COD Experts: Maureen Heffern Ponicki

Maureen Heffern Ponicki, Associate Professor of Political Science, Ph.D., has nonprofit experience in the fields of international and community development both domestically and internationally.  Her dissertation was focused on understanding the factors that promote economic resiliency in deindustrializing cities. Heffern Ponicki has assisted migrant farm workers, aided street children in Peru, served teen parents and foster children in Chicago, and worked on global economic issues in Latin America and the U.S. 

She holds a bachelor’s degree from American University and a master’s degree from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies where she focused on international economics and development. Her Ph.D. is from University of Illinois at Chicago in Political Science (fields: Comparative and Urban Politics). She has also taught at University of Illinois at Chicago, Dominican University and Wright College.  

Contact Heffern Ponicki at heffernponickim@cod.edu or (630) 942-2012.

Maureen Heffern Ponicki

I always tell my students that political science is simply about how we as a community come together to decide the rules on how we will all get along. It’s as simple and as powerful as that.

- Maureen Heffern Ponicki, Assistant Professor of Political Science

Areas of Expertise

  • Economic Resiliency
  • Methods of Social Change
  • Poverty and Inequality
  • Economics of Food (Video)
  • Urban Economics
  • Social and Economic Policy
  • International Development
  • Globalization
  • Status of Girls and Women nationally and globally

More About Maureen Heffern Ponicki