Academics

Meet the Faculty

Angela Hawken, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Public Policy

Office: School of Public Policy (SPP)
Phone: (310) 506-7608
Fax: (310) 506-7494
E-mail: angela.hawken@pepperdine.edu

• Ph.D., Pardee RAND Graduate School
• M.Phil., RAND Graduate School
• M.A., B.Comm., University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa

Angela Hawken, PhD is associate professor of economics and policy analysis at the School of Public Policy at Pepperdine University. She is from South Africa, where she taught undergraduate and graduate econometrics and microeconomics before moving to Los Angeles in 1998 to complete a PhD in policy analysis at the RAND Graduate School. She teaches graduate classes in research methods, statistics, applied methods for policy analysis, crime, and social policy. Her research interests are primarily in drugs, crime, and corruption. At RAND, she conducted research on early education, sentencing, and tort reform. Hawken conducted the statewide cost-benefit analysis of California's Proposition 36, and led the randomized controlled trial of Hawaii's Opportunity Probation with Enforcement (HOPE), a swift-and-certain-sanctions model to manage high-risk probationers. Drug Czar, Gil Kerlikowske, identified HOPE as the most promising initiative that "not only prevents recidivism, but also actively assists individuals to transition to productive lives."

Hawken consults regularly for the UN and the State Department. She advised a State Department-supported think tank in Georgia. She is developing measurement instruments to study corruption and gender issues in the Asia-Pacific region, for the UN regional office, and her work is featured regularly in the UN Human Development Reports. She has visited Afghanistan twice, and is co-author of the Afghanistan corruption-monitoring system used by the UN and State Department to track public-sector corruption. She is also working on counternarcotics policy for Afghanistan, for the State Department. Hawken actively includes students in fieldwork for her research and in writing projects. She involved a dozen School of Public Policy students in the HOPE evaluation, and has placed over two dozen students in international internships.

Courses:

• MPP 603 Applied Research Methods in Public Policy
• MPP 627 Seminar in Economic Policies: Criminal Justice
• MPP 627 Seminar in Economic Policies: Social Policy
• MPP 627 Seminar in Economic Policies: International Aid
• MPP 627 Seminar in Economic Policies: Applied Methods

Academic Interests:

• AIDS
• Childcare
• Civil and Criminal Justice
• Econometrics
• Economics
• Education
• Healthcare Economics and Policy
• Policy Analysis
• Research Methods
• Statistics