Alumni and Friends

Let us know what you're up to! Please email monica.kohler@poli-sci.utah.edu

Alumni Updates

Douglas Goodman (PhD '02) receives promotion to Associate Professor at Mississipi State University. Dr. Goodman is also the Graduate Coordinator in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration.

Murhaf Jouejati (Ph.D., 1998) accepted a position as a professor at the National Defense University (NESA center) at the beginning of this year after two years of directing the Middle East Studies Program at the George Washington University where he was a visiting assistant professor in political science and international affairs. He continues to teach at George Washington as an adjunct professor.

Wayne Gledhill (1968) was appointed as a Foreign Service Officer immediately upon graduation and, after spending a year in Washington, D.C., was posted to the U.S. Embassy in Iran, where he spent the next five years. His second posting was as the Director of the U.S. Cultural Center in Vienna, Austria, and also as the Assistant Cultural Affairs Officer and a member of the Fulbright Commission in Austria. He has been back in Utah since the mid-seventies. He was the Director of the Salt Lake Art Center for two years and currently owns and operates his own insurance business.

Jeff Bingham (1971) met Senator Jake Garn through the Hinckley Institute when Senator Garn was Salt Lake City Commissioner. After graduating, he worked with Senator Garn in the Office of the Mayor and moved with Garn to Washington, D. C., where he served as his Chief of Staff when Garn was elected into the U.S. Senate. During Garn's senate service, Bingham became very interested in Senator Garn's work for the Appropriations Subcommittee on NASA appropriations. After attending the first launch of the space shuttle in 1981, Bingham was "forever 'hooked' on the space program." He left his position with Senator Garn in 1990 to work for NASA. In 1999 he commenced a writing project for the NASA History Office to detail the "policy/political history" of the space station project, and he left NASA in 2004 to devote his time to this manuscript. While engaged in this effort, he was persuaded to delay his manuscript commitment to accept the position of Staff Director of the Subcommittee on Science and Space of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation of the U.S. Senate. The Committee produced the NASA Authorization Act of 2005, which was signed into law on December 30, 2005, and is now engaged in an oversight of that law's implementation and of NASA's overall activities.

Joel W. Marcus (1993, Cum Laude) was a teaching fellow (comparative politics and political theory) in the Department after graduation. He moved to the San Francisco Bay area seven years ago after finishing his MA coursework and has been working at Schwab Institutional Strategic Client Group for 6 years as an Account Manager.

Kevin W. Scroggin (1979) says that his studies in the Political Science Department prepared him well for his graduate studies and numerous industry positions. He received his Masters in Labor and Industrial Relations from Michigan State University and is currently working as General Director of Corporate Risk Management at the General Motors Corporation in Detroit, Michigan.

Michael A. Thomas (1999) attended law school at the University of Oregon and received his J.D. in May of 2002. His studies in our department encouraged him to pursue a career in public service. He was a Presidential Management Fellow with the Social Security Administration in Denver from July 2002 to December 2003 and joined the Agency's Office of the General Counsel in Denver as an attorney in January 2004. His work there consists primarily of disability program litigation in the Federal District Courts in Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, the Dakotas, and South Carolina, and the Courts of Appeal for the Fourth, Eighth, Ninth and Tenth Circuits.

Melissa Winberg (2003) worked in Marketing for a year and half after graduation, after which she began attending Vanderbilt University Law School. She also interned for FCC Commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate. She says that her years in the Political Science Department helped prepare her for her life now, and especially acknowledges Professor Jim Gosling for his Politics and Economics course and its information on the 1996 Telecommunications Act.