Amy Yao (PhD’23) Awarded Horowitz Social Policy Award for Dissertation
Amy Mengni Yao, a graduating doctoral candidate at Boston University School of Social Work (BUSSW), has received the Horowitz Foundation for Social Policy Award for her dissertation, “Food Insecurity and Mental Health among Urban Women, and the Effects of Policy Change during the COVID-19 Pandemic.”
The Horowitz Foundation supports projects with a social policy application on a global or local level. Its aim is to bolster the work of emerging social policy scholars like Yao and encourage projects that address contemporary issues in the social sciences.
Yao was selected from an international applicant pool and will receive $7,500 in grant funding.
Daniel P. Miller, director of the PhD in Social Work Program and a BUSSW associate professor, says, “We are thrilled that Amy has received this recognition for her dissertation. The COVID-19 pandemic helped to bring renewed attention to food insecurity as a dire social problem, and Amy’s receipt of the Horowitz Foundation for Social Policy Award signals the importance and timeliness of her research.”
Amy Mengni Yao, who graduates from the PhD program this year, is a public policy researcher with a focus on program participation, behavioral insights, and financial well-being among urban women. She aims to promote social equity and behavioral health among families in urban settings using mixed methods and advanced statistical methods for causal inference. She has previously received the Harvard Public Health Disparities Geocoding Project Training Award (2022), the Harvard Rappaport Public Policy Fellowship (2021), and the Columbia Fragile Families Data Workshop Award (2021).