Category: Research Assistant Opportunity

Explaining Variation in National Anthem Types
Professor Harris Mylonas
The Project: The contemporary Romanian national anthem employs a prototypical “Sleeping Beauty” trope of the re-awakening of a nation, essentializing the national qualities of a strong and valiant people through mentions of “Roman blood” and a Christian call to arms against barbaric enemies. In contrast to these ethno-cultural musings, some national anthems glorify dynastic rulers and deities. For instance, in different parts of the world from the United Kingdom to Saudi Arabia, national anthems are odes to monarchs and addressed to divinity, often with remnants of the practice of divine rule. The new Kyrgyz anthem, written after the collapse of the Soviet Union, epitomizes the liberal values of freedom, liberty, and fortune, celebrating the nation’s “friendship and unity,” with the Kyrgyz land “shining in the rays of consent.” What explains the variation in the content of the myriad national anthems across the world? Under what conditions do countries change their national anthems and adopt new language to express their nationhood? We argue that the initial anthems are a product of the time period and circumstances surrounding the independence of each state. Subsequent changes could be similarly explained by the dominant normative understandings that the nation is facing at critical junctures that provoke the change. Thus, we expect countries that develop their national anthems before modernity encompassed the society are more likely to have a “divine rule” trope. Alternatively, countries that developed their national anthems in opposition to alien and/or colonial rule are more likely to mention race, blood, and the glorification of violence, summarized by the “Sleeping Beauty” trope. Finally, we expect post- Cold War anthems to glorify liberal values, often praising the peaceful nature of the nation’s people, focusing on prosperity and attributes of the land.
Research Assistant Tasks: We want to test our argument against existing explanations from the political science literature. To conduct this test, we are constructing a new dataset that systematically codes national anthems of all countries in the world along more than sixty relevant dimensions–over time. We could use help with the coding (using excel). 
Time Commitment: 4-6 hours per week
Credit Hour Option: Please discuss with your adviser.
Application Instructions: Send me your CV.
Contact Email: mylonas@gwu.edu

Dr. Sarah Shomstein
The Project: Research in my laboratory is focused on investigating the neural mechanisms of attentional selection by combining behavioral and neuroimaging techniques in normal as well as brain damaged populations.
Research Assistant Tasks: Recruit and run research participants (patients & controls)
Collect behavioral and neuroimaging data
Analyze behavioral and neuroimaging data
Prepare IRB documents
Other related duties are assigned
Time Commitment: 7-9 hours per week
Credit Hour Option: 3
Application Instructions: Send an e-mail with your resume/CV.
Contact Email: shom@gwu.edu

MEN Count: Evaluating an Intervention Affecting Black Men’s Structural and Behavioral HIV Risk
Prof. Lisa Bowleg
The Project: MEN Count is an HIV intervention and prevention program for Black heterosexual men. Researchers at GWU and the University of California San Diego have partnered with Calvary Healthcare, a local community based organization and the SE STD Clinic to evaluate the program.
The MEN Count program is delivered by a peer case manager using a curriculum that integrates risk reduction and gender-equity counseling with housing and employment case management. The program is being evaluated using a randomized control trial design.
Research Assistant Tasks: Research assistants will be trained to recruit, screen and enroll participants in the program at our main office located at Calvary Healthcare, and our off-site office at the Southeast STD clinic. Enrollment includes administering a survey using a tablet as well as conducting rapid HIV screenings and STI screenings for participants.
RAs will also be trained on how to input data and data management using the study’s Mshare program. RAs will also be responsible for completing participant retention activities (i.e. scheduling follow-up appointments, check-ins with participants, etc.).
Time Commitment: 7-9 hours per week
Credit Hour Option: TBD
Application Instructions: Students should send their resume to the Project Director (PD), Jenne’ Massie. Interested students will have the opportunity to discuss the project further with the PD. Recruitment is a big part of this RA position so students should be prepared to talk about any experience they have relevant to recruitment, sales, community interaction, etc
Contact Email: massiej@gwu.edu
 
 

Prof. John Sandberg
Global Health
The Project: This project will look at the association between social network characteristics and health beliefs and behavior in rural Senegal. This is brand new data, just collected from a large NIH-funded project. It is the most complete and best social network data ever collected and is linked to a wealth of data from an ongoing demographic and health surveillance system. Initially, we’ll be looking at substantive phenomena social network processes concerning health ideation (between ethnomedical and biomedical), family size desires and beliefs concerning contraception, but will look at the influence of such processes on a wide range of behavior and beliefs.
Research Assistant Tasks: Since the data is new, the research assistant’s primary duties will be in data cleaning, and in verification of the network matching algorithm.
Applicants should have experience with STATA statistical software and MS Excel, an aptitude for quantitative analysis and exhibit superior attention to detail. Experience with R statistical software a plus.
Time Commitment: 7-9 hours per week
Credit Hour Option: TBD
Application Instructions: Please send a CV, and a brief description of experience with statistical software required and motivation for joining this project. 
Contact Email: jsandber@gwu.edu

The Evolution of Washington, D.C.’s Chinatown

Elizabeth Chacko
The Project: Washington, D.C. has had a Chinatown since the early 1900s. In the late 1930s, the original Chinatown, located on Pennsylvania Avenue was displaced to its present location to make room for the government buildings of the Federal Triangle. Since the 1970s, a combination of efforts to revitalize Downtown DC through urban renewal, a decline in the neighbourhood’s residential Chinese population and concurrent efforts to maintain Chinatown as ethnic space has been underway.
To understand and analyse the changing material and conceptual landscape of Chinatown, I wish to:
1. Trace the diminishing number of Chinese residents in the original 10-block area of Chinatown since the mid-1970s through the use of annual Criss-Cross directories.
2. Document the replacement of Chinese-owned businesses and services during the same time period with national chain stores and generic businesses.
3. Juxtapose and analyze the efforts of the local Chinese community to retain a Chinese presence in the area with the efforts of the city government and developers to gentrify the neighborhood.
Research Assistant Tasks: I would like a student to help me by extracting archival information from Gelman Library’s Special Collection [particularly the Harrison(Lee) Papers] and from the Criss-Cross directories available in the Martin Luther King Library in the Chinatown area.
I will work closely with the student and accompany him or her to both the Gelman and Martin Luther King libraries to show him or her the kinds of information that needs to be gathered. Some of this work has already begun.
No special skill sets are needed but I would like a student who has an interest in archival research, is reliable and pays attention to details.
Time Commitment: 1-3 hours per week
Credit Hour Option: TBD
Application Instructions: Please send me an email with your particulars ( name, year in school, major , email and phone contact,etc.) as well as why you are interested in and suitable for working on this project.
Contact Email: echacko@gwu.edu

Alternative Tours – Perspectives on Fair Trade and Food Sovereignty 
Prof. Lindsay Naylor 
Geography
The Project: Interest in where our food comes from and how it is grown has increased substantially in the last decade in the US and Europe. As part of this food politics consumers have demanded local food, organic food, slow food, fair trade certified products and so on. Such demands align with activism around food sovereignty–or the people’s right to a democratic food system. Moreover, consumers in the US and Europe, are increasingly seeking to support farmers in the developing world through the purchase of items (such as coffee, bananas and chocolate) with a fair trade premium price or through solidarity networks tied to food sovereignty. In some cases, consumers have taken their purchasing power further and have taken the opportunity to visit farmers and producers in the developing world through fair trade and food sovereignty tours. This project is concerned with alternative forms of tourism, food sovereignty, fair trade and the perspectives of producers, consumers and trade operators who are striving for more egalitarian and secure access to food and agricultural resources.
Research Assistant Tasks: This project is in its developmental stages. The research assistant will be primarily focused on identifying, retrieving and reviewing source material for the project. I expect that the student will spend a few weeks identifying key literature that will assist with situating the project. The remainder of the semester will be used for reading, reviewing and reporting on the literature gathered for the project. Topics for research include: fair trade, food sovereignty, eco-tourism, justice tourism and agro-tourism.
Time Commitment: 1-3 hours per week
Credit Hour Option: 1
Application Instructions: Please send a current resume and a cover letter by email as a pdf
Your cover letter should address the following:
– research experience or related work
– academic interests and related coursework
– expectations for research assistantship
Contact Email: naylor@gwu.edu

American Ethos: Reveling in Patriotism on the U.S.-Mexico Border
Elaine Peña 
The Project: American Ethos examines the tradition of commemorating George Washington’s Birthday on the Texas-Tamaulipas border. The annual festival, which has weathered political strife, economic instability, and intra-community tension for over a century, is unapologetically osentatious. The first celebration held on February 22, 1898, for example, featured a reenactment of the Boston Tea Party complete with a one hundred foot boat docked at City Hall and boxes of candy labeled “tea.” Contemporary events continue to feature elaborate pageants, parades, bi-national ceremonies, and popular activities that promote U.S.-centric historical and cultural narratives. Although celebrated primarily in Laredo, Texas (United States), festivities involved organizations and individuals based in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas (Mexico) since its inception at the end of the nineteenth century. American Ethos considers the transnational dimensions of those patriotic expressions—how idealized and mythologized interpretations of American history not only traverse but also potentially reinforce geo-political boundaries.  
Research Assistant Tasks: Task #1: Reviewing Voice of America radio broadcasts (1960-1970) at the National Archives.
Task #2: Reviewing English and Spanish-language newspaper articles.
Task #3: Reviewing Washington’s Birthday Celebration program books and minute books.
Time Commitment: 4-6 hours
Credit Hour Option: TBD
Application Instructions: Research Interests (one paragraph)
Overview of previous research experience
Evidence of Spanish language proficiency 
Contact Email: eapena@gwu.edu

Editorial Assistant for The Journal of Fandom Studies
Professor Katherine Larsen
The Project: The Journal of Fandom Studies is a multidisciplinary journal covering all aspects of fan culture and all fandoms. The Aims and Scopes of the journal state that the journal “seeks to offer scholars a dedicated publication that promotes current scholarship into the fields of fan and audience studies across a variety of media. We focus on the critical exploration, within a wide range of disciplines and fan cultures, of issues surrounding production and consumption of popular media (including film, music, television, sports and gaming), The journal aims to address key issues in fans studies itself, while also fostering new areas of enquiry that take us beyond the bounds of current scholarship.” More information about the journal can be found here:
http://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/journals/view-Journal,id=213/
This is an excellent opportunity for students who are interested in media, popular culture or any other the core issues that the journal addresses (gender, race, class, new media, etc) to get hands on experience with periodical publication.
Research Assistant Tasks: Research assistants would be asked to keep track of submissions to the journal and article reviews as they are received. RA’s would also be asked to review incoming articles for suitability for the journal and to review articles (number to be determined based on the number of credits) over the course of the semester. In addition, RA’s would meet with me several times over the course of the semester for editorial meetings.
Time Commitment: The time requirements would vary depending on how much time the student had available (1-3 hrs a week)
Credit Hour Option: 1 or 2 credits depending on student time availability.
Application Instructions: Please send a cover letter indicating any experience with editing or periodical production. A strong writing background is preferred. Being versed in popular culture is a plus but is not required for the position.  
Contact Email: klarsen@gwu.edu
 

Cumulative Risk Assessment in Environmental and Occupational Health
Glenn Paulson, Ph.D.
The Project: Risk assessment of the health consequences of exposure to a single environmental stress, such as a single pollutant, is a relatively mature field, though often still highly controversial. Cumulative risk assessment, the estimation of the consequences of simultaneous exposure to multiple stresses, such as many pollutants or to one or more chemical pollutants plus other non-chemical stresses (for example, radiation, noise, or even heat) is at a very primitive stage. This research project is working to develop new techniques that will improve risk assessment, and also point the way toward policy changes that could be adopted in the risk assessment profession and also by relevant governmental agencies. The link of success in this research to meeting current environmental justice concerns is obvious.
Research Assistant Tasks: Working directly with faculty and graduate students from the Millken Institute School of Public Health’s Environmental and Occupational Health Department and its Center for Risk Science and Public Health, the research assistant will investigate what role traditional and especially non-traditional sources and sets of data, including socio-economic and other existing non-technical information, could play in expanding existing and developing new approaches to conducting cumulative risk assessments, and also how policy changes could encourage the use of these new approaches. In addition to standard literature and Internet searches, the research assistant will help design structured interviews and similar tools for seeking insights and recommendations from many different types of professionals, both within and outside of the risk assessment profession.  
Time Commitment: 7-9 hours per week
Credit Hour Option: 2
Application Instructions: Applicants need not be science or social science majors; in fact, an eclectic background may well be a plus. A current resume plus a recent writing sample on any subject is essential. For juniors and seniors, providing a list of courses completed and the GPA for the latest academic year is required. Final candidates will be asked to provide two references.
Contact Email: glennpaulson@gwu.edu
 
 

Be Yourself: A Focus Group Study of the Effects of Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program
Professor Monique M. Turner
The Project: Be Yourself (Sé tu mismo) is a teen pregnancy program aimed at teaching and assisting Latino youth to make positive decisions regarding all aspects of his or her life in a way that reflects an understanding of and respect for his or her true self. The goal of Be Yourself is to improve the health and well-being of program participants. There are four core components to the Be Yourself/Sé tu mismo program including: 1) curriculum based sessions, 2) social media and text messaging as reminders and reinforcements, 3) a weekend retreat, and 4) an individual action plan, case-management services, and “informal” weekly group sessions. The core components will be implemented by Identity and Mary’s Center staff over 16 weeks. A total of 12 school sites (10 in Montgomery County and 2 in Prince George’s County) were randomly assigned to either participate in Be Yourself or a control (Healthy Living/Vida Sana) intervention. Each semester 6 schools delivered the intervention program and 6 schools delivered the control program for a total of 12 groups each semester.
At the end of year 4 (of the 5 year program) our research team conducted focus group interviews with Be Yourself participants to assess whether the program affected their behaviors, beliefs, and emotions. In this project, student(s) will learn how to evaluate a program’s effects with qualitative data, conduct focus group analyses, write up literature reviews on this topic, and write up focus group results.
Research Assistant Tasks: 
Student will:
Read all focus group transcripts
Thematize participant responses (i.e., code data)
Conduct systematic literature review
Write up results of focus groups

Time Commitment: 7-9 hours per week
Credit Hour Options: TBD
Application Requirements: I would like a cover letter explaining interest, any relevant experience, and any relevant course work. Email addresses for 3 references would also be desired.
Contact Email: mmturner@gwu.edu