Vernise Estorcien

Doctoral Student, Ph.D. in Public Affairs

Email: vest002@fiu.edu

Biography

Vernise Estorcien is a Ph.D. candidate in the Public Affairs program. She relocated from Nassau, The Bahamas, to the United States in 2013. Since relocating to the United States, she received her Associate Degree from Valencia College and her Bachelor in Public Administration, Master in Public Administration, and Certificate in Leadership Studies from Florida International University. Vernise served as the Student Representative and Chair of the scholarship committee for the ASPA South Florida Chapter. Vernise is also the Founder and President of the ASPA South Florida Student Association at Florida International University. 

Vernise research focuses on how public institutions can contribute to community development. Specifically, she studies public policy and administration of citizen and state interaction programs, minority political representation in local government, and issues of service delivery in the context of marginalized communities and law enforcement agencies. She has presented her research at the annual meetings of the Association for Public Policy and Management, the American Society for Public Administration, the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action, the Association for Budgeting and Financial Management, and the Midwest Political Science Association. Recently, Vernise was selected as a Fellow to attend the American University Summer diversity Academy and received a Dissertation Year Fellowship. She also received one of the best paper awards from the Conference of Minority Public Administrators. Last year, Vernise was a 2021 Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA) Doctoral Fellow. In 2020, Vernise received a fellowship to attend the ICPSR Summer Program in Quantitative Methods of Social Research at the University of Michigan.