International High-Level Radioactive Waste Management 2022 Speaker

Professor Hank C. Jenkins-Smith

Director

Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis (IPPRA)

University of Oklahoma

Hank Jenkins-Smith is a George Lynn Cross Research Professor in the Political Science Department at the University of Oklahoma and serves as Director of the Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis (IPPRA). Professor Jenkins-Smith has published books and articles on public policy, national security, natural disasters, and energy and environmental policy. He has served on National Research Council Committees, as an elected member on the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurement, and as a member of the governing Council of the American Political Science Association.

Dr. Jenkins-Smith’s current research focuses on theories of the public policy change, with particular emphasis on the management (and mismanagement) of controversial issues involving high risk perceptions on the part of the public. Recently he has worked extensively on social and behavioral aspects of public health utilizing NSF funding to study COVID-19 related behaviors, producing academic papers and a co-authored monograph (Cambridge University Press). Much of Dr. Jenkins-Smith’s research is based on the IPPRA’s substantial investment in data collection infrastructure – utilizing both social media and survey data – that enables both long-term and real-time monitoring of the social and policy contexts in which public health, security, and environmental programs operate. In his spare time, Professor Jenkins-Smith engages in personal experiments in managing risk (and benefit!) via skiing, motorcycling and back-country hiking