sludge” and administrative burden were preventing patient’s access to the care they needed. His research focuses on identifying, evaluating, and excising sludge from health systems, particularly in the interactions between the public and street-level bureaucrats. 

Eli Joun is a PhD Candidate in the Urban Planning and Development Program at the University of Southern California. They hold a Master of Public Policy (MPP) degree from UCLA and a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Political Science from the University of Chicago. With an interest in organizational behavior, identity, and technology, they are researching how the nature of the work environment will evolve as remote work becomes an increasingly important consideration and what this means for young professionals. In particular, they focus on intersectionality in hybrid work environments with generational identity being a critical dimension in one’s intersectional identity. In the past, they worked on projects ranging from the partisanship of Congress members’ speeches to the impact of the built environment on health behavior and perception of safety. 

Eli Keunyoung Lee is a PhD Candidate in the Public Policy and Management program at the Price School of Public Policy. Eli holds two master’s degrees in Public Administration from Seoul National University (South Korea) and the University of Southern California (2020). His research interests are in behavioral public administration, primarily how agency resources and political environments affect public officials’ attitudes and behavior. More specifically, Eli is interested in the influence of agency reputation on changes in public employees’ attitudes and behaviors. Prior to joining CLEAR, he worked as a founder and leader of “Nesal-Nessal,” one of the leading Korean social enterprises that deal with social problems such as income disparity and urban decay. Recently, Eli was one of five recipients of a 2024 Scholarship by the American Society of Public Administration's Section on Professional and Organizational Development. He is also funded for his work on INTELLECT+ through the generous support of the Volcker Alliance.

Dr. Thai V. Le (he/him) is a Research Scientist at the Equity Research Institute where he leads research projects on immigrant inclusion and racial justice. As a mixed-methods researcher, Dr. Le utilizes statistical models, ethnographic practices, and spatial tools to study a range of issues, including naturalization outcomes, regressive and discriminatory local financing practices, the digital divide, emotional justice, and burnout among public sector workers. In uplifting social equity and intersectionality, his research also disaggregates data to elevate the narratives of marginalized and minoritized communities. His previous work examines the diverging pathways to citizenship and immigrant inclusion in the United States and extrapolates the multiplicative effects of racialized and gendered barriers within immigrant communities, earning him the Henry Reining Jr. Best Dissertation in Public Policy and Management Award. 

Yi Ming recently completed a Master's degree in Data Science from the Viterbi School of Engineering at the University of Southern California. His research interest is integrating public management and data science, leveraging computational tools (big data/ machine learning) to both validate established public management theories and forge novel theoretical perspectives. Currently, he is delving into the intricate dynamics of political and financial influences on employee turnover within multi-level federal agencies with new data and methodologies. Before joining USC, Yi completed his Master’s in Business Analytics at Boston University. Yi is also funded for his work on INTELLECT+ and CLEAR's AI Forecasting project through the generous support of the Volcker Alliance.