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ANN ARBOR—University of Michigan experts are available to discuss President Obama’s first State of the Union address, which will be delivered Wednesday.

They include:

Education
Deborah Loewenberg Ball, dean of the School of Education, was part of the White House’s National Mathematics Advisory Panel charged with advising the Bush administration on the best way to improve the teaching of math as part of an effort to make the nation more competitive. She can be reached at (734) 647-1637 or e-mail her at dball@umich.edu. For more on Ball, visit http://www-personal.umich.edu/~dball/

Stephen DesJardins, director of U-M’s Center for the Study of Higher and Post Secondary Education, has developed tuition plans and teaches courses related to public policy in higher education, economics and finances. DesJardins can be reached at (734) 647-1984 or sdesj@umich.edu. For more information on DesJardins: http://sitemaker.soe.umich.edu/soe/faculty&mode=single&recordID=50762&nextMode=list

Ed St. John, the Algo D. Henderson Professor of Education, has written extensively on the topic of students loans and financing higher education. The president’s address is expected to include a plan to cut millions of Americans’ student loan payments to no more than 10 percent of a borrower’s income above a set minimum that will also allow unpaid student loans to be forgiven after 20 years. St. John can be reached at (734) 647-2013 or edstjohn@umich.edu. For more on St. John, visit: http://www.soe.umich.edu/faculty/stjohn.

Economy
Sheldon Danziger, the H. J. Meyer Distinguished University Professor of public policy, is a scholar of poverty, income inequality, social welfare programs and policy. He directs the National Poverty Center at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. He can be reached at (734) 615-8321 or sheldond@umich.edu. For more information on Danziger: http://fordschool.umich.edu/faculty/Sheldon_Danziger

Donald Grimes, senior research associate and economist, Institute for Research on Labor, Employment, and the Economy, specializes in economic forecasting and regional economic development, especially in Michigan and the Midwest. He can be reached at (734) 730-3214 or dgrimes@umich.edu. For more information on Grimes, visit: http://www.ns.umich.edu/htdocs/public/experts/ExpDisplay.php?ExpID=319

Environment
Barry Rabe, professor of public policy in the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy and a professor at the School of Natural Resources and Environment, is an expert on environmental issues on the state and federal levels. He can also discuss issues affecting the U.S.-Canada relationship, including the summer power outage that affected both countries. He can be reached at (734) 615-9596 or brabe@umich.edu. For more information about Rabe: http://www.ns.umich.edu/htdocs/public/experts/ExpDisplay.php?ExpID=902

Health Care
Thomas Buchmueller, the Waldo O. Hildebrand Professor of Risk Management and Insurance at the Ross School of Business, is an expert on the economics of employer-sponsored insurance and health insurance competition, regulation and reform. He can be reached at (734) 764-5933 or tbuch@umich.edu. For more information about Buchmueller: http://www.bus.umich.edu/facultybios/FacultyBio.asp?id=000805493

Politics
Michael Traugott, professor of communication studies and senior research scientist, ISR Center for Political Studies, is an authority on political communication, public opinion, media polling and campaign surveys. He can be reached at (734) 647-0421 or mtrau@umich.edu. For more information about Traugott, visit:http://www.isr.umich.edu/cps/people/traugott/

Middle East
Juan Cole, professor of Modern Middle East and South Asian History, has studied the politics, culture and history of Shi’ite and Sunni Islam, and is familiar with Islamic radicalism in both branches. He has written about modern Iraq’s history and Muslim movements against the West. He can be reached at (734) 763-2289, (734) 747-8211 or jrcole@umich.edu. For more information on Cole, visit: http://www.lsa.umich.edu/history/facstaff/facultydetail.asp?ID=49