Anita Ravishankar, a joint-PhD candidate in political science and public policy, has been awarded a Rackham Grant in Public Scholarship to support research measuring the gap in trust between civilians and the police.
Grants in Public Scholarship are awarded to Rackham graduate students with proposals for mutually-beneficial projects in collaboration with non-academic partners to advance public good. Students receive up to $8,000 in aid, with a total $38,000 available. This year, five PhD students and one master's student were honored.
Ravishankar's project will be completed in collaboration with the Metropolitan Police Department of Washington, DC. She hopes to provide quantitative evidence to inform policy and programmatic changes that will enhance trust between police and the communities they serve. Her work will measure the divide between civilian and police attitudes toward policing practices.
Ravishankar received her bachelor's degree in science, technology and international security from Georgetown University. Her current research at the University of Michigan focuses on the costs of political violence, specifically civilian's trust in state institutions.
For more about Ravishankar's project, "Understanding Civilian vs. Police Expectations of Policing: Building Trust and Legitimacy by Bridging the Gap," read the University Record article by Joseph Stanhope Cialdella, "Graduate students receive grants for public scholarship projects."
--By Olivia Lewis (MPP '18).