Public Policy Ph.D. Candidate Earns Top Honor at APPAM Conference

Posted December 2, 2024

JuneMi Jennifer Kang, a Ph.D. Candidate in Public Policy from Georgia Tech’s joint program with Georgia State University, earned the 1st place prize at the 2024 APPAM Fall Research Conference. The conference was held from November 21-23 at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland.

Kang’s award-winning poster, Pushing Students At-Risk Up the Academic Ladder: Evaluating the Effects of the Summer Success Academy Bridge Program, was co-authored with her advisor, Dr. Ross Rubenstein, who is Professor and Dan E. Sweat Distinguished Chair in Educational and Community Policy in the Department of Public Management and Policy at Georgia State University. The findings suggest that intensive summer bridge programs can lead to short-term positive impacts on student success outcomes, with the strongest effects found for Black students and students from low-income households. This research represents the first chapter of Kang’s dissertation, Evaluating Equity and Access in Higher Education: Regression Discontinuity, Meta-Analysis, and Institutional-level Analysis.

Kang’s recognition at APPAM adds to a series of prestigious accolades. She was named a 2022 Entrepreneurship Policy Fellow by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, a highly competitive honor awarded to only six public policy graduate students nationwide. She has also received the Coca-Cola Foundation’s Andrew Young School of Policy Studies Dean's Fellowship. With support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Kang contributed to impactful research in the Research on Careers in Science (RoCS) Lab at Georgia Tech’s School of Public Policy, focusing on expanding opportunities for underrepresented students in STEM education and addressing critical challenges in diversity and inclusion.

Kang graduated as Valedictorian with a Master of Public Policy from the KDI School of Public Policy and Management, where she was also honored with the Proud Alumni Award in 2020. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in Economics and International Relations summa cum laude from Rhodes College. Before pursuing her Ph.D., she worked as a Senior Research Associate at the Korea Development Institute (KDI), focusing on regulatory policy. In this role, she served as a liaison to the OECD and was recognized with the Outstanding Paper for National Policy Contribution award from the South Korean government in 2019. Kang is currently on the job market for Fall 2024.