Dissertation Award Winners

Each year Public Policy graduates who completed dissertations in the previous academic year are selected by a committee to receive the Will Miller Public Policy Distinguished Dissertation Award.

2010

  • Dr. Barbara Warner, Talking Us into War: Problem Definition by Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and George W. Bush
    • Advisor: Brinck Kerr
  • Dr. Otilia Iancu, Safe Haven Legislation: The Political Story Behind The Policy Diffusion
    • Advisor: Brinck Kerr

2011

  • Dr. Adele Norris, Intersectionality and Empowerment: A Case Study of Arkansas Women
    • Advisor: Anna Zajicek

2013

  • Dr. Gary Wilson, Superfund Evaluation: The Families of Tar Creek
    • Advisor: Joe Shriver
  • Dr. Caleb Rose, The Academic Impacts Of Attending a KIPP Charter School in Arkansas
    • Advisor: Gary Ritter
  • Dr. Danny Chand, Interest Group Scorecards and Legislative Satisfaction: Using Rating to Explore the Private Bias in Public Policy
    • Advisor: Bill Schreckhise

2014

  • Dr. Sonia Kapur, Individual, Organizational, and Policy Related Aspects of Immigration and Domestic Violence: The Perspectives of Advocates Working with Asian Indian Marriage Migrants
    • Advisor: Anna Zajicek

2015

  • Dr. Noah A. Pittman, Evaluating the effects of the Arkansas scholarship lottery on college participation
    • Advisor: Mike Miller
  • Dr. Alexander Villarraga, Education Policy of Banning Unauthorized Immigrant Students’ Access to Higher Education State Benefits
    • Advisors: Brinck Kerr and Tom Smith
  • Dr. Brett A Fitzgerald, Incarcerating Exceptional Pupils: Is there a School-to-Prison Pipeline in Eastern Oklahoma?
    • Advisor: Brinck Kerr

2016

  • Dr. Kalynn Admundson, Socially Constructing Drug Addicts from the Poor: A Critical Discourse Analysis
    • Advisor: Anna Zajicek
  • Dr. Anne Diallo, Factors Affecting the Level of Sustainability of Public-Private Collaborations at the Municipal Level: The Case of Motorcycle Rallies
    • Advisor: Margaret Reid

2017

  • Dr. Nathan Kemper, Query Theory Applications: Choice Experiments under Oath, Attendance to Attributes, and Genetically Modified Food Labeling Policy
    • Advisor: Jenny Popp

2019

  • Dr. Roslina Binta-Ali, Economic and Policy Evaluations and Impacts of the National Rice Development Policy Strategies in Malaysia: Self-Sufficiency, International Trade, and Food Security
    • Advisor: Eric Wailes

2020

  • Dr. Larra Rucker, Understanding Early Childhood Education Workforce Policy: The Relationship between Policy and Teacher Qualification Attainment
    • Advisor: Anna Zajicek
  • Dr. Grant West, Interpreting Potential Groundwater Policies through Modeling of Market and Non-Market Benefits and Costs
    • Advisor: Kent Kovacs

2022

  • Dr. Marei Houpert, Decision Making Under Uncertainty Among Agricultural Commodity Traders
    • Advisor: Andrew McKenzie