Faculty

Joe Braunwarth received his bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Business from the University of Minnesota and, after working as an auditor for Ernst & Young in Cambridge, England, received his doctorate from the University of California, Irvine in 1999 and has had the good fortune to be facilitating the scholarly ambitions of Grossmont College students ever since. Dr. Braunwarth’s research focuses on the communication of political information in the news media, political psychology, and political theory. He is the lead author of Open to Debate: An Introduction to U.S. Government and Politics and is the editor of and contributor to American Government Examined: A Reader. He has received awards from the National Endowment of the Humanities and is active on campus with the Freshman Academy as well as the Distance Education, Professional Development, and other committees. Off campus he is an avid surfer and runner, and enjoys volunteering at Scripps Memorial Hospital as a pet therapist with his golden retriever, Princess Buttercup. Dr. Braunwarth lives in La Mesa, California where he is aided by the love and encouragement of his wife Mary and their two children.

Brian Jennings earned a BA in Political Science, summa cum laude, at SDSU with a minor in history. He earned an MA in Political Science at SDSU emphasizing comparative politics and U.S. government. His main interests are comparative public policy and the effects of income inequality on the democratic process. Brian is an active member of the Grossmont College community serving as advisor for student clubs, accompanying members of the ASGC to Student Senate for California Community Colleges meetings, and leading student field trips to the capitol in Sacramento. His professional duties have included chairing the Political Economy department, representing the department on the Grossmont College Academic Senate, and serving as a Vice President of Political Action for the American Federation of Teachers Local 1931. Brian is an avid cyclist and enjoys hiking, camping and traveling with his wife and two sons.

Tragically, Brian was killed in 2018 when he was struck by a car while bicycling home from campus.  Brian was a great supporter of, and contributor to, an event we host each semester that will now be known, in perpetuity, as the Brian Jennings Political Economy Week.  He is greatly missed.

Scott McGann began his academic endeavors here at Grossmont then transferred to San Diego State University where he earned a BA in Economics, Cum Laude, with Distinction in the Major; MA in Economics; MS in Business Administration; and a Graduate Certificate in Financial Planning. In addition to being a full-time Associate Professor here at Grossmont, Scott works as a Economics Lecturer at his Alma Mater San Diego State University. Scott brings extensive real-world business experience to the classroom having worked in multi-unit restaurant management, real estate brokerage, and financial planning. He currently holds a CA real estate brokerage license and is a Certified Financial Planner (CFP). He also serves on the Board of Directors for the San Diego Center for Economic Education. 

Todd Myers received a B.A. in Social Sciences and Business from Eureka College, a Masters in Public Administration from the E.J. Ourso School of Business at Louisiana State University, studied politics, economics, and philosophy at Heidelberg University in Germany, and later received his doctorate in Political Science from Louisiana State University with emphases in political theory, international relations, and governmental finance. His research focuses on religion and politics, politics, literature, and film, Asian politics and culture, and economics and happiness studies and has been widely published. He has been a recipient of awards from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Earhart Foundation, the German Exchange Service, the Freeman Foundation, and Grossmont College. Dr. Myers directs the Institute for Social, Political, and Economic Research, a student centered think tank dedicated to cultivating the talent of future academic, political, and business leaders and acts as mentor for graduate students with the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University. Before coming to Grossmont, Dr. Myers worked as a consultant dealing with national security affairs, a humanities curriculum specialist, a sales and marketing representative for a leading educational publisher, and a mentee in the Office of the Honorable Alexander Meigs Haig. In his free time, Dr. Myers enjoys spending time with his three sons and wife, hiking the trails of North County, practicing Aikido, reading, watching films, and dreaming of writing a great book on Buddhism and political order.

After receiving his B.S. degree in economics from Pahlavi University in his home country of Iran, Shahrokh Shahrokhi pursued his graduate studies in the U.S. where he subsequently earned an MBA degree from Oklahoma City University and a Ph.D. in economics from Florida State University. His focus in his doctoral program was the economics of natural resources and the economies of oil exporting countries on which he later presented several papers at national conferences. He has taught at both graduate (MBA program) and undergraduate levels at San Diego State University. His interest in environmental economics has continued by teaching an advanced class on the subject. He has reviewed some major economics textbooks for leading national publishers. Dr. Shahrokhi joined Grossmont College in 2000. He is currently studying issues pertaining to ecological sustainability and the economics of happiness and shares his latest findings with his students at seminars held in Political Economy Week. In his free time he enjoys reading, watching classic movies, exercising and traveling with his family.

Ron Bee has extensive foreign policy and diplomatic experience, with research interests that include nuclear weapons nonproliferation, U.S.-European relations, German politics, and U.S.- Middle East relations. He has written five books and numerous articles on these subjects, and has taught at the University of San Diego, San Diego State University, Cuyamaca College, and Grossmont College. For more than a decade, Ron served as a high-level national security consultant in Washington. D.C., including posts in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, as a foreign policy analyst at the Library of Congress Congressional Research Service, as a special assistant for international security affairs at Palomar Corporation, and as director of research at ACCESS: A Security Information Service. He spent a year (1987-88) as a Robert Bosch Foundation fellow in the Bundestag and Berlin mayor’s office of the Federal Republic of Germany. He returned to San Diego in 1994 to work for the University of California Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC), based at UC San Diego. From 2003-2006, he co-chaired a track-two military-to-military dialogue, Arms Control and Security Improvement in the Middle East for the US Congress. He currently also serves as the Managing Director of the Hansen Summer Institute on Leadership and International Cooperation at the University of San Diego. Ron has been a guest speaker at the NATO headquarters in Brussels, and is a frequent commentator on local San Diego radio and television news programs. He speaks French, German, and Italian.

Publication: Mapping Transatlantic Futures German-American Relations in a Global World

David Chadwick-Brown has taught courses in political science, economics, and business at various San Diego community colleges, in addition to Grossmont. He received a BA (Cornell Univ. - Economics; Government majors), MA (UC Berkeley - Economics), and PhD (UC Berkeley - Political Science), the latter with emphases in public law, political theory, and American institutions. Dr. Chadwick-Brown has also taught at UC Berkeley and Davis, SDSU, Cal State San Marcos, and the Univ. of Washington, as well as UW and SDSU graduate schools of business administration, and Univ. of San Francisco law school. Academic service beyond the classroom has included editing a Business, Government, and Society text, conferences and papers, participation in multi-disciplinary institutes, academic senate, and department chair. Beyond academe, he worked in Washington, D.C. on a grant with the Public Land Law Review Commission, set up by Congress, to study budget policy in the Forest Service and BLM. Several years at Berkeley's Institute of Business and Economic Research produced studies, monographs, (and, conveniently, thesis material!) on legislation connected with COMSAT, resale price maintenance, and antitrust topics. Other exercises in politics include many years as condo association president, appearances before the San Diego City Council, and field work in political campaigns.

John Mercurio was born and raised in the East County of San Diego. He received his B.A. in Political Science with a minor in Theology from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. After working in the “real world” for five years, John went to SDSU and received an M.A. in Political Science with a specialization in International Relations. He has been teaching at Grossmont College and San Diego State ever since. John also teaches at Cuyamaca College and San Diego City College. He teaches introductory level classes in Political Science, American Politics, Comparative Politics, and International Relations. When opportunities arise to research, John prefers to focus his energy on Native American tribal government and the impact of casino gaming on tribal sovereignty. In fact, John received a Certificate of Proficiency in Tribal Gaming from Grossmont College, and that started him down this course of study.