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The public policy undergraduate honors thesis is a year-long intensive research experience where students conduct original research and become experts on a topic under the guidance of a faculty member. As part of a month-long focus on social policy, faculty members nominated four current students with outstanding theses to share their projects.
Willow Kaplan: Sharpening skills and conducting cutting-edge social policy research
As a double major in Public Policy and Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies, Willow knew she wanted to pursue an undergraduate honors thesis at Duke Sanford that connected theory to a real policy problem. Her thesis examines whether the widespread adoption of remote and hybrid work after the outbreak of COVID-19 reduced employment and income disparities faced by mothers.
Writing my undergraduate honors thesis at Sanford has been one of the most formative academic experiences of my time at Duke. As a double major in Public Policy and Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies, I wanted to pursue a project that connected theory to a real policy problem.
Under the guidance of Professors Vicki L. Bogan and Mallory SoRelle, I developed my own research question and learned how to translate an idea into an empirical study. The process required far more than writing: I worked with datasets, learned statistical techniques, interpreted results, and repeatedly revised my work through sustained faculty and student feedback.
I also gained a clearer understanding of how research evolves – early assumptions were sometimes challenged by evidence, forcing me to rethink arguments and sharpen my reasoning. Most importantly, the experience showed me how interdisciplinary scholarship can shape practical policy discussions. By combining economic analysis with gender studies and theory, I saw how academic research can inform real debates about work, caregiving, and institutional responsibility in modern workplaces.
My thesis, “Flexible Work Practices and the Motherhood Penalty: A Post-Pandemic Analysis,” examines whether the widespread adoption of remote and hybrid work after the outbreak of COVID-19 reduced employment and income disparities faced by mothers.
Using nationally representative data from the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking, I find that mothers remain less likely to work full-time than comparable non-mothers. Although flexible work correlates with higher household income overall, mothers benefit less from this premium. The results suggest that flexibility strengthens job attachment but does not eliminate structural caregiving inequalities, indicating that broader policy interventions beyond workplace flexibility are necessary to meaningfully address gendered labor market gaps.
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Samantha Richter: Re-imagining Justice
With advisor Dr. Hannah Postel guiding and challenging Samantha throughout the process, Samantha examined the political, administrative, and community-level barriers to implementing small-scale detention centers across Europe, drawing on the work of an advocacy organization operating across 17 countries.
While studying abroad in Portugal, I got a routine email reminder to contact an advisor and start brainstorming about a topic for my undergraduate honors thesis. The timing was fortuitous. I had recently met the advocate whose criminal justice reform organization, RESCALED, would become the heart of my research.
While I didn’t know it when I opened that email, my thesis work would lead me to walk through a detention house in rural Belgium, conduct research across multiple European countries, and sit across from policymakers and prison directors who had dedicated their careers to reimagining justice.
It was the most rewarding work I have ever done.
For three years, Sanford had been shaping my curiosity into something rigorous, and I wanted my thesis to be worthy of that. Dr. Hannah Postel challenged me to build a project that was both genuinely researchable and analytically ambitious, pushing me further than I thought I could go.
I navigated the process alongside a remarkable cohort of fellow thesis writers — trading feedback on everything from research design to acknowledgements formatting. Writing an honors thesis became one of the most meaningful parts of my Duke experience. Presenting the final product in front of the people who pushed me to get there made every difficult moment worth it.
My thesis examines the political, administrative, and community-level barriers to implementing small-scale detention centers across Europe, drawing on the work of RESCALED, an advocacy organization operating across 17 countries. These facilities (housing roughly 20 individuals each in community-integrated settings) prioritize housing, employment, education, and healthcare from an inmate's first day, making reintegration the foundation of incarceration rather than an afterthought. Through visits to seven detention houses and 24 interviews with policymakers, prison administrators, and advocates, I investigate what makes these models work and how their lessons might inform broader criminal justice reform.
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Gabrielle Mollin: History, Politics and Memory
Gabby Mollin's undergraduate thesis at Sanford examined the relationship between the degree of centralization in history education and a nation’s politics of memory. She developed two original tools to systematically analyze each studied country’s acknowledgment of historical wrongdoing.
Choosing to write a thesis to conclude my undergraduate public policy degree was one of the most rewarding decisions I made at Duke. After spending several years assisting Sanford faculty with their research, it was especially meaningful to design and carry out a project of my own.
The year-long process of creating a thesis would not have been possible without the guidance of dedicated thesis seminar professors and the support of a collaborative team of students. Together, our cohort moved from drafting an initial research question to conducting literature reviews, designing methodologies, and drafting our final theses through multiple rounds of feedback.
One of the most rewarding aspects of the process was seeing the evolution of everyone’s work and sharing our progress through class presentations and the Sanford thesis poster session. Presenting my research to peers, professors, friends, and family was a meaningful culmination of a challenging and fulfilling academic experience at Duke.
My thesis focused on the relationship between the degree of centralization in history education and a nation’s politics of memory. Through a structured case comparison of Germany, Japan, England, and the United States, I analyzed curriculum documents, textbook language, government publications, and teacher training standards to evaluate each case’s treatment of historical wrongdoing in their history education.
I developed two original tools—an Education Centralization Index and a Historical Memory Rubric—to systematically analyze each country’s acknowledgment of historical wrongdoing. This topic allowed me to meaningfully combine my passion for education policy and history into one cohesive project.
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Kate Seneshen: HPV Research
Kate Seneshen's undergraduate public policy thesis led her down unexpected paths, including living in a small town in the Peruvian Andes – a town where she spent her days dancing in local parades, connecting with health centers, and surveying secondary school students about their Human Papillomavirus (HPV) prevention practices.
I could never have guessed that writing a public policy thesis would lead me to live in a small town in the Peruvian Andes – a town where I would spend my days dancing in local parades, connecting with health centers, and surveying secondary school students about their Human Papillomavirus (HPV) prevention practices.
This opportunity to carry out my own research project from start to finish helped me develop invaluable skills in protocol writing, survey design, data collection, cultural competence, data analysis, presentation, and report writing.
I am immensely grateful for the support of the public policy department and my mentor Dr. Ernesto Ortiz for their consistent guidance along every step of the process.
HPV is the most common sexually transmitted infection in the world and some strains cause various cancers. Through conversations with health officials at Peru’s National Cancer Institute, the National Ministry of Health and VIDAWASI, I recognized the need for improved HPV prevention in rural Cusco. I conducted a cross-sectional investigation of the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of secondary school students regarding HPV and related diseases in Urubamba, Cusco, surveying 120 students aged 12-18 across two secondary schools.
I consolidated results into eight recommendations for HPV interventions, emphasizing that initiatives should be school-based, inform about risk factors, focus on cancer prevention, involve parents, combat vaccine hesitancy, and address low national vaccine coverage goals. Based on this project and my other fieldwork, I have co-launched a global health student research training program through which four Duke undergraduates will spend the summer in Urubamba, co-designing sexual health interventions.