USC Sol Price School of Public Policy

Yeah, for sure.

I'm a recent PhD graduate from USC Price School on urban development and planning, and I did my dissertation on dynamic accessibility, which measures people's accessibility more based on different times of day and where they are at different times of day, and also the transit schedules at different time of day.

So that's kind of my dissertation.

Yeah, and for me, my next step is to go to Berkeley to do a postdoc on related topic, but more on...

And like I said, she's actually one of my mentors as well.

Danielle earned her bachelor's degree in education from USC's Rossier School of Education and an executive master's degree in leadership from USC's Price School of Public Policy.

Danielle says that among others, her mom has had an enormous impact on her life and has shaped her vision for her work.

During my conversation with her, you will hear more about her story.

Today, I am speaking with someone whose work helps capture the reality of life for rural Americans.

Elizabeth Currid-Halkett is the James Irvin Chair in Urban and Regional Planning and professor of public policy at the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy.

Her research focuses on culture, class, economic geography, and regional development.

Her most recent book is The Overlooked Americans: The Resilience of Our Rural Towns and What It Means for Our Country.

And there's a separate USC study that gets into why the U.S. is actually falling behind on hypersonic defense specifically.

Yeah, a capstone paper from USC's Global Space and Defense Program out of both the Price School of Public Policy and the Viterbi School of Engineering identified some really specific root causes: insufficient domestic political consensus, ineffective threat management, misaligned policies driving priorities, and organizational inefficiencies, particularly around space-based sensors.

They also flagged a lack of consolidated leadership in missile defense as a structural problem.

So it's not just a technology gap, it's a governance and organizational gap, which is ultimately a people and workforce gap.