Our Team

IPSR Leadership

	Donna Ginther Director, IPSR, Director, Center for Science Technology & Economic Policy, and Roy A. Roberts & Regents Distinguished Professor, Economics dginther@ku.edu As Director, Donna is responsible for developing the IPSR multi-disciplinary research program by engaging faculty from across the university and overseeing the management and direction of the Institute. Under her leadership, IPSR continues to be an international center for research on some of today’s most pressing topics, including the human dimensions of climate change, race and gender questions in the scientific workforce, urban sustainability, indigenous communities, environmental policy, and human trafficking. As Professor, her major fields of study are scientific labor markets, gender differences in employment outcomes, wage inequality, scientific entrepreneurship, and children's educational attainments. Read more
Jena Gunter Associate Director kujena@ku.edu As Associate Director, Jena has administrative responsibility for all Institute operations including sponsored project development and administration, human resources and payroll, fiscal operations, computing services, and conferences for IPSR. Read more

Administration & Award Management

	Gryffin Eason Project Manager g.eason@ku.edu Gryffin is responsible for the administrative responsibilities of the Kansas Data Science Consortium. They are facilitating partnerships between community organizations and groups of learners to provide real world data science experience to students across Kansas.
Mandy Frank Education Program Specialist mandy.frank@ku.edu As Education Program Specialist, provides administrative support for research team(s), IPSR Center Directors and research staff. This includes organization of workshops, conferences, and other events. Mandy processes travel, initiates purchases, and processes invoices for sponsored research. Read more
	Christie Holland Research Project Coordinator christieh@ku.edu As Research Project Coordinator, Christie provides administrative support for research team(s), IPSR Center Directors and research staff. This includes organization of workshops, conferences, and other events. Christie processes travel, initiates purchases, and processes invoices for sponsored research. Read more
Mica Mendez Education Program Coordinator micam@ku.edu As education program coordinator, Mica manages post-award activities for the Sloan Indigenous Graduate Partnership and Sloan Undergraduate Scholars Program. This includes organizing educational programs, workshops, conferences, and special events, as well as initiating and processing project expenditures. Mica also acts as Sloan’s primary liaison to Haskell Indian Nations University and coordinates efforts between ongoing programs at KU and initiatives at Haskell. Read more
	Juana Simons Administrative Associate jsimons@ku.edu
Anna Wallen Research Project Specialist anna.e.wallen@ku.edu Anna graduated from KU in May 2023 with a BA in Psychology. Her role at IPSR is to support the CareBoard and its team with various administrative jobs.
	Manoj Ankireddy Student Communications Coordinator ankireddymanoj162@ku.edu Manoj is currently pursuing a Masters degree in computer science. He used to work for a British telecom company as a Java Full Stack developer and is interested in social media management.
Rashmi Desai Student Administrative Assistant rashmi.desai@ku.edu Rashmi is a graduate student working on a Masters degree in Construction Management. She holds a B.S. in Civil Engineering.
	Benjy Jacobs Student Administrative Assistant benjy_jacobs@ku.edu Benjy is a senior at the University of Kansas pursuing a B.S in Economics and a minor in Public Policy. He is interested in macroeconomic research and is planning to attend graduate school for economics.
Kinbati Melaye Student Administrative Assistant joshuamelaye@ku.edu Kinbati is an international student from Nigeria. He is a sophomore pursuing a political science degree with a minor in African and African American studies and on the pre-law track. He enjoys playing sports, listening to music, watching anime, and reading books.
	Maritzah Welton Student Administrative Assistant maritzahwelton@ku.edu Maritzah is a third-year student pursuing a B.A. in Political Science and a minor in Spanish and Communications. She is currently on the pre-law track and plans to attend law school in the near future. Interests include advocating for human rights, youth education, and criminal justice.

Research Development

	Nancy Cayton Myers Research Development Officer ncmyers@ku.edu As Research Development Officer, Nancy leads the IPSR research development team; provides direct support for research proposal preparation to investigators and teams; facilitates research planning, strategy, and networking; assists with grant management and reporting; and conducts outreach activities and research development-related presentations to faculty, staff, and students. Read more
Nellie Landon Kassebaum Research Development Specialist n178k302@ku.edu Nellie is a member of the research development team. She has a bachelor’s degree in English from KU and a master’s degree in public health from the Colorado School of Public Health. She is particularly interested in discovering how we can talk about and understand, together, upstream determinants of health and differences in health outcomes.

Research & Data Support

	Thomas Becker Assistant Researcher thomasbecker@ku.edu Thomas graduated from KU in the spring of 2019 with a B.A. in History and Economics. His work at IPSR involves gathering and analyzing data in support of various projects.
Carrie Caine Associate Researcher caine@ku.edu In her role as associate researcher, Carrie manages and supports program and research evaluation. She also manages IPSR communications. Read more
	William Duncan Assistant Research Professor of Data Science w295d127@ku.edu Will works to help coordinate data projects between the Kansas Data Science Consortium and community partners. He also teaches courses in the data science certificate at the KU College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
Misty Heggeness Associate Scientist, IPSR Associate Professor, School of Public Affairs & Administration misty.heggeness@ku.edu
	Larry Hoyle Emeritus Senior Scientist larryhoyle@ku.edu Larry had overall responsibility for planning the Institute’s computing infrastructure. He has more than a few years’ experience in the data management phase of the research lifecycle and taught a graduate course focusing on those skills. In recent years, he has been actively involved in the Data Documentation Initiative (DDI) – helping advance an international standard for machine actionable description of data and its lifecycle. He has done a number of invited and contributed presentations at SAS and DDI related international conferences and has chaired or co-chaired the North American DDI Conference and the IASSIST conference. Read more
Renee Pualani Louis Associate Researcher pualani@ku.edu I am a Hawaiian woman and an Indigenous cartographer passionate about Hawaiian storied place names, cross cultural ethical research standards, and advocating the integration of Indigenous spatial knowledge systems with Western geosciences. I believe Indigenous wisdom has long held steadfast in the margins of society. Our elders have watched in silence or were silenced as consumer driven economics ravaged our lands, waters, and skies. Academia and science has played an active role in ensuring the knowledge of our ancestors remained ghostly whispers. It is time to bring Indigenous voices front and center. It is time to move beyond the politics of science where recognizing those realities that lie beyond the realm of our senses is not a debate about belief systems, so much as an examination of alternative methodologies. It is time to acknowledge the multiplicity of experiences that contribute to our understanding of the world in which we live. Read more
	Wally Meyer Associate Researcher wmeyerjr@ku.edu Wally directs the EDA University Center at IPSR. The University Center is a designation by the U.S. Department of Commerce's Economic Development Administration to identify those university programs who have been competitively selected to deliver economic enhancement programs. Wally directs the entrepreneurial programs of the University Center and conducts research addressing salient issues in entrepreneurship, education, and economic development. Previously, Wally was the Director and founding faculty of the KU Entrepreneurship Program in the School of Business where he taught for 16 years. Read more
Daria Milakhina Associate Researcher dmilakhina@ku.edu
	Whitney Onasch Associate Researcher wonasch@ku.edu As an Associate Researcher, Whitney supports research and technical assistance projects for the Center for Science, Technology & Economic Policy (CSTEP) and the KU EDA University Center. The Associate Researcher’s primary responsibilities include data preparation, queries, documentation, analysis, report preparation, and proposal development. These tasks are performed to support CSTEP’s mission of research related to science policy, science labor markets, education policy, state and local economic development, and economic policy.
Pat Oslund Associate Researcher poslund@ku.edu Visit staff page for information.
	Lucie Prewitt Associate Researcher lucie.prewitt@ku.edu Lucie is a survey methodologist for the Care Board project. She holds a bachelor's degree in economics and finance from SMU and a master’s degree in economics from American University. Her research has broadly centered on the role gender plays in economic outcomes, the workplace, and in social exchange.
Xan Wedel Senior Research Data Engineer xan@ku.edu Xan is the primary liaison for data requests received by the Institute from the public or members of the university community. Xan leads the Kansas State Data Center (SDC), a partnership with the U.S. Census Bureau. She also serves as web application developer and GIS analyst for the Institute. In addition to these duties, Xan advises students and researchers on data visualization techniques including GIS and coordinates the data compilation and visualization, programming, and production of the Kansas Statistical Abstract. Read more
	Carlos Zambrana Associate Researcher zambrana@ku.edu