Ph.D. in Public Policy and Management

Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy is a graduate school without departments and their characteristic silos. Our faculty, students, and research centers thrive by working together to solve problems across subjects, disciplines, and business verticals. In the Heinz College Ph.D. program, you will conduct innovative research to address increasingly complex challenges facing society, whether those challenges are technical, organizational, political, economic, social, or—as is often the case—some combination thereof.

The doctoral program in Public Policy & Management at Heinz College prepares students to apply a rigorous scientific approach to social, organizational, economic, and management problems in an increasingly connected world. Distinguished by the interdisciplinary model of Heinz College and CMU, our Ph.D. programs prepare graduates to lead change in their chosen fields through meaningful collaborations and hands-on work with our renowned and extremely accessible faculty.

At Heinz, we live and work at the critical nexus of information technology and public policy. Our Ph.D. in Public Policy & Management was created to train students to approach problems from multiple disciplinary perspectives, to use advanced analytic and theoretical models, and to apply modern technological capabilities such as machine learning to the policy domain.

Key Research Areas

Doctoral students take on a broad range of topics and problems, but some key areas of strength at Heinz College include:

• Crime & Drug Policy
• Energy & Environmental Policy
• Health Policy
• Management Science
• Organizational Behavior & Management