We developed a model to investigate the dielectric properties of the BaTiO₃ − Bi(Zn₁/₂Ti₁/₂)O₃ (BT-BZT) solid solution, which is a relaxor ferroelectric and exhibits long range disorder. The model uses ab initio methods to determine all polarization states for every atomic configuration of 2 x 2 x 2 supercells of BT-BZT. Each supercell is placed on a lattice with an Ising-like interaction between neighboring cell polarizations. This method allows us to consider long range disorder, which is not possible with ab initio methods alone, and is required to properly understand relaxor ferroelectric materials. We analyze the Monte Carlo data for a single lattice configuration using the multiple histogram method, and develop a modified histogram technique to combine data from multiple lattice configurations. Our calculated values of dielectric constant, specific heat, and polarization agree reasonably well with experiment. / Graduation date: 2012