CACP Collaborators
Research Fellows
GIT Centers
University Partners
Policy & Industry Partners
International Partners
Oliver W. Porter Andrew Ward, Ph.D. Ralph D. Barenger, D.A. David N. Baker
Mr Oliver W. Porter has a BS degree in Civil Engineering from
the Univ. of South Carolina and an MBA from Georgia State University.
He previously served as Sales Vice President for AT&T.
He has an extensive charitable background with not-for- profit organizations serving
as National Chairman of both the National Kidney Foundation and the Combined Health
Appeal of America. Most recently he was responsible for the implementation of the
new city of Sandy Springs as volunteer Interim City Manager and Chairman of the Governor’ Commission
on Sandy Springs, Georgia. He also serves as an advisor to all of Georgia’s new cities,
and continues to advise many other communities across the country.
He is the author of a book entitled Creating the New City of Sandy Springs -The 21st
Century Paradigm: Private Industry” (2006).
Contact:
Andrew Ward is currently a research fellow at the University of Minnesota
Population Center where he works on the Integrated health Interview Series (IHIS).
The IHIS is a harmonized set of data and documentation based on material originally
included in the public use files of the U.S. National Health Interview Survey (NHIS)
and distributed, for free, over the internet. He has a Ph.D. in Philosophy and an MPH
in Public Health Administration, and is currently completing his second Ph.D. (ABD) in
Health Services Research, Policy and Administration at the University of Minnesota.
The topic of his second dissertation is causal modeling and the concept of fundamental
causation in social epidemiology. He has been a faculty member at various institutions,
including Georgia Institute of Technology, San José State University, St. Olaf College,
the University of Delaware and the University of Minnesota. He has also been a Fellow
at the University of Edinburgh's Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, and
served as project co-director on the Policy Initiatives to Support Workplace Accommodations
for the Georgia Institute of Technology Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center (RERC)
in Workplace Accommodations. He has over 60 publications and numerous presentations on
topics that include methodology in epidemiology, disability and workplace accommodation policy,
the measure and ethics of uninsurance, the use of technology in education, philosophy of psychology
and mind, and epistemology.
Contact:
Ralph Berenger, a senior research fellow in global media at the Center for Advanced Communication Policy, Georgia Institute of Technology, is a senior advisor to the Faculty of Mass Communication at Modern Science and Arts University in Cairo, Egypt. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism and mass communication from St. Cloud State University in Minnesota, a Master of Arts in mass communication from the University of Minnesota, a Master of Public Administration and a Doctor of Arts in political science from Idaho State University. He has more than three decades of professional media and public relations experience in the United States and internationally. A former publisher of weekly and daily newspapers in the United States, he also has managed a U.S. Senate campaign. He has consulted internationally on communication and management policies with governmental and non-governmental organizations in Bolivia, St. Lucia, Kenya, Zambia, Egypt and Tunisia. His area of expertise is Middle East and Africa media and political systems.
Dr. Berenger has taught media, political science and international relations courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels for the American University in Cairo, Cairo University, Modern Science and Arts University in Cairo, Idaho State University, College of Southern Idaho, Minnesota Metropolitan State University, and Macquarie University in Australia, for whom he taught three post-graduate courses in international communication during the maiden voyage of The Scholar Ship, a floating university that circumnavigated the world in 2007-2008.
A prolific writer and researcher, Dr. Berenger has published three books: Global Media Go to War (2004), Cybermedia Go to War (2006) and Media Musings: Interviews with Great Thinkers (2004), a book on media ethics, which he co-authored with John C. and Charles Merrill. Since 2002, he has published over 50 journal articles, book reviews and essays, 10 book chapters that focused on Middle East media policies, and presented over 20 papers at international conferences on media issues and policies.
Contact:
David N. Baker is Managing Director of the Atlanta office of Duane
Morris Government Affairs LLC. Baker previously served as Vice
President, Law and Public Policy for EarthLink, where he led government
and regulatory affairs, representing the Company before Congress,
federal agencies such as the FCC, FTC and Department of Justice, federal
courts, state legislatures, state public utility commissions and local
governments. He has extensive media relations and public speaking
experience and has testified before Congress on telecommunications law,
broadband deployment, voice over IP, spam, spyware, file sharing,
copyrights, industry mergers and data retention. He is a former
Commissioner and Chairman of the Georgia Public Service Commission,
where he helped bring competition and deregulation to the
telecommunications, electric, natural gas and transportation industries
in Georgia. While on the PSC, Dave served on the Transportation
Committee of the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce and the
Communications Committee of the National Association of Regulatory
Utility Commissioners, and was appointed by the Federal Communications
Commission (FCC) as one of four state commissioners nationwide to serve
on the Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service.
Baker was appointed by Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue to serve on the
Governor's Telecommunications and Technology Task Force. He was
appointed by members of the Georgia General Assembly to serve on their
Advisory Panel on Emerging Communications Technologies and by the FCC
Chairman to serve on the Board of the Universal Service Administrative
Company, which oversees the $7.5 billion annual Federal Universal
Service Fund.
Dave earned a B.A. in Political Science from The Johns Hopkins
University and a J.D. from Washington and Lee University School of Law.
Contact: