Research & Work

Recent Dissertations

Previous dissertation titles provide a sense of the diversity of the projects completed by doctoral students in Public and Urban Policy PhD program.

Dr. Bhumika Muchhala, 2024
Dissertation Title: A Political Economy Rationality of Austerity in the Global South: An Interdisciplinary Examination of Fiscal Austerity in Ecuador and Fiscal Discipline in Indonesia Through the Structural, Gendered, and Epistemic Power of Global Finance

Dr. Bobbette Ronnander, 2024 
Dissertation Title: Hospital Readmissions and the Transitional Care Process

Dr. Quan H. Tran, 2023
Dissertation Title: Space for Opportunity or a Cause of Poverty? The Effect of Ethnic Enclaves on Immigrants’ Labor Market Outcomes and Poverty

Dr. Tanishia Williams-Minor, 2023
Dissertation Title: Lessons and Losses: A Critical Race Theory Analysis of the Implementation of Culturally Responsive Curriculum in New York City's Segregated Schools

Dr. Rajeev Yerneni, 2023
Dissertation Title: Assimilating Chinese American Smoking Behavior: Comparing Effects of Immigration, Tobacco Policies and Cultural Interventions 

Dr. Fabiola Berdiel, 2022
Dissertation Title: From Socialism to Sociolismo: Urban Citizenship and the Production of the Public Sphere in Post-Fidel Cuba

Dr. Samantha Cocco-Klein, 2022
Dissertation Title: Children in the Storm: US Disaster Policy for Children from Hurricane Katrina to Hurricane Sandy 

Dr. Katherine Dillard Gonzalez, 2022
Dissertation Title: Systemic Strategies to Address Homelessness: A Situation Analysis of the Response in San Antonio, Texas

Dr. Violet Fredericks, 2022
Dissertation Title: The Gun Economy: Private Markets, Public Policy, and Gun Violence. A Situation Analysis of New York City, July Fourth weekend, 2020. 

Dr. Talib Hudson, 2022 
Dissertation Title: Interrogating the Notion of Evidence-Based Policy in Community-Based Violence Prevention

Dr. Yimin Li, 2022
Dissertation Title: Between Scientific Authoritarianism and Democracy: Science, science framing, scientific policymaking, and the search of depoliticized policies in contemporary China

Dr. Helidah Ogude, 2022 
Dissertation Title: Migrant Representation, Discourses and Determination: The case of the UK at the height of the European "Refugee Crisis"

Dr. Jennifer Santos Ramirez, 2022
Dissertation Title: CHOOSING PARTICIPATION IN RESPONSE TO A CRISIS: A Situation Analysis of Collaborative Grantmaking in Post-disaster Recovery Efforts

Dr. Noah Allison, May 2021
Dissertation Title: Immigrant Foodways: Restaurants, Street Food, and Ethnic Diversity in Queens, New York

Dr. David Bashevkin, 2021 
Dissertation Title: When God is at Stake: Crisis Communications following Religious Leadership Crises

Dr. Ofronama Biu, May 2021
Dissertation Title: Black Women, Black Men, and Occupational Crowding: An Analysis of Vulnerable Arrangements and Employer-sponsored Benefits

Dr. Maria Carrizosa, May 2021
Dissertation Title: Working Homes: Space-use intensity and urban informality in Bogota

Dr. Tracey Freiberg, 2021 
Dissertation Title: Work-Life Balance Disrupted: A Comparative Study of Firm Responses to Paid Care Leave Programs in the COVID-19 Pandemic

Dr. David Lopez Garcia, May 2021
Dissertation Title: Interactions Between Economic Development, Housing, and Transport Policies and the Mobility Experience of Workers in Greater Mexico City

Dr. Cristina Handal Gonzalez, May 2021
Dissertation Title: Barrios mas Seguros and the Intersections of Design and Policy: The Case of Collective Urban Gating in Tegucigalpa, Honduras

Dr. Kier Hanratty, 2021 
Dissertation Title: Do Property Tax Limitations Affect the Ability of Local Governments to Deliver Public Services

Dr. Jacquelin Katenekzsa, 2021
Dissertation Title: The Provisional As Political: An Ethnography of Digitally Mediated Cross-Border Informality and (Im)mobilities

Dr. Xia Li, 2021 
Dissertation Title: Political Choices and Persistent Inequality: Understanding the Educational Disadvantage that Confronts Rural Migrant Children in China's Large Cities

Dr. Saran Nurse, 2021
Dissertation Title: Still Standing: An Analytic Autoethnographic Case Study Examining Resilience, Business Survival and Other Entrepreneurial Outcomes of Black Small Business

Dr. Beryl Adongo Oranga, May 2021
Dissertation Title: The Role of Urbanization in African Human Development — A Cautionary Tale

Dr. Conrad Walker, May 2021
Dissertation Title: Rendering Housing Justice: How a Community Land Trust Facilitates Positive Decision-Making in a Pro-Growth City

Dr. Lena Anna Margarete Simet, May 2020
Dissertation Title: Intra-Urban Inequality in Argentina: Trends, Drivers, and Manifestation of Inequality in Argentinian Cities (1996-2018)

Dr. Anze Zadel, May 2020
Dissertation Title: The Design of Community Participation: Decision-making and Control over Resource Provision in New York City and Lagos