Rice University’s Baker Institute Student Forum hosts undergraduate public policy conference

The Baker Institute Student Forum hosted its annual undergraduate public policy conference April 8. The competition allows Rice students to present their solutions for the nation’s pressing issues and interact with policy experts and representatives from the corporate, medical, academic, nonprofit and government spheres. This year’s focus was on health care.

First place went to Andrew Sun and Kathryn Phung, Grace Yetter took second place, and third place saw a tie between two groups: Akshay Sethi and Jasir Rahman, and Zabrina Sidhu and Ian Wright. The winning groups tackled topics such as addressing discriminatory barriers to prison health care access, reforming social security disability insurance, alleviating health disparities worsened by COVID-19 and preliminary interventions for gun violence. They received cash prizes and will have their papers published in the Rice Journal of Public Policy, an undergraduate research publication produced through the Baker Institute for Public Policy.