The culmination of it all

“I pulled from everything since my freshman year, and I just put it into one essay,” said Jonathan Ding, who graduated in May of 2026 with a Bachelor of Science in Accounting with Honors.  His masterfully crafted research essay “Towards Economic Justice: Philosophical Perspectives on Taxation and Global Equity,” written for Professor Greg Canada’s Philosophy of Law class, won the upperclassman Sam Burgess Undergraduate Research Award for 2025-2026. 

The culmination of his time at IU studying and researching coalesced during an internship his junior year when he worked at an accounting firm in Boston. “I was learning a lot about tax law, and was exposed to an enormous number of regulations, statutes, and cases.”

An essential question occurred: “Why are the laws written this way?” Ding thought there must be a reason. “I didn't have the time to dig deep when I was working, but when I went into Professor Canada's class and he started to explain these theories of philosophy, these theories of justice and fairness, everything kind of clicked for me.

“I started to see connections between two seemingly different areas, tax law and philosophy,” Ding explains. As he explored the two, he discovered a lot of research connecting the two fields. Professor Canada gave Ding the support to explore his thoughts. “He really encouraged us to connect the materials in class with everything we've learned. And I really took that advice to heart.”

Ding had kept everything he researched and wrote about on his laptop. “Ever since my freshman year,” Ding said, “I knew I wanted to write a thesis of some sort or a research paper or something that took a lot of effort, that forced me to sit down and think about a new idea or come up with something new.”  The timing was everything.

When he was a sophomore, Ding was looking for ways to become involved in undergraduate research. He found out about the Burgess Award and set his sights on submitting a paper his junior or senior year. 

“I really didn't feel that confident submitting anything that I'd written,” he explains. “I just felt like the papers I wrote were more like to get an assignment done. They weren’t something that I really wanted to write about.”

Getting into Professor Canada’s class his senior year gave Ding permission to go beyond a mere assignment. “I could write something I was really passionate about,” he said. In addition, being aware of the Burgess Award, he felt, made him push himself more, especially when it came to utilizing library resources.  “It helped me clarify my research methods more.”

As an intern in Boston, he was able to use Bloomberg Law, a resource available on the Bloomington campus only to Maurer students. It provided the basics for his research but didn’t help with the theory or abstract ideas. “I had to adapt to not having it anymore,” which he saw as an asset. He used Maurer and IU Libraries resources to dig deeper into his ideas on taxes and equity. 

Another incident that pushed him was a paper he wrote during his junior year. Ding worked with the professor and devoted a lot of time – two semesters – and effort to craft an exceptional essay. He submitted it for an award. “I didn't get an award for it, but I did learn a lot from that experience -- like how to cite something, how to introduce your research, and how to craft an argument.”

Consequently, Ding’s honors thesis and Burgess Award-winning essay was a culmination of everything he learned while at Indiana University. He admits, “It's kind of crazy to think about that way. It's like a symbol of my growth in a way.” He continues, “I'm really proud of that paper and the time I took to write it.”

Ding makes the obvious, but often ignored, point that taxes are how governments function. Despite being unpopular because “no one wants to give their money away,” taxes are necessary. So, why is tax law written that way? “They're written in a way to incentivize good things, but they're also written in a way for people not to abuse them,” Ding said. “It’s a delicate balance that is complicated.”  He continues, “Laws need to be written in a way where they encourage growth and prosperity but also discourage abuse and exploitation. 

“The intersection between those two is what a good law and theory should be. Some people claim that laws should focus on growth and prosperity. Some people say that it should be just focused on avoiding abuse.  I think it's right in the middle. That’s where I think it's good.”