Neshkova, Milena

Neshkova, Milena Graduate Faculty

Positions

Associate Professor, Public Policy and Administration , Steven J. Green School of International and Public Affairs

mneshkov@fiu.edu

biography

Milena I. Neshkova is an Associate Professor of Public Policy and Administration at Florida International University. She is the Faculty Director of the Global Affairs program at the Steven J. Green School of International and Public Affairs. She was also the Director of the Ph.D. in Public Affairs program. Dr. Neshkova has led these programs to the highest levels of national and international prominence. Her doctoral students are placed in tenure-track assistant professor positions at R1 institutions, such as Florida State University and Clemson University. She has taught courses in public management, policy analysis, budgeting, financial management, research design, and statistics at the doctoral, master’s, and undergraduate levels. She is a recipient of the Excellence in Teaching Award from Indiana University.

Professor Neshkova started her career in Sofia, Bulgaria, where she was an acclaimed journalist at a leading newspaper. Her investigative and editorial work during the democratization of Bulgaria introduced her to the issues of public policy and administration and became the basis of her academic career. Dr. Neshkova earned her Ph.D. from the School of Public and Environmental Affairs (SPEA) at Indiana University in 2008. She also holds an MPA from Indiana University and an MA in Journalism from Sofia University.

Her research focuses on the issues of democratic governance and the role of bureaucracy in domestic and international settings. She has written on citizen participation in government, administrative reforms in third-wave democracies, political and bureaucratic corruption, collaboration across sectors, and management of public money. She is a recipient of competitive grants from the National Science Foundation, the Kauffman Foundation, and the European Union Center of Excellence. Her scholarly work has appeared in the leading peer-reviewed journals of the field, including Public Administration Review, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Public Management Review, Governance, Public Administration, International Public Management Journal, American Review of Public Administration, Policy Studies Journal, and Journal of European Public Policy. Dr. Neshkova’s research has been recognized with the 2014 Theodore J. Lowi Policy Studies Journal Best Article Award by the Public Policy Section of the American Political Science Association and the 2017 Garcia-Zamor Best Paper Award by the International and Comparative Administration Section of the American Society for Public Administration.

Dr. Neshkova served as an Associate Editor of Public Administration Review (PAR), the flagship journal in public policy and administration. She was a Co-Managing Editor of the Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting & Financial Management. Dr. Neshkova has also served on the Editorial Boards of the two most prestigious journals in the field—Public Administration Review and the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory (JPART). She was a member of the Editorial Board PAR for two terms, from 2015 to 2021. She is now serving her second term on the Editorial Board of JPART, starting in 2020. Dr. Neshkova chaired the 2021 Best Dissertation Award Committee of the Public Management Research Association and the Mosher committee for the 2017 Best Paper Published in PAR Award. She served on the organizing committee of the 2017 Transatlantic Dialogue (TAD-13), mentored three cohorts of the U.S. Department of State Young African Leaders Initiative, and spoke at the Young Latin American Leaders seminar in Miami, Florida. Dr. Neshkova is a co-organizer of a conference on Personalism and Good Governance to be held at FIU in December 2023.