Three Georgia State University Ph.D. Candidates Awarded APPAM Fellowships

ATLANTA — Andrew Young School of Policy Studies doctoral candidates Hala Altamimi (Public Policy), Nicardo McInnis (Economics) and Youngwan Song (Public Policy) will travel to Denver, Colo., in November to attend the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management’s (APPAM) 41^st Annual Fall Research Conference.

Their conference and travel expenses will be paid for by APPAM Equity and Inclusion Fellowships they were recently awarded.

Fellow Hala Altamimi had been recognized for her outstanding research work prior to the APPAM fellowship. In August, she and Qiaozhen Liu (Public Policy) won the Best Doctoral Student Conference Paper Award from the Public and Nonprofit Division of the Academy of Management Conference. They received the award for their paper, “The Nonprofit Starvation Cycle: Impact of Underfed Overhead on Program Outcomes.”

“I love attending conferences! They are an invaluable opportunity to improve my research through the theoretical and applied expertise of the diverse participants,” she said. “I look forward to presenting my research at the APAAM conference, expanding my network and finding inspiration for new research ideas.”

Altamimi’s research focuses on result-oriented approaches to public and nonprofit management including sector performance and efficiency measurement, program evaluation, and performance auditing. She hopes that her research will contribute to improving the performance and accountability of public and nonprofit organizations.

Nicardo McInnis plans to use the APPAM conference as an opportunity to further strengthen his research and build on feedback he received at the American Society of Health Economists’ annual conference in June.

“I am always excited by the prospect of meeting like-minded researchers to work with in the future,” he said. “I will also be networking with professionals in the field because I am currently on the job market.”

McInnis hopes to receive feedback on his job market paper, which examines the complicated dynamics between income received at different stages in the life-cycle and health in early adulthood. It has been published on APPAM’s website.

“That paper is a critical component of the job application process in the field of economics. It’s what you use to market yourself,” he said. “It communicates strongly your potential for future success based on the quality of work that you do. So, in fact, the job market paper may even be more important than a resume.”

Fellow Youngwan Song (Ph.D.) also views the conference as an opportunity to network, and his focus is primarily on making research connections.

“I am eager to meet scholars who have similar interests and seek advice that will allow me to become a successful researcher after I obtain my Ph.D.,” he said. He hopes to one day provide policy insight in both the United States and his home country of South Korea.

Although academic interests and goals for the future vary among the three award recipients, they all see the APAAM conference helping them towards rewarding careers in which their research affects change in the world.

Written by:

Sumar Deen
Student (M.S. Clinical Mental Health Counseling, ‘21)