photo of Urooj AkramCongratulations to Urooj Akram, recipient of the 2023 Pollara Statistical Confidence Award. This award is given to those students who produce the best quantitative analysis papers at an advanced stage of their studies and who have been associated with the Department of Political Science through course work or supervision. Pollara Strategic Insights is a major Canadian research company that has been sponsoring these awards for since 1998. This is the 26th time the award has been granted.

Urooj Akram is an honours undergraduate in Political Science with a concentration in Public Affairs and Policy Analysis and an additional interest in Economics.

She is receiving the award for her work in Political Science 4701-Intermediate Polimetrics for Microdata. Her major course paper is entitled: The Puzzle of National Economic Perceptions: Analyzing Where Demographic, Employment, and Partisanship Variables Fit.

Urooj’s research found that the Canadians’ evaluations about the economy’s performance were significantly impacted by their household’s finances, personal income, gender, political alignment, geographic region, union membership, education, and marital status.

Urooj’s instructor in PSCI 4701 was Scott Edward Bennett of the Department of Political Science.