Two Ford School graduates were recognized by Rackham Graduate School for their doctoral dissertations. Benjamin Goehring (PhD '25) was one of 10 winners of the ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Awards (DDA). Owen Kay (PhD '25) received an honorable mention for his dissertation "Essays on Optimal Energy Policy."
Goehring's dissertation "The States of American Bureaucracy" is a valuable contribution to the study of public administration. Using a database of personnel records across several states, Goehring rigorously examines the causes of turnover within state governments with a focus on civil service protections and working conditions. He finds no evidence in Mississippi or Florida that rolling back tenure protections led to the systematic purging of political opponents. However, the removal of tenure protections did lead to an increase in turnovers, particularly among longer-serving employees. In addition, Goehring's analysis of Texas prisons found a significant correlation between excessive heat and turnover among correctional officers.
Charles Shipan, the J. Ira and Nicki Harris Professor of Social Sciences, with a courtesy appointment at the Ford School, chaired Goehring's dissertation committee.
The ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Awards (DDA) recognize exceptional work produced by doctoral students for the high caliber of their scholarship and the significance and interest of their findings.
Each year, Rackham invites faculty to nominate outstanding dissertations produced in their programs. The nomination dossiers are read and discussed by a review panel of faculty members who identify the finalists. Then, members of the Michigan Society of Fellows (MSF) read the finalists' dissertations, review their merits, and select the winners. Ford School assistant professor Mo Torres (MPP '15) is a MSF postdoctoral scholar and a reviewer for the award.
Below is the complete list of the winners, as well as the other honorable mentions.
Winners (Pictured above, clockwise from top left)
- Jason Byas, Philosophy
- So-Bin Cho, Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences
- Benjamin Goehring, Public Policy and Political Science
- Maximilian Jerdee, Physics
- Jianhao Ma, Industrial and Operations Engineering
- Aditya Varma Muppala, Electrical and Computer Engineering
- Joshua Schulze, Film, Television, and Media
- Siliang Song, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
- Bibi Alika Sulaman, Neuroscience
- Meixin Yuan, Urban and Regional Planning
Honorable Mentions
- Christopher Azaldegui, Chemical Biology
- Sanjana Eyunni, Molecular and Cellular Pathology
- Jiajia Guo, Applied and Interdisciplinary Mathematics
- Martha Henzy, English Language and Literature
- Yasha Iravantchi, Computer Science and Engineering
- Owen Kay, Public Policy and Economics
- Alex Moskowitz, Ancient Mediterranean Art and Archaeology
- Sangli Teng, Robotics
- Mira Vale, Sociology
- Katja Vassilev, Mathematics
Read the original story published by Rackham Graduate School.
Read the event program for more details on each awardee's research.
