Berkeley Law assistant professor Karen Tani has won the annual John A. Heinz Dissertation Award from the National Academy of Social Insurance. She will receive $2,500 for the award, which honors outstanding research by new scholars addressing social insurance policy questions. Tani’s dissertation, judged by a five-person committee, tracks the evolution of welfare rights. Committee chair Christine Bishop of Brandeis University praised her “use of primary sources encompassing local variations in the administration of public assistance between 1935 and 1965 to provide an elegant and revealing analysis with far-reaching implications.”