Research Projects

Below is an overview of various independent and collaborative research projects I have worked on.

For a deeper dive into specific projects, please see my Portfolio.

Tested and successfully identified 2 interventions for reducing animosity between Republicans and Democrats in the United States, finding that Americans of the opposite party feel more positively toward one another when encouraged to think about what they have in common or about the positive characteristics of the other side.
Administered original open-ended survey (N = 233) asking individuals to list their most important identities, finding a variety of types - primarily positive characteristics - which challenges the current literature’s focus on demographics
Used results from content analysis of open-ended survey to design, program, and administer 2 original survey experiments (N = 999, 455).
Submitted dissertation to interdisciplinary committee, becoming on track to complete program early.
Applied for and received $2,800 in internal and research grants.

Analyzed survey and interview data about graduate students’ reasons for pursuing an advanced degree, why they chose to attend the University of Illinois, and what resources they currently need.
Compared and contrasted results across 4 personas: M.A. on campus students, M.A. online students with low work experience, M.A. online students with high work experience, Ph.D. on campus students.
Calculated descriptive statistics of closed-ended data across the different personas.
Performed a content-analysis on the open-ended survey data, showing why students chose whether to enroll in an on campus or online degree program. (LINK)
Contributed to Assistant Dean for Communications and Strategic Planning’s conference presentation, creating data visualizations and selecting key quotes in order to communicate results to non-technical audiences.

Co-authoring book that shows Americans are better at providing reasons for their own political views than they are at providing reasons for why someone else would have the opposite view.
Developed codebook, trained undergraduate research assistant, and hand-coded open-ended survey data.
Writing data & methods chapter and providing constructive feedback on other chapters.

Designed and administered imagined contact survey experiment (N = 700) testing whether priming Republicans and Democrats to think about their shared hobbies reduces animosity.
Found our treatments to have null and backfiring results, suggesting that imagined contact method effective in reducing other social conflicts does not work on polarization.
Co-authoring research paper and preparing to send manuscript to journal

Created original dataset after hand coding access to Illinois county health departments’ online presence across multiple platforms.
Co-authored peer-reviewed journal article published in American Behavioral Scientist showing that access to health departments’ social media and websites is positively correlated with COVID-19 vaccination rates. (LINK)
Collaborated on research team with undergraduates, graduate students, and professors from different departments - Political Science, Communication, Institute for Communication Research, Journalism, Advertising - across 2 different universities.
Received funding in the form of hourly pay from the Open Markets Institute and the University of Illinois’ College of Media.

Designed and administered 2 survey experiments (N = 412, 384) about attitudes toward immigrants, finding that how they are referred did not affect people’s attitudes toward them as they did in previous research.
Discovered that open-ended questions on surveys can help researchers better understand people’s attitudes by gathering more information, measuring reliability, and reconciling seemingly contradictory responses. (LINK)