State and Local Government Review (SLGR) is pleased to announce Grant Rissler, Ph.D. as the new editor of the journal’s Governance Matters (GM) Section.  We are excited about the energy and dedication that he brings to the positon.  We expect that he will continue in the tradition of previous editors Bruce Perlman, Beverly Cigler, and Robert Blair.

Dr. Rissler is an affiliate faculty member at Virginia Commonwealth University’s Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs.  He previously served as Assistant Director of the Wilder School’s Center for Public Policy Outreach office where he oversaw VCU’s Translational Research Fellows program, which trains and facilitates academics in building bridges to key state and local policymakers.  Prior to entering academia, Dr. Rissler served more than a decade in program administration, communications and fundraising roles for local, national and international non-profit organizations.  He has published three articles in SLGR, two of which were in the GM section.

The GM Section of SLGR features peer reviewed applied research on state and local government of interest to both practitioners and academics.  It is our hope that these articles will serve to stimulate dialogue among practitioners on critical, vexing issues in order to promote a greater degree of informed decision-making.  Articles published in the GM Section may include case studies or other empirical pieces.  In the past, a variety of timely governance topics have ranged from social media use to capital budgeting to likely social equity impacts at the local level of Trump administration budget cuts to environmental sustainability. In 2018, GM articles represented 3 of the 5 top downloaded articles from SLGR.

Dr. Rissler’s core interests will be continuing the focus on publishing applied research that is relevant to a broad range of SLGR’s readership and that can inform administrators in a practical way.  He also looks forward to supporting broader initiatives of the journal such as encouraging submissions from early career and international scholars and making research findings accessible through social media platforms such as the SLGR podcasts, blog and Facebook/Twitter platforms.

Dr. Rissler welcomes SIAM member’s insight and feedback on topics are currently most relevant to them.  To gather input, a brief survey is available here [https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/XDFQL6C] until June 15^th and SIAM members are encouraged to participate.

In addition, he welcomes regular research submissions as well as proposals from authors for individual articles or a collection in symposium format.  Prospective authors are encouraged to contact Dr. Rissler via email at risslerge@vcu.edu about any ideas they may have for this section of the journal.