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Honors Student Tiffany Merritt’s Research Project Chosen for Prestigious “Posters on the Hill” Competition

Dr. Saundra Westervelt and honors student Tiffany Merritt took their research to Capitol Hill last week. Tiffany’s honors project, titled “Addressing the Aftermath of a Wrongful Conviction in North Carolina: Policy vs. Practice,” examines the implementation of the North Carolina compensation policy for NC exonerees. Tiffany’s research reveals that while NC is often noted as having a generous compensation statute for those wrongly convicted in our state, only 44% of NC exonerees actually receive compensation. Thus, her research reveals a gap between our policy and the implementation of that policy.
The project was one of 60 from across the country selected from over 500 applications for the annual “Posters on the Hill” competition sponsored by the Council on Undergraduate Research. Merritt and Westervelt traveled to Washington D.C. last week where they discussed their work with two U.S. Senators and the staffers for a third Senator and two U.S. Congressmen. They also met with White House staffers from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
TiffSJ.RepYoung
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