2024 REU Mentors
Meet the 2024 REU Mentors!
![Headshot of Cullum Clark](/-/media/Site/Provost/SAES/Academic-Enrichment/EngagedLearning/REU/Cullum-Clark-Headshot.jpg?h=600&iar=0&w=450&hash=AE4C0A6AC120A9AFF85B1C5A2E55F0A4)
Cullum Clark
Cullum Clark, Ph.D., is Director of the Bush Institute-SMU Economic Growth Initiative and Adjunct Economics Professor at SMU. Cullum’s work focuses on creating prosperous, high-opportunity cities as a path to improving economic mobility in America. He co-authored the 2021 book The Texas Triangle: An Emerging Power in the Global Economy. Cullum’s work has appeared in City Journal, Real Clear Policy, and numerous other publications, plus the Freakonomics Radio podcast. Cullum worked in investments for 25 years, founding two firms. He serves as Board Chair of the charter school network Uplift Education and on several foundation and endowment boards. He earned a B.A. in History from Yale, a Master’s Degree in Political Science from Harvard, and a Ph.D. in Economics from SMU.
REU project
The George W. Bush Institute is working on an in-depth report in housing supply and affordability in America, which will include a deep dive into housing challenges facing 25 large, fast-growing metro areas in the Sun Belt and Mountain states. The question is: What are the key economic and social characteristics of the areas within big metro areas where affordable housing exists and is being built? Or put differently, where are we building new affordable housing, and what are the implications of these choices? The Institute has a rich dataset assembled, that includes multifamily housing stock and new development numbers for some 650+ neighborhoods in our 25 target metro areas, including some 125+ in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro. The challenge is to cross-walk these geographies to U.S. Census Tracts & then build up data profiles on at least a considerable number of these neighborhoods. The project will shed light on a very timely, contentious, and significant policy challenge in America's cities.
![Headshot of Anthony Petrosino](/-/media/Site/Provost/SAES/Academic-Enrichment/EngagedLearning/REU/Anthony-Petrosino.jpeg?h=600&iar=0&w=400&hash=5906EAC7FBC2391C9BB9033623F1667A)
Anthony Petrosino
Anthony J. Petrosino, Ph.D., serves as the Associate Dean for Research and Outreach in SMU’s Simmons School and Professor in the Department of Teaching and Learning. Dr. Petrosino's research interests include students understanding of experimentation, engineering education and the development of expertise. He is the co-founder of the nationally recognized UTeach Program. Dr. Petrosino taught secondary science for seven years and is a certified K-12 teacher of science. In addition, he was an Assistant Superintendent of Schools for 2 years and was also a secondary school administrator for three years. He received his Ph.D. at Vanderbilt University.
REU project:
In an extension from last years’ project, our initiative is dedicated to leveraging data science to address issues of food justice, focusing on identifying and addressing food deserts in underserved communities. Students involved in the project will begin by creating predictive models using American Community Survey (ACS) data. They'll analyze indicators of low mobility and income levels to pinpoint potential food deserts within these communities. Using ArcGIS, students will then compare their predictive models with real-world data on food deserts, gaining insights into the spatial distribution of food insecurity. Finally, students will utilize webscraping methods to locate and map urban farms. This will help determine if these essential resources are strategically positioned to serve populations in low-income, low-mobility areas.
![Headshot of Beth Wheaton Paramo](/-/media/Site/Provost/SAES/Academic-Enrichment/EngagedLearning/REU/WheatonParamo-Beth-headshot.jpeg?h=600&iar=0&w=400&hash=0A0115DA3D4FC6BA6DBEC08BFF356918)
Elizabeth (Beth) Wheaton-Páramo
Beth Wheaton-Páramo, Ph.D., is a research assistant professor and senior lecturer in economics at SMU. She is a researcher on child labor and the economics of human rights, including capital punishment, violence against women, seeking asylum, terrorism, child abuse, genocide, hate, and human trafficking. She was the principal investigator on a $1.187 million U.S. federal grant from the Department of Justice (DOJ) National Institute of Justice (NIJ), which provided the foundation for building the SMU Human Trafficking Data Warehouse. She is team lead on the SMU Human Trafficking Data Research (HTDR) Project with its goal to Make Human Trafficking Data Work. She published The Economics of Human Rights in 2018, the first textbook on applying economic theory and tools to understanding human rights issues. Beth holds an MA and PhD in economics from Temple University, an MS in international business and trade from Grambling State University, and BBA from Sam Houston State University.
REU project:
In 2022, Southern Methodist University (SMU) was awarded a $1.187 million federal earmark grant from the Department of Justice. The SMU Human Trafficking Data Research (HTDR) Project was created to work as an independent agency to coordinate expertise from all areas of anti-trafficking to build expert research teams to solve issues related to human trafficking. This Project invests in building expertise to drive effective research, policy making, and practice. SMU provides secure servers to securely house and protect sensitive human trafficking data. Users of the data warehouse will be granted specific security clearances to access data for analysis. This data allows practitioners and policymakers to run statistical reports and trends and to make new connections involved in human trafficking.
![Headshot of Mary Spector, faculty member at SMU Dedman School of Law.](/-/media/Site/Law/faculty/profiles/Mary-Spector.png?h=500&iar=0&w=500&hash=51AD75495BDFEEBE32F71EC11958EE76)
Mary Spector
Mary Spector is a Professor of Law and the Associate Dean for Experiential Learning at SMU Dedman School of Law. She oversees all aspects of experiential learning including clinical, externship, legal research, writing and advocacy, trial advocacy, and BOA programs. Additionally, Professor Spector teaches Consumer Law and directs SMU’s Civil/Consumer Clinic where she supervises students representing low-income clients in state and federal courts. Her research interests combine theory and practice to protect the rights of consumers and tenants and to improve access to justice in the civil courts. After receiving her B.A. from Simmons College and her J.D., cum laude, from Yeshiva University’s Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Professor Spector served as a law clerk to the late Honorable Jerry Buchmeyer, United States District Judge for the Northern District of Texas before joining the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld as an associate.
REU project
This project is a continuation of a collaborative project with the Child Poverty Action Lab to explore the impact that evictions have on tenants and their families. This summer, with assistance from Texas Appleseed, students will be exploring ways to quantify the correlations between evictions, and associated rental debt, and their proximity to payday loan stores in Dallas. A visual correlation exists between them but the goal is to leverage the census, American Community Surveys, eviction data, and licensing data to show that empirically. Some possible lines of inquiry involve building metrics relating the proximity of the lenders and evictions as well as examining the demographics of the people and housing opportunities in the area.
![Headshot of Eric Godat](/-/media/Site/Provost/SAES/Academic-Enrichment/EngagedLearning/REU/Godat-Eric-headshot.jpg?h=2048&iar=0&w=1463&hash=2F29E8B4693296FB157763F624241050)
Eric Godat
![Sager](/-/media/Site/Simmons/PhD/Sager.jpg?h=8256&iar=0&w=5504&hash=4801253CC2996D2FD7B057BDCCAC6F58)
Marc Sager
![Headshot of Max Sherard](/-/media/Site/Provost/SAES/Academic-Enrichment/EngagedLearning/REU/Sherard-Max.jpeg?h=675&iar=0&w=450&hash=07EB9467F99528769886E96480AC8F1D)
Max Sherard
![](/-/media/Site/Provost/SAES/Academic-Enrichment/EngagedLearning/REU/Langston-Smith-Mateo-headshot.jpeg?h=6024&iar=0&w=4024&hash=F5F5C9BABC87C3D02C89630588763C28)
Mateo Langston Smith
![Headshot of Monnie McGee](/-/media/Site/Provost/SAES/Academic-Enrichment/EngagedLearning/REU/McGeeMay2024.jpg?h=296&iar=0&w=249&hash=07B58C41228FAF9EE4E0D9808288C02B)
Monnie McGee
Lynne Stokes
Dr. Stokes is Professor Emerita in the Department of Statistical Science at SMU, and formerly Chair of that department and Director of the Data Science Institute. Her major areas of research are sampling and measurement and mitigation of nonsampling errors in data collection. Dr. Stokes has served on National Academy of Science Panels considering sampling methods for federal data collection and analysis for the Departments of Education and Agriculture, Federal Airlines Administration, U.S. Census, NIH, and National Marine Fisheries. Dr. Stokes is a Phi Beta Kappan, a Fellow of American Statistical Association (ASA), and a recipient of the Don Owen and Founder’s Awards from the ASA.
![](/-/media/Site/Provost/SAES/Academic-Enrichment/EngagedLearning/About-Us/Staff-Photos/Jennifer-Ebinger-Engaged-Learning.jpg?h=1000&iar=0&w=1000&hash=9DBDC44BBD67DE87FFC72929794B47EF)