Congratulations to Dr. Grace Benson, SIS PhD ’24, who was awarded the inaugural Cosmos Scholars Prize. The Cosmos Club Foundation awards this $25,000 prize to recent PhD graduates in recognition of outstanding original contribution to their field and the potential to drive innovation in their disciplines.

Benson's research compares refugee resettlement services across 26 countries that together are responsible for almost all resettlement. For her dissertation, supported by SIS committee members Boaz Atzili, Lauren Carruth, and Joe Young, she built a new Global Resettlement Services dataset and conducted statistical analyses to identify four broad approaches to resettlement services, which she then analyzed through in-depth case studies of Norway, Brazil, Australia, and the US. Benson published this research in an article in Refugee Survey Quarterly titled "Comparing Refugee Resettlement Services: A New Global Dataset and Typology" in October 2024. Her findings have significant implications for policy and practice, which she has begun sharing at forums such as the CRCP, an annual multilateral event hosted by the UN Refugee Agency, and by joining IRISE, an initiative that shares best practices in resettlement internationally.

“I am thrilled and honored to have this support from the Cosmos Club Foundation, which will allow me to extend my research by working with UNHCR and RIPIL to analyze additional countries and consider the ways in which refugees offer crucial social and economic contributions to their new communities," Benson said. 

Benson and other Cosmos Scholars Prize winners in other fields will attend a special event in their honor at the Cosmos Club later this month.