The American Political Science Association (APSA) has granted awards to three graduate students in the Maxwell School Political Science Department in support and recognition of their work.

Research grants were awarded to Ph.D. candidates Jingding Wang and Hannah Radner, and a third candidate, Nicholas D’Amico, received an award for his dissertation proposal.

Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement grants support doctoral dissertation research that aims to advance knowledge and understanding of citizenship, government and politics.

Wang is examining how access to Central bank digital currencies—digital versions of government-issued money—creates new forms of power, affecting the global financial landscape. The grant will fund fieldwork abroad, enabling Wang to study cross-border payment networks that link different types of currencies.

Radner’s research examines the ways political parties adjust their campaigns based on the scope of their elections and seeks to determine if parties deliberately change their messaging to better connect with local voters in subnational elections. She will use the grant to support a trip to the U.K. to study campaign strategies in the upcoming Scottish and Welsh parliamentary elections.

D’Amico, meanwhile, was honored with the organization’s Kenneth Sherrill Prize for the best dissertation proposal for an empirical study of lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT) topics in political science. His proposal, titled “Rainbow Participation? Assessing the Forces Motivating LGBTQ Participation and Political Identity in the United States,” seeks to explain why LGBTQ Americans tend to be more politically active and consistent in their views. He will conduct interviews and surveys while analyzing pre-existing research to test his idea that shared experiences—and the way those experiences shape a sense of community—play a key role in LGBTQ political identity and behavior. D’Amico is one of nine 2025 APSA Dissertation Award recipients.

The APSA was founded in 1903 and is a leading professional organization for the study of political science. The organization consists of over 11,000 members in more than 100 countries, bringing together political scientists and students from all regions and fields of study to deepen our understanding of government, citizenship and democracy.

By Catherine Scott