By Matthew Kredell
Madi Swayne, a PhD student in urban planning and development at the USC Price School of Public Policy, received the Rockwell Dennis Hunt Scholastic Award at the USC Academic Honors Convocation in April. This prestigious distinction is one of only 10 endowed fellowships and awards bestowed by the USC Graduate School each year.
The $5,000 award is presented to a graduate student who also attended USC for undergraduate studies. The scholarship is endowed in honor of the USC Graduate School’s former dean, who served from 1920 to 1945.
“It’s such an honor receiving the award and being recognized by the USC Graduate School as a valued part of the scholarly community,” Swayne said. “At the ceremony, I got to meet with many of the USC Trustees, top faculty and students who were presented with other awards. There were lots of great conversations not only celebrating our successes, but also talking about things that are really exciting to me — issues of social problems and education.”
Swayne, 21, is the youngest in her PhD program. In 2011, she entered USC as an undergraduate on a full-tuition Trustee Scholarship. Four years later, she completed dual bachelor’s and master’s degrees in environmental studies. She accepted a fellowship to pursue a PhD in urban planning in order to explore environmental justice.
“I had plenty of experience on the hard science part of environmental studies, but as I took what I learned and applied it to the built environment, I became more interested in the effects on people,” Swayne said. “We can do much research in a lab, but when we can make it applicable to someone’s life through urban planning, that’s when I think the work becomes important.”
Working as an environmental scientist for georemediation at AECOM the past two years, Swayne has given oversight to the removal of pollutants at some of the most contaminated sites in the Los Angeles area. She also saw how they most often affect low-income communities of color.
Her activity in environmental issues began at San Clemente High School, where she led an effort to collect more than 36,000 pieces of foam trash on the beach, then made a presentation to the city council that helped lead to a unanimous vote to ban the food containers from restaurants.
At Price, Swayne has been working closely with faculty advisor Lisa Schweitzer in formulating introductory research questions for her PhD studies, which she expects to continue for another three years.
“Madi is the perfect choice for the award,” Schweitzer said. “She is a wonderful representative from Price to the larger university community. Her research in our PhD program centers on environmental regulation and real estate development, and she has projects examining Exide clean-up in Vernon, CEQA reform and brownfield remediation.”