Dr. Tao Receives William E. Mosher and Frederick C. Mosher Award

Dr. Tao Lei, research assistant professor in the Department of Social Sciences and Policy Studies at the Education University of Hong Kong, along with his co-authors, have been chosen as the 2024 recipients of William E. Mosher and Frederick C. Mosher Award by American Society for Public Administration. This award was presented to them for their paper "Advancing the Frontiers of Genomic Public Administration: From Genetics to Administrative Attitudes, Behaviors, and Practices" (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/puar.13744), which was selected as the best academic article of 2023 in Public Administration Review (PAR), one of the top-ranking journals in the field of public administration.

This is the first time Asian scholars have won this prestigious award since its establishment. The award acknowledges the interdisciplinary contribution to public administration research made by Dr. Tao Lei and his two co-authors, Professor Tang Shui-Yan from the University of Southern California, and Professor Wen Bo from the University of Macau.

A remarkable accomplishment of the award-winning article is its establishment of a new research sub-field, Genomic Public Administration (Geno PA). This innovative field explores the attributes and behaviors of public administration through the lens and methodologies of behavioral genetics. The article also introduces an integrated research framework that aids in understanding how the insights derived from genetics and public administration can mutually enhance each other over time. This pioneering work is anticipated to supplement traditional public administration theory by delving into the genetic foundations of administrative behaviors and practices.