Miller Graduate Fellows

The Institute of Higher Education named two students, Lucia Brajkovic and Kelly Ochs Rosinger, as Zell and Shirley Miller Graduate Fellows for 2014-15. The annual award is given to students with outstanding scholarly potential, academic record and professional achievements to support their doctoral study relating to current issues in higher education.

“The high caliber of our current students made it difficult to select just one recipient,” said IHE Director Libby Morris. “Lucia and Kelly both exemplify the traits of a great Miller Fellow and we were pleased to honor their hard work and dedication to the study of higher education.”

Rosinger, who completed her degree in May, has joined the professional research staff in EdPolicyWorks at the University of Virginia as a postdoctoral fellow. Her dissertation research, funded by a fellowship from the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, used a randomized control trial to examine how federal policy efforts to simplify information about college costs and financial aid affect enrollment and borrowing decisions. She also collaborates on quantitative and qualitative projects that consider the equity and efficiency outcomes of higher education policy at the federal, state and institutional level. Her research is in the areas of higher education policy, finance and economics.

Brajkovic is a Fulbright student from Croatia. Her dissertation research focuses on higher education systems in post-transition countries of Central and Eastern Europe. She is also interested in exploring the connections of elite U.S. universities with the industry and corporate world, particularly with transnational corporations. Brajkovic is currently serving as a senior research associate at the American Council on Education, where she will collaborate on research projects at the Center for Policy Research and Strategy and the Center for Internationalization and Global Engagement. In summer 2014, she also worked at ACE on similar projects, and during the past academic year, Brajkovic worked as a graduate research assistant at UGA’s Carl Vinson Institute of Government.