We are delighted to announce that Leah Ennis and Nandini Kapoor have been jointly awarded the 2024-25 Teresa Smith Award, and Vivian Gu has been named as the winner of the George Smith Award.
The annual awards acknowledge academic achievement on Comparative Social Policy and the Evidence-Based Social Intervention and Policy Evaluation (EBSIPE) courses at DSPI. Established in 2010 by five former DSPI students, these prestigious awards celebrate student excellence as well as honour the department’s former Heads of Department, George and Teresa Smith.
George Smith Award
The George Smith Award for the best Comparative Social Policy thesis in the academic year 2024-25 was awarded to Vivian Gu for the thesis: “Cradling Expectations: Social Conservatism and the Relationship between Child Benefit Generosity and Women’s Labour Market Participation Across OECD Countries”.
Teresa Smith Award
The Teresa Smith Award for best Evidence-Based Social Intervention and Policy Evaluation thesis in the academic year 2024-25 was jointly awarded to Leah Ennis for her thesis “Just for whom? A qualitative evidence synthesis of European coal-dependent communities’ experiences and perceptions of coal phase-outs and (just) energy transitions”, and Nandini Kapoor for her thesis “Medicaid Expansion, Abortion Funding Policies, and Racial Disparities in Maternal Mortality: A Difference-in-Differences Analysis.”
Find out more about the history of the George and Teresa Smith Awards
