ASPA's 2022 Founders' Fellows Program

FAU SPA Ph.D. candidate Ryan J. Lofaro was chosen as one of twenty of ASPA’s Founders’ Fellows. The Fellows attend and present at the Annual Conference on a paper related to their scholarship or work, which is also published in PA TIMES Online if they wish. There is also a year-long mentorship program during which students work with a professional in their field. Open to graduate students as well as new professionals in the first three years of their public service career, this program is geared toward accelerating careers of promising, rising stars in the discipline. This is ASPA’s most competitive Fellowship program of the year and provides results that could last the length of a career.

During the conference, Ryan presented part of his dissertation, titled “The Impact of Lived Experience Representative Bureaucracy on the Perceived Humanness and Deservingness of Clients.” In this research, Ryan surveys first responders to uncover how their lived experiences influence their views on the humanness and deservingness of people with opioid use disorder.