Economist Artidiatun “Arti” Adji and Judge Gail Bucker were named Andrew Young School’s 2012 Distinguished Alumni in April. This award honors outstanding Georgia State University alumni who exemplify the school’s standards of excellence. The award was created in 2011 to celebrate those who have made significant contributions to the academy, the public sector, business or the nonprofit sector and to the larger community.
L. Gale Buckner, B.S. ‘81
Judge Buckner illustrates the impact that Georgia State University alumni have in their field after graduation. Most recently, she was appointed to lead Georgia’s Murray County Magistrate Court while serving as commissioner of Georgia’s Department of Juvenile Justice. Before joining the commission, she served a seven-year term on the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles.
Buckner has also led the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council, an agency that manages federal grant money for criminal justice projects in Georgia. She worked almost two decades for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, where she was the Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the public corruption/fraud squad, the Drug Enforcement Section and the Metro-Atlanta Field Office. Later, she became GBI’s personnel director and ultimately the director of legislative and intergovernmental affairs, where she spearheaded the successful congressional passage of the Paul Coverdell National Forensic Sciences Improvement Act.
A member of the board of directors for the Andrew Young School’s Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange, Buckner also serves on a number of other professional and civic boards and associations. She is a tireless and effective public servant who has been recognized for her contributions by professional associations.
Buckner began her career as a sergeant in the Chatsworth Police Department, where she was named Officer of the Year in 1979. She holds a B.S. in Urban Life from Georgia State University and an M.P.A. from Brenau University. She also attended the FBI National Academy and was a delegate with the Andrew Young School’s Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange to Israel in 2003.
Artidiatun “Arti” Adji, Ph.D. ‘06
Artidiatun “Arti” Adji, upon completing her doctorate from the Andrew Young School, was appointed researcher and international collaboration coordinator for the Center for Economics and Public Policy Studies (CEPPS) at the Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) in Indonesia, where she has served as a lecturer in the Department of Economics at the Faculty of Economics and Business since 1994. In 2008, Adji was promoted to vice director of CEPPS, and in 2009 she became vice director for academic and director of the Economics Program and Master of Science Doctorate Program at UGM.
Adji spends her days teaching and doing research, sponsored project work and capacity development activities and has served on several graduate and undergraduate accreditation committees for her department. With these duties, she still manages to keep up a steady pipeline of research in peer-reviewed journals and book chapters, occasionally with AYSPS faculty. She is recognized at her university as a true rainmaker for research funding through the steady stream of externally funded research projects she brings in annually.
She has been a consultant for the World Bank since 2008 and regularly designs and delivers capacity building programs for a wide spectrum of government officials and public organizations in Indonesia.
Adji has repeatedly given back to the Andrew Young School by creating and supporting joint capacity building activities and training programs with the International Center for Public Policy. In 2009 she brought two groups of Papuan local government officials to campus for two separate fiscal decentralization training programs and another two groups from Papua and Sumatra that came for training in 2012. Her role in helping the AYSPS secure the $3 million Indonesia Master’s Program with USAID – and her leadership of the program at the Universitas Gadjah Mada is also noteworthy.