ERA Founder Douglas Harris wins APPAM Policy Field Distinguished Contribution Award

October 17, 2025

ERA founder Douglas Harris is honored with a prestigious national policy award.

Dou­glas Har­ris, pro­fes­sor and chair of eco­nom­ics at Tulane Uni­ver­si­ty School of Lib­er­al Arts, has been named the 2025 recip­i­ent of the Asso­ci­a­tion for Pub­lic Pol­i­cy Analy­sis & Management’s (APPAM) Pol­i­cy Field Dis­tin­guished Con­tri­bu­tion Award, rec­og­niz­ing sus­tained, field-shap­ing con­tri­bu­tions to pub­lic pol­i­cy analy­sis and management. 

APPAM will hon­or Har­ris at its 47^th Annu­al Fall Research Con­fer­ence, Nov. 13 – 15, 2025, in Seattle. 

APPAM is the pre­mier pro­fes­sion­al asso­ci­a­tion for the pub­lic pol­i­cy research com­mu­ni­ty. Its 3,400 indi­vid­ual mem­bers include aca­d­e­mics, prac­ti­tion­ers, and stu­dents, while its 100 insti­tu­tion­al mem­bers rep­re­sent lead­ing grad­u­ate and under­grad­u­ate schools of pub­lic pol­i­cy and man­age­ment, as well as top research orga­ni­za­tions and think tanks. 

Estab­lished in 2021, the Pol­i­cy Field Dis­tin­guished Con­tri­bu­tion Award hon­ors indi­vid­u­als whose research, pol­i­cy­mak­ing influ­ence, or ser­vice to APPAM and the Jour­nal of Pol­i­cy Analy­sis and Man­age­ment (JPAM) have sig­nif­i­cant­ly advanced the field over many years. 

Har­ris is the Schlieder Foun­da­tion Chair in Pub­lic Edu­ca­tion and directs the Edu­ca­tion Research Alliance for New Orleans (ERA-New Orleans) and the Nation­al Cen­ter for Research on Edu­ca­tion Access and Choice (REACH). He is also a non­res­i­dent senior fel­low at the Brook­ings Insti­tu­tion and directs Tulane’s State of the Nation Project and the Live Hand­book. His work has shaped nation­al debates on school choice, teacher eval­u­a­tion and account­abil­i­ty, and col­lege access.