Doctoral student receives grant to analyze housing choice voucher
Kimberly Mitchell, of Blacksburg, Va., a second-year doctoral student in Virginia Tech’s College of Architecture and Urban Studies Environmental Design and Planning Program, has been awarded an Early Doctoral Student Research Grant by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Mitchell’s research, “Whose Choice Is It Really? An Analysis of Property Owner and Manager Characteristics and Their Impact on Housing Choice Voucher Acceptance," will investigate the impact of individual property owner and manager characteristics on voucher acceptance.
Her research will contribute to a better understanding of the market acceptance of rental housing assistance and to improving housing policy. Mitchell’s dissertation will contribute to the fields of housing policy and planning and will be of interest to other scholars, HUD, the real estate industry, and to housing policy. Her research is supervised by Ted Koebel, chair of the Urban Affairs and Plannning Program and director of the Center for Housing Research. Mitchell also has an assistantship in the Department of Building Construction.
The Early Doctoral Student Research Grant program assists eligible doctoral students in cultivating their research skills through the preparation of research manuscripts that focus on housing and urban development issues. This program also supports and encourages new scholars to share their research findings through presentations at scholarly conferences and/or publication in journals. These one-time grants of up to $15,000 are awarded to pre-dissertation doctoral students enrolled at accredited institutions of higher education.
The College of Architecture and Urban Studies is one of the largest of its type in the nation. The college is composed of two schools and the departments of landscape architecture, building construction, and art and art history. The School of Architecture + Design includes programs in architecture, industrial design and interior design. The School of Public and International Affairs includes programs in urban affairs and planning, public administration and policy, and government and international affairs. The college enrolls more than 2,000 students offering 22 degrees programs taught by 160 faculty members.
