Donald J. Boyd has over three decades of experience analyzing state and local government fiscal issues. Boyd is co-director of the State and Local Government Finance Project at the Center for Policy Research at UAlbany’s Rockefeller College, and consultant to several organizations that analyze or model aspects of state and local government finances, including the Pew Charitable Trusts and several governments and governmental associations. In addition, he is an affiliated expert at the Open Research Group.

Previously, Boyd was director of fiscal studies at the Rockefeller Institute of Government, where he led the Institute’s analysis of state and local government finances in the 50 states and developed and led its Pension Simulation Project, examining risks associated with public pension plans. Previous positions include executive director of the State Budget Crisis Task Force, which studied fiscal challenges and risks in the 50 states; director of economic and revenue staff for the New York State Division of the Budget; and director of the tax staff for the New York State Assembly Ways and Means Committee. Boyd holds a Ph.D. in managerial economics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

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Angela D. Ledford received her Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of South Carolina. She specializes in contemporary political theory (particularly gender theory and transnational social movements and collective violence). She teaches courses primarily in democratic theory, feminist theory, modern political thought, and race and class in America. Dr. Ledford has published articles on topics such as the movement to relocate the Confederate flag in South Carolina and the relationship between political representation and social class. Her first book, Group Representation, Feminist Theory, and the Promise of Justice, was published in 2012 and makes the case for alternative electoral arrangements to increase the representation of women and minorities in America. In her current project, she argues that desire (rather than being “natural or biological”) is powerful and deeply internalized, yet ultimately constructed. Her argument traces the emergence of a highly bifurcated sex binary and reformed racial hierarchy in the mid-to-late 19th century and makes the case that these are instrumental and necessary forces that propelled the rise and expansion of industrial capitalism in the west. She is also co-authoring (with David Schultz, Adam Hoffman, and Michelle Fletcher) an introduction to American Politics textbook entitled The New American Plutocracy. Dr. Ledford received the YWCA of the Capital Region’s Resourceful Woman of the Year Award in 2022 and has been a Professor of Political Science at The College of Saint Rose for the last 22 years.

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Dr. Penksa has held a number of senior level positions in academia and the public and private sectors. She launched her career in the New York State Legislature as a Graduate Scholar on the Assembly Ways and Means Committee. She rose to the appointed position of Secretary to the Ways and Means Committee in 1993, making her the first woman in the history of New York State to oversee one of the three key state fiscal offices in Albany. Dr. Penksa subsequently served as an Associate Vice President at the University at Buffalo from 1999-2005, overseeing the Office of Government Affairs.

From 2007 to 2012, Dr. Penksa served as Commissioner of Administration, Finance, Policy and Urban Affairs for the City of Buffalo. Among her accomplishments, Dr. Penksa directed the city’s fiscal management practices that resulted in the end of the NYS imposed financial control period and increases in the city’s Wall Street credit ratings to “A” grade, the highest in over 40 years. Dr. Penksa received her doctorate from the University at Buffalo. She earned a master’s of public administration and an undergraduate degree at SUNY Binghamton. She has been a Visiting Lecturer at Cornell University’s Institute for Public Affairs and a Visiting Associate Professor at Buffalo State College, teaching public budgeting, metropolitan governance, and strategic planning for not-for-profit agencies and government in its MPA program. Presently, in addition to her role as Professor-In-Residence for the Intern Program, Dr. Penksa is a Senior Fellow at CUNY's Institute for State and Local Governance.

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Nick Thony has worked in the New York State Assembly for over sixteen years, starting as an intern in 2008. Until 2020, Nick served as the Legislative Director for a senior Assemblymember, working closely with citizens and interest groups from across the state to pass significant legislation and to secure funding for numerous projects. Nick has also served as the Director of Public Relations for the Albany Housing Authority.

Nick received a master’s degree in history and a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University at Albany, State University of New York, and is currently a Ph.D. candidate specializing in New York State history, nineteenth century politics, and reform movements. His dissertation, Lifting the Political Fog: People, Power, and Antislavery Politics in Upstate New York, examines the exchange of ideas that occurred in upstate New York throughout the 1850s, as New Yorkers increasingly engaged in the politics of slavery.

Nick has taught American history at the University at Albany, State University of New York, and is currently a Lecturer of History at Siena College. He hosts the History Tavern Podcast which features interviews with historians.

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