Kate Brunk ’19 has won the 2019 James L. Fisher Outstanding Thesis competition at the college level for her master’s thesis “Beyond the Sentimental Cliche: How Local Communities Impact Residents and Shape Public Opinion.” Brunk completed her thesis as a student in the political science program and in the applied community and economic development sequence.
Brunk’s cross-disciplinary thesis addressed timely and important research questions about influences on public support for federal reproductive health funding, focusing on predictors of perceived need and actual need. Brunk used a broad range of methods in her thesis, such as correlational analyses of nationally-representative survey data, an original survey experiment, and geographic information systems analysis.
The College of Arts and Sciences has forwarded Brunk’s nomination to the University-wide phase of the Fisher Thesis competition.
