Advance Your Research Career with an Evans Ph.D.
Are you interested in using sophisticated research methods and an interdisciplinary perspective to study society’s most significant challenges? Do you want to use data and evidence to improve policy decisions and the management of public organizations to improve the life of individuals and communities?

The Evans School Ph.D. program is a rigorous and supportive educational experience for those interested in pursuing applied research careers in academic, government, and nonprofit organizations. We train sophisticated analysts and scholars with a deep understanding of the institutional, historical, normative, and economic factors shaping policy design, implementation, and evaluation.

Policy and management research examines:

• the effects of laws and regulations on people, communities, and organizations;
• processes for creating equitable and inclusive democratic governance;
• management of multi-sectoral (government, nonprofit, and private) partnerships, and;
• equitable provision of public goods and services.

The Evans Ph.D. Advantage
The Evans Ph.D. program is in a top-ranked school of public affairs within a preeminent university.
The Evans Schooltop 10 among public affairs schoolsin the U.S.— promotes values of equity, service and courage by educating leaders, generating knowledge, and hosting communities. We have a diverse body of students from around the world who bring interdisciplinary backgrounds. The University of Washington—#8 among global universities—is a vibrant, diverse public university committed to education and scientific knowledge.

The Evans Ph.D. trains students to be leaders in public policy and management research. The core curriculum provides a foundation in microeconomics, statistics, institutional and public administration theories, policy making processes, and more. Students then work closely with faculty advisors to select electives that provide depth in policy fields, methods, and theories of their choosing.

The Evans Ph.D. offers all students secure funding. We admit a small cohort of 4-5 new students each year. Each admitted student is offered a five-year financial support package—including tuition, stipend, and health insurance—through part-time employment as a research or teaching assistant. We also offer travel support for professional conferences.

The Evans Ph.D. provides team mentoring from world renown scholars of policy and management. Students are assigned a primary advisor but encouraged to develop advising and mentoring relationships with multiple faculty members at the Evans School and across the University of Washington. The Evans School faculty includes highly-regarded scholars of social, environmental, and criminal justice policy, budgeting and contracting, leadership and equity, and international development.

Master Advanced Skills
At the Evans School, doctoral students acquire a broad and deep set of skills essential to understanding policy and management, including:

• advanced data, methods, and data science techniques through classes at the Evans School, the  Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology, the Center for Statistics and the Social Sciences, and the Paul G Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering,
  
• depth in an area of specialization chosen by the student from offerings anywhere on campus, including top-ranked programs in education, computer science, public health, social work, and sociology, teaching experience as teaching assistants or instructors of record, and professional and career development skills, including networking, publishing, grant writing, and conference presentations.

Evans Ph.D. students also have the option to pursue a credentialed degree option in Data Science or Advanced Data Science through the eScience Institute or a UW graduate certificates in over 50 topics. Students also benefit from additional training through UW research initiativesincluding the eScience Institute, Ocean Nexus, the Population Health Initiative, Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, and the Program on Climate Change
Conduct High Impact Research
Starting in the first year of the program, Evans Ph.D. students work closely with internationally recognized faculty to research pressing policy and management topics, including:

• economic benefits of empowering women in agriculture
• managing risk from simultaneous wildfires>
• economic impacts of the Seattle Minimum Wage Ordinance
• perceptions of earthquake risks and disaster prevention
• decision-making in US philanthropies
• collaborative governance of natural resources

Before graduating, Evans Ph.D. students publish in academic and popular media outlets, such as: Housing Policy Debate (Fowle), Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory (Scott, Tyler), Journal of Environmental Management (Hsueh), The Conversation (Finchum-Mason, Freitag), and The Washington Post (Sederbaum).
Pursue Your Research Career
Our Ph.D. graduates hold positions as:

• academic faculty, teaching and conducting research in departments of public policy, public administration, political science, environmental science and policy, and business administration at Arizona State University, KDI School of Public Policy, Pennsylvania State University, University of California, Davis, and University of Michigan;
• government analysts at the US Government Accounting Office, the Oregon Department of Revenue, and the San Francisco Unified School District;
• researchers at contract research and advocacy organizations, including MDRC, Oxfam, and The Nature Conservancy.

Contact Us
If you have questions after reading through all of the online materials, please contact us at evansadm@uw.edu.
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