EJB Talks: Rutgers Bloustein School Experts

In our second episode of EJB Talks this season, Dean Stuart Shapiro speaks with alumna and Bloustein Advisory Board member Courtenay Mercer AICP, PP, MCRP '02 about her path from political science into urban planning, and her work across multiple professional environments including the New Jersey Department of Agriculture and the Regional Plan Association. Courtenay now runs her own consulting firm, focused largely on community engagement for transportation initiatives.  These include Safe Streets for All plans and work with NJ Transit, as well as transit-oriented development and downtown economic development projects. Reflecting on her experiences in government, nonprofits, and consulting, she notes that politics shapes planning in every sector, though each role has taught her different perspectives and given her different tools to influence decisions. Her advice to aspiring planners is to gain experience even if a first job isn’t a perfect fit, do the work well, and build practical skills, especially proficiency in Excel.

In our first episode kicking off season 15, Dean Stuart Shapiro interviews Professor Nicholas Longo, director of the Rutgers Democracy Lab, about his journey from growing up around local politics in Yonkers to dedicating his career to “citizen politics” and democratic engagement. Longo explains that the Democracy Lab is designed as a “rehearsal space for democracy,” where students learn and practice healthy democratic skills through innovation, curriculum-embedded civic engagement, and initiatives across all Rutgers campuses. He frames the lab as a response to a broader crisis of democracy marked by democratic backsliding, loss of trust between people and institutions, polarization, and social isolation, and emphasizes that these adaptive challenges require new, collaborative forms of public problem-solving. He closes by highlighting that Rutgers students are idealistic, diverse, and eager to move from thinking to doing, inviting them to engage with the Lab through programs like the Think and Do Tank, research opportunities, dialogue initiatives, and student-led democracy projects.

As we wrap up our 14th season of EJB Talks Dean Stuart Shapiro talks to Bob Sommer GSNB ’84, a Bloustein School alumnus, lecturer, and member of the school's Advisory Board. As Bob talks about his journey from an accounting major to a career in public policy, he discusses his transition from working on a congressional campaign to roles in government and lobbying. His early career included a stint at the EPA during the Reagan administration, and he highlights how a chance meeting with the late governor, and then Congressman Jim Florio, set him on his path to a career in government affairs. Bob emphasizes that lobbying is a fundamental part of the American system, and explains how advocacy has evolved with time and changes in technology and regulations. Part of his approach to teaching advocacy, he explains, is focusing on practical skills and the importance of listening and adapting to different perspectives, stressing the importance of understanding the other side's arguments while also being able to articulate one's own position effectively.  He concludes by emphasizing the need for more effective advocacy and the role of educators in preparing the next generation of advocates.

Janine Barr, a researcher at the Bloustein School's Environmental Analysis and Communication (EAC) Group, joins Dean Stuart Shapiro this week on EJB Talks to discuss the center's work on climate change impacts. A self-proclaimed Jersey girl, Janine traces her path to environmental policy back to an internship with the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs. The internship not only drew her toward environmental policy, but specifically toward issues affecting her home state. She describes how the EAC Group brings together the branches of policy, planning, and public health to integrate community needs into local, regional, and state planning initiatives, supported by robust stakeholder engagement and data analysis. Janine also speaks to her involvement with the New Jersey Sea Level Rise and Coastal Storms Science and Technology Advisory Panel (STAP) Report, a major effort to equip decision-makers with updated science on sea level rise and coastal storms. The report projects sea level rise of 1.8 to 4.3 feet by 2100 depending on emissions scenarios. She closes by stressing the importance of clear, ongoing communication with the public, so communities can meaningfully engage with questions of risk tolerance and long-term planning needs.

Links mentioned in today's podcast:

• New Jersey Climate Change Resource Centers Science and Technology Advisory Panel (STAP) Report website
• STAP Report Summary and FAQ document (PDF, short)
• Full STAP Report (PDF)
• NJ REAL Rules

In this episode of EJB Talks, ⁠Peter Tabbot ’91 MPH ‘97, CPM⁠, longtime local health officer in Rockaway, NJ and a Bloustein School public health lecturer, shares his path into public health with Dean ⁠Stuart Shapiro⁠, and what it means to lead at the community level. He explains the wide-ranging role of health officers, from managing essential services to working with governments and residents. Reflecting on navigating the COVID-19 pandemic, Tabbot calls it both the most challenging and most rewarding period of his career, marked by rapidly changing policies, public resistance, and the need for constant local coordination. He also discusses ongoing challenges, including vaccine hesitancy, funding uncertainties, and growing skepticism toward public health. His message to students and future professionals: envision yourself making a difference in individual’s lives and embrace the “small wins” in improving community health, one person and one municipality at a time.

This week on EJB talks, Dean Stuart Shapiro talks to Bloustein alumnus Katie Brennan MCRP '12, now an Assemblywoman in New Jersey's 32nd District. Katie reflects on how her early exposure to housing instability, volunteer work, and her undergraduate policy studies shaped her belief that “everything is a housing issue.” She recounts her experiences in Cincinnati's Over-the-Rhine neighborhood and her high school essay on housing instability, as well as her early positions in nonprofit roles and as chief of staff at the New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency, as helping shaped her view on housing policy and its limits. Her decision to run for office was driven by a desire to help shape policy directly rather than just implement it. She also discusses the constant tension between good policy and political reality, emphasizing the importance of understanding politics and finance in policy and planning. Her advice to students is to learn how money and public finance work, show up to local meetings to get a sense as to what's going on, and understand that planning, policy, and politics are inseparable if you want to create real change.

EJB Talks returns for Season 14 with Dean Stuart Shapiro speaking with Laura Peck, one of our newest Public Policy Associate Professors and a Principal Faculty Fellow with the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development . Laura discusses her journey from undergraduate activism to policy analysis, a PhD, tenure at Arizona State, and more than a decade at Abt Associates. She shares how that work shaped her focus on careful, policy-relevant research, specifically taking about her evaluation of the federal Health Profession Opportunity Grant (HPOG) program. Laura emphasizes that the real question of her research isn’t just whether programs work, but really how and for whom they work. With her return to academia at Bloustein, she is looking forward to getting back into the classroom to help students understand how programs run in the real world and whether they’re actually helping the people they’re meant to serve. Her goal is to give them the tools to figure out what’s working, what needs fixing, and how to make smart decisions about public programs in government and nonprofit spaces. 

For the full transcript of this recording visit our website https://bloustein.rutgers.edu/ejbtalks/.

As we close out our 13th season of EJB Talks, Dean Stuart Shapiro asks Public Policy Program Director, Professor Julia Rubin, about why New Jersey has long been considered one of the most politically corrupt states. She explains how a consistent pattern of high-profile cases have contributed to this perception, citing the influence of the state's longtime political machines and the now-abolished “county line” primary ballot that heavily favored party-backed candidates as primary examples. Julia then walks us through how years of research, lawsuits, and the more recent Menendez scandal have culminated in a major reform that replaced the county line with fairer office-block ballots, leading to more competitive races, higher voter turnout, and a growing number of reform-minded legislators. She also discusses  how recent rollbacks and attempted rollbacks to some of NJ's transparency and accountability laws, including OPRA and the work of the state Comptroller's office, show the fight for accountable government in New Jersey is still very much ongoing. As part of this episode, we encourage you to visit the podcast page on our website, where we include links to the articles and legislation being discussed. We'll see you in 2026!

Dean Stuart Shapiro talks to alumnus Barkha Patel, MCRP '15 this week on EJB Talks. Initially a sociology undergraduate at Rutgers, Barkha discusses how a chance visit by Dean Shapiro to one of her classes led her to urban planning, as she realized she could tackle social problems through the built environment. She explains how starting as a transportation planner, even though it wasn’t her focus at the Bloustein School, pushed her into tactical urbanism and set the stage for her current role. As Jersey City's Director of Infrastructure, she leads a multidisciplinary team shaping everything from streets to parks to sustainability systems. She highlights Jersey City’s Vision Zero work, the effort to shift outdated traffic-safety mindsets, and her favorite project: transforming the historically significant but neglected Bergen Square area into a people-first plaza integrating mobility, culture, ecology, and design. She reflects on how the planning school fundamentals and communication skills she learned still form the basis for her work, and concludes with encouraging emerging planners to adopt an action-oriented mindset by becoming a person who figures things out and gets things done, even when they feel out of their depth. 

This week on EJB Talks, assistant professor Carmelo Ignaccolo shares with Stuart Shapiro how his path into urban design was both inevitable and accidental. A native of Sicily, he explains how its complex political and geographic history contributed to his appreciation of how cities form. At the same time, his educational and professional journey through architecture, engineering, and planning guided him toward an interdisciplinary approach to design. Carmelo also explains how, in both his research and teaching, he has focused on how design has had the power to shape inequality over time, showing how decisions such as highway placement or waterfront redevelopment leave long-lasting impacts on communities. He discusses how he incorporates these ideas into his book project, which explores how the design of port cities has historically masked inequality and how inherited infrastructure can be reimagined for climate resilience. Carmelo concludes with his teaching philosophy, explaining that he tells students that he believes the most visionary planners understand design, and the most impactful designers are those who understand policy.