George Smith Award Winners 2023-2024
Joana Geisler (left) Chenxuan Li (right)
We are delighted to announce that Joana Geisler and Chenxuan Li have been jointly awarded the George Smith Award for best MSc Thesis in Comparative Social Policy 2023-24.
Joana Geisler's thesis title focused on, “EU Cohesion Policy and redistributive preferences: a regional study” and Chenxuan Li thesis title was, “Aspiration or Aversion to STEM? The Effect of Ability-based Between-Class Grouping on Gender-differentiated STEM Career Aspirations across OECD Education Systems”.
Joana said, ‘It’s an honour to receive this award for my thesis, an attempt to shed some light on the link between economic growth policies and social policy preferences. A bittersweet end to an amazing year of learning, both from the excellent teaching staff, including my supervisor Selçuk Bedük, and of course all my inspiring classmates. Thank you to everyone who was part of my time at DSPI!’
Chenxuan said, ‘I am honoured to receive the award for my thesis. This work marked my first attempt at quantitative social research, and I can hardly imagine this achievement without the generous support of the faculty, and in particular, my supervisor, Professor Erzsébet Bukodi. As new tech waves continue to dominate headlines, this research raises a slight alarm over our rose-tinted view of STEM education, pointing to how the structural features of education systems and the organizational features of schools both matter in shaping the gender gap in STEM. I could not have asked for a better place than DSPI to provide my once unstructured ideas with an academic home, and to prepare me to further explore the synergy between education, innovation, and entrepreneurship for better societies.’
Find out more about the history of the George and Teresa Smith Awards
