Associate Professor Kristin Taylor receives Career Development Chair Award

Dr. Kristin Taylor, associate professor of political science, was selected to receive the highly competitive 2022-23 Career Development Chair Award.

Dr. Taylor joined the Department of Political Science at Wayne State University in August 2013 as an Assistant Professor. She received her Ph.D. from North Carolina State University in 2012 with areas of specialization in Public Policy and Public Administration. Before arriving at Wayne State, Dr. Taylor taught at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, from 2011-2012. In 2018, Professor Taylor received two research grants from the National Science Foundation for studies on disaster-relief policy and infrastructure safety - one as principal investigator and one as co-PI. These grants provided more than $500,000 for support of her research and she has received more than $700,000 in external funding for her work.

Professor Taylor has already established herself as one of the leading researchers in the Department of Political Science and holds a national reputation that is quickly growing. Her research productivity - both in quality and quantity - is remarkable. In her time at Wayne State University, Professor Taylor has published ten refereed journal articles in such highly respected journals as Administration & Society, Review of Policy Research, and Policy Studies Journal.

In addition, Dr. Taylor has also published six book chapters in edited collections through such outlets as Policy Press, Oxford University Press, and Taylor & Francis/Routledge. Her piece entitled "Bureaucratic Policymaking on Natural Hazards" was published in the Oxford Encyclopedia of Natural Hazard Science (Oxford University Press, 2018) and it bespeaks the quality of Professor Taylor's work that such a young scholar be included in such a prestigious collection. Her chapter entitled "The Politics and Governance of Mitigation," appears in The Handbook for Planning and Disaster Resilience (Taylor & Francis/Routledge 2018) - yet another highly-regarded publication.

Professor Taylor proposes to use the Career Development Chair Award to further pursue her work on policy learning and implementation in local government. Her research focuses on the following question: Why do some public problems gain attention, leading to a change in the policy agenda?

Her proposed research project will involve the systematic test of existing theories of policy learning and will specifically examine the impact of early warning indicators and "focusing events." It is expected that this study will be transformed into a manuscript and published as a book by a university press.