Duke Awards Posthumous Ph.D. degree
Economist Shauna Saunders is recognized for her work
Shauna Saunders had completed nearly all of her dissertation work when she died last year while waiting for a liver transplant. Her committee voted to award her an unusual posthumous Ph.D.
On Sunday, family members attended the GraduateSchool diploma ceremony and picked up Saunders' Ph.D.
Her parents, Ken and Helen Saunders, and her sister Anita Slominska traveled from Saskitoon, Saskatchewan, in Canada to honor Saunders, an economics student.
"She was a great daughter, and we're proud of what she did," Ken Saunders said before the ceremony. "Being able to do this for her is a feeling beyond words."
Saunders' dissertation was on "The National Endowment for the Arts: Its Origins and Prospects." It was listed in the commencement program along with the dissertations of the other new Ph.D.s.