Faculty Highlight: Sharon and Tony Mastracci

November 1, 2015MPA

Meet Sharon and Tony Mastracci, who are recently added members of the MPA faculty! The MPA program asked Sharon a few questions about the experience:

What brought you to the University of Utah MPA Program?

My amazing job with the Department of Political Science brought us here! When I was making the arrangements to interview here last November (wow—nearly a year ago!) Tony planned to come with, which isn’t the typical way of doing things, but we were preparing to leave the country for six months at the end of December (I was on a Fulbright with the University of Birmingham in England). So if things went well at the interview, we weren’t sure there would be an opportunity to come back before leaving the country. And we were very serious about the prospects of coming here, so Tony accompanied me on the campus visit to check things out for himself. Happily, he loved it, I loved it, and everything worked out!

What classes do you teach?

Right now, I am teaching a PhD seminar on research design and Tony is teaching the core MPA course on nonprofits. Next semester, I will teach Governance and the Economy and Tony will teach the core nonprofit course again. I have Bachelor and Master of Arts degrees in Economics and my PhD is in Public Policy. Tony has his Bachelor of Business Administration degree in Finance and an MPA.

What are your research/academic interests?

My research interests are on how people work and gender dynamics in labor markets, which means that I study the different jobs that women and men hold, the different ways that they find jobs, the different expectations of women and men at work, and how workplace phenomena affect women and men differently. So far, my research on gender and workplace has developed into three areas: Workplace disparities between women and men, Emotional Labor, and applied employment policy.

Tony is interested in the role of the Third Sector in the economy, intersections between Third Sector organizations and the private sector, as well as collaborations between universities and nonprofits.

Have you done any work outside academia?

Tony’s 20+ year professional career began with the Upper Arlington (Ohio) library system, Columbus Ohio Metroparks, the State of Ohio Legislative Budget Office, the City of Austin (Texas) Budget Office, management consulting on Managing for Results systems, Mercy Housing (Chicago, Illinois), and currently, the Community Foundation of Utah.

My professional life began at First Federal Savings and Loan Association of Toledo (Ohio). I then worked for the State of Ohio Legislative Budget Office, Coopers & Lybrand Consulting, the University of Illinois at Chicago, and now the University of Utah.

We met while working at the State of Ohio Legislative Budget Office (Our Cubicle Romance).

How do you like to spend your free time?

We’re the dullest people ever. We love hanging around the house and we’re both runners.

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