Thaddeus Johnson
Assistant Professor
Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology

During his short academic career Johnson, a former Memphis police officer, has published eight peer-reviewed journal articles, four book chapters, three research reports and an essay in an edited volume. He has three papers under review and two more that are nearing submission. He has adopted a multifaceted approach to maximizing the impact of his work by focusing on public and professional outlets as well as traditional academic outlets, and he has made numerous media appearances in local and national outlets. He presents at academic conferences and to government and community agencies as well as educational institutions.

Esra Tanyildiz
Clinical Assistant Professor
Public Management and Policy

Tanyildiz holds a joint Ph.D. in Public Policy from Georgia State and the Georgia Institute of Technology. A clinical assistant professor of public management and policy, her primary goal is to excel in all components of teaching and contribute to the scholarship of teaching at Georgia State. During the last four years, she has developed new courses, led teaching initiatives, developed a college-to-career project, mentored doctoral students in teaching, and acted as a part-time instructor liaison. Before teaching in the AYSPS, she held research and teaching positions in Brussels and Istanbul. She has taught graduate and undergraduate courses in research methodology, policy and program evaluation, and urban policy. She has also developed a teaching methodology course for graduating doctoral students.

Andrew Heiss
Assistant Professor
Public Management and Policy

Heiss joined the faculty at AYSPS in 2019, shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. When everything closed in March 2020, including the Georgia State campus, he converted all his classes to an asynchronous online format, built a recording studio in his home, and recorded all his classes in 245 professional videos, totaling 73 hours of content. He publicly posted them on YouTube under a Creative Commons license and incorporated them into standalone course websites that students (and anyone with an internet connection) can access. He structured his classes to be student-centric, empathetic, and as accommodating as possible and provided students with policies that allowed for greater flexibility while removing barriers to getting help.

Kristy Hill
Administrative Specialist
Department of Economics

Kristy has done an exceptional job in providing academic support to faculty, staff, part-time instructors, and students, not just in Economics but also in the departments of Public Management & Policy and Criminal Justice,” Elsa Gebremedhin, business manager for the Department of Public Management & Policy (PMAP), wrote in her support for Hill’s nomination. “Due to staff turnover, we asked Kristy to assist with academic tasks in our department this year and last. Kristy graciously agreed to assist our department even though her workload was full, and she had just finished assisting the Department of Criminal Justice. She understands that excellent student support is imperative to student success. She also understands that department academic support requires highly developed skills, knowledge, and experience. So, she agreed to take on the additional duties, put in the work, and tirelessly provided outstanding support to our students, faculty, staff, PTIs, and GRAs in addition to those in her department.”