Jennifer L. Erkulwater Named Winner of John Heinz Dissertation Award

For Immediate Release: January 23, 2002


Contact: Terry Nixon at (202) 452-8097

Washington, DC—The National Academy of Social Insurance is pleased to announce Jennifer L. Erkulwater as winner of the eleventh annual John Heinz Dissertation Award. Ms. Erkulwater wrote her dissertation, “The Forgotten Safety Net: The Expansion of Supplemental Security Income,” while a political science doctoral student at Boston College. Ms. Erkulwater’s dissertation was nominated for the award by Dartmouth College Professor Deborah Stone.

The award, which includes a $1,000 prize, will be presented during the National Academy of Social Insurance’s 15th Annual Conference on January 30–31, 2003, in Washington, DC. Academy President Lawrence Thompson of the Urban Institute and Award Committee Chair Robert Hudson of Boston University will make the award presentation. The Teresa and John Heinz Fund of the Heinz Family Foundation support the award.

An honorable mention was awarded to Pamela Herd, a Robert Wood Johnson Research Fellow in the Department of Health Management and Policy at the University of Michigan, for her dissertation, “Crediting Care, Citizenship, or Marriage? Gender, Race, Class and Social Security Reform,” which she wrote while a sociology doctoral student at Syracuse University. Ms. Herd’s dissertation was nominated for the award by Syracuse Professor Madonna Harrington Meyer. Ms. Herd is a former NASI intern.

The John Heinz Dissertation Award is issued in honor of Senator John Heinz. As a member of the Senate Finance Committee, he helped chart the Social Security rescue effort in 1983 and worked tirelessly to insulate the Social Security Trust Funds from the rest of the Federal budget. John Heinz was a leading expert in the Senate on private pensions, and health care and aging policy and was a member of the Academy’s Board of Advisors from the organization’s inception in 1986. Robert M. Ball, Founding Chair, said, “John Heinz was a leading proponent of Social Security with a true appreciation of the value of social insurance principles in developing public policy. He was a true supporter of the National Academy of Social Insurance and contributed importantly to its objectives. We are privileged to award this prize in his honor.”

To obtain application forms and additional information, contact Terry Nixon at the National Academy of Social Insurance, 1776 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Suite 615, Washington, DC 20036-1904, (202) 452-8097, or by email: nasi@nasi.org.

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The National Academy of Social Insurance is America’s only private, non-partisan resource center made up of the nation’s leading experts on social insurance. Its mission is to conduct research and enhance public understanding of social insurance, to develop new leaders, and to provide a nonpartisan forum for exchange of ideas on important issues in the field.