Rutgers SPAA Assistant Teaching Professor Jihye Jung Receives Best Dissertation Award from School of Public Affairs, University of Colorado-Denver

Dr. Jihye Jung, who joined Rutgers School of Public Affairs and Administration (SPAA) as an assistant teaching professor in Spring 2021, has received a Best Dissertation Award from the School of Public Affairs, University of Colorado-Denver where she completed her dissertation titled “Dimensions of Democratic Accountability of Foundations: Transparency and Grantmaking Openness.”

The dissertation focuses on how private foundations implement transparency and openness as democratic dimensions of accountability. Using multiple analytical methods and original data collection from tax returns, her work contributes to the nonprofit management literature by evaluating the accountability of funders, a topic which has been under studied compared to grantee-focused accountability.

The selection committee at the School of Public Affairs, University of Colorado-Denver found the dissertation “exhibited the highest quality as expected by a SPA PhD student” and it was “innovative in the data sources and methods of analyses.” In addition, the committee stated “the research contributes to the theories in the field of public affairs and dealt with incredibly relevant issues.”