2015 Rethinking Regulation Graduate Research Award recipients announced
Rethinking Regulation at the Kenan Institute for Ethics is pleased to announce four winners in its Graduate Research Awards program. The 2015 awardees are:
Will Goldsmith, who is pursuing a PhD in History, will explore the ways that North Carolina policymakers have used education as a key component of economic development strategy since 1965 and the impacts of these policies on its northeastern black belt. Political actors in North Carolina—spurred by liberal policy advisors at nonprofits like the Southern Growth Policies Board and MDC, Inc. and enabled by federal civil rights and antipoverty intervention—constructed a new people-based paradigm for economic development that had education as its linchpin. Part of his research examines the evolution of the testing-based accountability system in North Carolina and the consequences of this regulatory policy for schools in the rural black belt, one of the poorest parts of the state. He will use the funds to conduct archival research at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library in Atlanta.
Farah Hegazi, who is pursuing a PhD in Environmental Policy, will examine gaps in the United States Department of Agriculture’s regulations that have led to deficiencies in sanitation infrastructure in Lowndes County, Alabama. The main question that the study seeks to answer is: Is USDA regulation the primary cause of sanitation infrastructure deficiency in Lowndes County? If so, where and why has regulation failed to provide what it was designed to do? She will use the funds to conduct fieldwork in Alabama, interviewing local USDA staff and Lowndes County residents.
Ruxandra Popovici, who is pursuing a PhD in Environmental Policy, will study the decentralization of environmental policies, specifically the Payments for Hydrological Services (PHS) in Mexico. She is particularly interested in how the federal government’s goals for PHS are sustained, adapted, or rejected locally, and how this shapes the decentralization process (i.e. what is being decentralized, what are the various conflicts of interests that impede decentralization, and conversely when is decentralization feasible). She will use the funds to support fieldwork in Mexico.
Daniel Ribeiro, a SJD student in the Law School, will pursue retrospective review of regulations. His project aims to compare the EIA and RIA systems (including guidelines, practice, and oversight institutions). His goal is to propose a viable framework for the integrated impact assessment system, combining the advantages and experiences of RIA and EIA, while improving their potential, and overcoming their limitations. He will use the funds to conduct interviews with regulators responsible for preparing and overseeing regulatory impact assessments in the UK and at the European Commission.
