Meghna Sabharwal, Ph.D.
meghna.sabharwal@utdallas.edu
University of Texas at Dallas
Country: United States (Texas)
About Me:
Meghna Sabharwal is a tenured associate professor and a Ph.D. Director at The University of Texas at Dallas in the Public and Nonprofit Management program. Her research expertise lies in public human resource management, specifically related to workplace diversity, job satisfaction, performance, comparative human resource management, and high-skilled immigration. She won the best paper award from ROPPA in 2013 for a co-authored paper titled: "Charting Ethics in Asia-Pacific HRM: Does East Meet West, Ethically?" Meghna is also the recipient of the Julia J. Henderson International Award (2015) by the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA) Section on Women in Public Administration, which recognizes demonstrated commitment to international public administration, in particular, or to international public service. She also won the best article award for the Journal of Public Affairs Education in 2013 titled: "Advancing Underrepresented Populations in the Public Sector: Approaches and practices in the Instructional Pipeline." She won the best graduate and undergraduate professor award in 2017 and 2016 by the Public and Nonprofit Management at the University of Texas at Dallas.Dr. Sabharwal has published over 43 peer-reviewed articles and has presented in over 70 international, national, and regional conferences, and has been invited to over two dozen presentations or talks at national and international professional meetings, seminars, or colloquia. So far she has received two National Science Foundation grants, one in 2013 ($197,189) and the other in 2016 ($217,155). She also received a $5,000 internal Economic Political and Policy Science Advisory grant.Dr. Sabharwal is the current chair of the Section of Women in Public Administration, the largest and most active ASPA sections. She also serves on the editorial boards of Review of Public Personnel Administration 2017-2020, Journal of Public Affairs Education 2015-2018, Indian Journal of Public Administration - leading journal of Public Administration being published regularly by the Indian Institute of Public Administration, New Delhi, since the early 1960s, and Governance and Management Review research journal by Institute of Administrative Sciences at Punjab University, Lahore, Pakistan. She regularly reviews manuscripts for several public administration, public policy, social science and higher education journals.Dr. Sabharwal received her doctorate in public administration from Arizona State University in 2008. She worked as a postdoctoral research fellow at the City College of New York, City University of New York (CUNY) before joining the faculty at the University of Texas at Dallas in fall 2009.
Research Interests
Gender and Politics
Race, Ethnicity and Politics
Immigration & Citizenship
Asian Politics
Countries of Interest
United States
India
My Research:
The central focus of my research is diversity, which includes women, the LGBT community, other minorities and immigrants, and cross-cultural public management issues. I consider myself a human resources scholar. I often explore diversity as it relates to underrepresented groups and have published thirteen significant journal articles on the topic. My most significant work to date is a sole-authored manuscript published in the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory. The study examines the issue of glass cliffs among women in senior executive service positions in the federal government. In addition, my work published on organizational inclusion is listed as the most read article on the Public Personnel Management’s website. Another stream of my diversity research focuses on immigrants who contribute to Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics fields. I have received two National Science Foundation grants totaling to $422,344 to study migration and return migration of Asian Indian immigrants in the United States. The results of the study are published or forthcoming in seven peer-reviewed journals and two book chapters, and I have also presented at more than a dozen national and international conferences. Due to the need for comparative and international data, globalization and its associated trends remain a challenging albeit vital area in which to draw conclusions and advance scholarship in the field of contemporary public administration. This area of cross-cultural public management – understanding cross-cultural differences in work attitudes, motivations, ethics, performance, job satisfaction and leadership among public sector employees – forms the third stream on which I have focused attention and resources to make significant scholarly contributions. To date I have used the data gathered to publish ten cross-national and international studies with the aim of advancing the literature and scholarship on comparative public human resources management. One of the papers that I published in the Review of Public Personnel Administration (ROPPA) won the best paper award from the journal in 2013. To further develop understanding of key public administration issues in the Asia-Pacific region, in 2013, I co-edited a book titled Public Administration in South Asia: India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. The Section for Women in Public Administration (SWPA) at the American Society for Public Administration recognized my contributions to international public administration research in 2015, awarding me the Julia J. Henderson International Award. I am also the recipient of the 2019 Mary Hamilton Award for my scholarship and service to the International Chapter of the ASPA.