SPP PhD student Ward Kay won the James W. Prothro Student Paper Competition for his paper "Remarkably Stable Public Opinion in a Turbulent Policy Environment," which he presented at the Southern Association for Public Opinion Research annual conference held in Raleigh, North Carolina, on October 8.

SPP's Center for the Study of International Medical Policy and Practices, led by Professor Arnauld Nicogossian and Associate Director and Professor Naoru Koizumi, has been designated by the World Medical Association in Geneva one of its three Cooperating Centers worldwide under World Health Organization guidelines. SPP and College of Health and Human Services faculty are participating in the program and on the advisory board.

SPP PhD student Monique Helfrich, along with Vivek Prasad (PhD student in environmental science and public policy) and Professor Susan Crate (College of Science), received the International Award for Excellence in the area of Climate Change: Impacts and Responses. The award was presented to Helfrich, Prasad, and Crate by Common Ground Publishing for their paper "Social Capital as a Source of Adaptive Capacity to Climate Change in Developing Countries." The authors have been invited to present a plenary session at the second International Conference on Climate Change: Impacts and Responses to be held at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia, in July 2010 when the award will be formally presented to the authors.