Category: Research Assistant Opportunity

Healthy Body Healthy U
Professor Dr. Melissa Napolitano, Dr. Loretta DiPietro, Dr. Sam Simmons
The Project: The Healthy Body Healthy U project is a randomized control trial funded by the National Institutes of Health. The purpose of the study is to determine the most effective way to help college students lose and maintain a healthy body weight. We will be enrolling 450 students across two sites (the partner site is University of Massachusetts Boston), and the program is 18 months long. We will be delivering all of the intervention content via Facebook groups, text messages, and YouTube videos. There are three treatment arms for the study, two geared specifically towards delivering weight loss information, and the third group is delivering information about the Three Pillars of Health- body, mind, and energy, in order to maintain a healthy body weight. The goal is to determine what type and how much information will be most effective for weight and other risk factors for diabetes and heart disease.  
Research Assistant Tasks: The responsibilities of the research assistant will include:
1) Recruitment of study participants across GWU campus (e.g. attending recruitment events, hanging flyers and posters across campus, initiating connections to campus student organizations and teams)
2) Content (e.g. formatting materials, filming videos, editing content, posting content)
3) Tracking (e.g. recruitment numbers, ordering and maintaining an inventory of recruitment supplies and incentives, participant progress and engagement)
4) Data (e.g. data entry, database management, organizing participant records, calibrating and downloading accelerometer data)
5) Attend regular meetings with research team
6) Other duties as specified by the needs of the project, the director, and program coordinator.

Time Commitment: 10 or more hours per week.
Credit Hour Options: 3
Application Requirements: If interested, please send your resume and cover letter to Meghan Mavredes, project coordinator, at the below email. Thank you!
Contact Email: hbhu@gwu.edu

Adelante Intervention
Professor Sean D. Cleary
The Project: The Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, in collaboration with the Department of Prevention & Community Health, of the Milken Institute School of Public Health has been funded by the National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities/NIH to establish a Research Center on Latino Immigrant/Refugee Health Disparities, the Avance Center. The community-based intervention, Adelante, addresses a complex of contributing factors for substance abuse and co-occurring health issues (including family/partner violence, sexual risk, and youth violence). The Department is seeking multple undergraduate Research Assistants to assist in conducting this research. Periodic attendance at meetings and conduct of fieldwork in the community and at Prince George’s County middle and high schools where student cohorts are established is required. Spanish proficiency is preferred but not required.
Research Assistant Tasks: Tasks will include but are not limited to the following: assist the PI and staff with development of surveys, collection of data, and tracking participants, coordinate and participate in meetings with staff, community advisors, and participants; web-based activities and outreach; literature reviews; data cleaning documentation; create tables and graphics for publications all depending on the skills of the applicant.
Time Commitment: 7-9 hours per week
Credit Hour Options: Varies
Application Requirements: If you are interested in being considered for an RA position, please submit a cover letter and résumé via email to Sean D. Cleary, PhD, MPH.
Contact Email: sdcleary@gwu.edu

Professor Randi Kristensen
Department: University Writing
The Project
After thirty years of structural adjustment and public sector dismantling, artists and writers in the Caribbean are describing the impact of these policies in economic, cultural, and interpersonal terms. This project looks at three sites where neo-liberal economic policies have created a vacuum in public services: Haiti and the 2010 earthquake, New Orleans and Katrina, and Jamaica and the Tivoli Gardens Massacre. In all three locations, the event revealed large gaps in the ability of states to care for their citizens before, during, and after crisis. In all three, material responses to those gaps have involved humanitarian interventions, whether by NGOs on the ground or from overseas.

This project questions the impact of humanitarian interventions on the problems requiring such interventions. Specifically, I’m reading fiction and watching films to better understand how writers and artists in Haiti, Jamaica, and New Orleans are telling the story of such interventions and their effects economically, culturally, and interpersonally from the point of view of being on the receiving end. How do they understand the conditions requiring such interventions, and how have such interventions, usually directed by external actors, affected local conditions, opportunities for local agency, and ways of being? What are the multiple understandings of “human” that are in play in “humanitarianism”? 
Research Assistant Tasks
This project is in its early stages. I’ve identified a number of primary texts to work with. For Jamaica, Diana McCaulay’s novel “Dog-Heart,” Geoffrey Philp’s “Benjamin, My Son,” and perhaps Esther Figeuroa’s “Limbo.” For Haiti, Raoul Peck’s documentary, “Fatal Assistance,” and the post-earthquake stories in “Haiti Noir.” For New Orleans, Jesmyn Ward’s “Salvage the Bones,” and the film “Trouble the Water.”
I’m looking for assistance in identifying more primary texts that narrate the relationship of the humanitarian project to its origins and effects, and narratives by those on the ground.
I’m also looking for assistance with building an effective theoretical frame. There is an emergent literature in critical perspectives on humanitarian action; there was a world conference in Colombia this summer that I learned of too late. Beginning with works such as Rachel Riedner’s on “Rhetorics of Benevolence,” and Michelle Jarman’s “‘Good’ Imperialism,” I’m looking for someone to help put together a reading list/bibliography, and annotate it, if possible. I have a list of themes: biopolitics, histories of structural adjustment/neoliberal policies in the region, histories of humanitarianism, notions of globalization, the idea of the “human,” the role of race/gender/sexuality/disability/language etc. in shaping macro and micro impacts of structural adjustment and humanitarianism.
I definitely would not expect a research assistant to do all of those! But if there is something in that list, or if someone wants to propose something related that could be useful to a project like this, I’d be happy to have that conversation, and see where we could go from there to find something manageable to work on over the course of a semester.
Time Commitment: 4-6 hours per week
Contact Email: rkris@gwu.edu
Additional Instructions for Applying: I’m interested in your interests, so a brief note about why a project like this one would be exciting/useful to you would be helpful.

If you’ve taken classes or done any independent research projects on related topics, please list those and briefly describe how you think they might inform your approach to this work.

Finally, if you’ve done an annotated bibliography or a research-heavy project, you could attach that to the email, so that I can see an example of your work. Thanks!

Professor Jennifer Nash
Department: American Studies
The Project
I am in the very early phases of a project focused on race and fashion in late 20th century/early 21st century America. I am interested in topics including: the racialization of certain garments (hoodies, baggy pants, long white t-shirts), battles over black dress and style, and blipsters and afropunk styles.
Research Assistant Tasks
I’m seeking an RA to help me collect primary and secondary material. Since I’m in the early stages of my project, I’d particularly welcome a creative and ambitious RA who could take a big idea or topic – say “what’s out there on blipsters?” – and run with it, collecting interesting news articles and scholarly pieces.
Time Commitment: 4-6 hours per week
Contact Email: jennash@gwu.edu
Additional Instructions for Applying: Please email me a short statement of interest and a CV. Many thanks!

Professor Lisa Bowleg, Ph.D.
Department: Psychology
The Project
Interested in LGB health? In what is arguably one of the first LGB-specific funding opportunities ever promoted by the U.S. government, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has issued a specific call for LGBTI-health related grant applications. Dr. Bowleg, a social psychologist and NIH-funded researcher in the Department of Psychology, is collaborating with a team of investigators from CA and MI to develop a proposal focused on Black gay and same-gender loving men’s health. The proposal will build upon Dr. Bowleg’s previous research on Black men’s experiences with resiliency, intersectionality and HIV risk and protective behaviors. Also exciting is the inclusion of a local community-based partner (Us Helping Us), one of the first organizations founded to support and respond specifically to the health needs of Black gay, bisexual and men who have sex with men. The investigative team is just starting to develop the proposal and so this is a very exciting opportunity for an enterprising student to learn about all aspects of research and how to develop a top-notch grant proposal from the ground up. Thus, the student who works on this project will gain important research and grantspersonship (just couldn’t go with grantsmanship) experience and skills. Interested?
Research Assistant Tasks
* Conduct detailed literature reviews (e.g., a typical request might be for literature on Black men’s access to health services)
* Retrieve relevant books from the library, online and via interlibrary loan
* Assist, as needed, in analysis of existing qualitative data relevant to the proposal
* Assist with the development of budgets
* Learn to use CAYUSE (GWU research repository for grant preparation) and place relevant documents in CAYUSE
* Correspond with co-investigators and other consultants to request needed documents such as biosketches, scopes of work, budgets, etc.
Time Commitment: 10 hours or more per week
Contact Email: lbowleg@gwu.edu
Additional Instructions for Applying: * A CV
* A cover letter informing:
— why they are interested in the position
— what they hope to learn from the experience
— the skills they bring to make them the best person for the position

Professor Eric Dunn
Department: Mathematics
The Project
Most standard computers (like the one you are probably reading this on) have about 16 GB RAM, a 4-core processor, and a $150 graphics card. But for a lot of numerical simulation it turns out this isn’t good enough. My research team develops software that is meant for use on high-performance computing (HPC) machines with 256 GB RAM, thousands of processing cores, and top of the line $5000 graphics cards!

The problems we solve are computational electromagnetic (CEM) scenarios – things like finding how much energy your cellphone antenna deposits in your head, or how energy is scattered when a radar wave bounces off an airplane. If you tried to run these codes on your standard machine, they would take years of number-crunching. But with HPC hardware and clever software algorithms we can generate data in a much shorter amount of time.

Do you like working with computers and pushing them to their limits? Are you curious how real-world physics problems get modeled on a computer? If so, then you’ll have a great time working with me on this project.
Research Assistant Tasks
Tasking will involve writing and running computer programs to enable simulation of large problems (solving hundreds of thousands to millions of equations!) on big computers (thousands of cores!).
Time Commitment: 1-3 hours per week
Contact Email: ericdunn@gwu.edu
Addition Instructions for Applying: If you are interested in this type of research, then email me so we can setup a time to discuss the opportunity in more detail. When contacting me, please include a resume and a list of courses that you have taken. Ideal candidate will have some experience with computer programming, linear algebra, and physics. But even if you don’t have any experience, still contact me if this work sounds interesting since enthusiasm and desire to learn are the most important qualities I look for.
 

Professor Thomas Guglielmo
Department: American Studies
The Project
Celebrations of America’s World War II military, comprised of that “greatest generation” of citizen-soldiers and their larger-than-life commanders, surround us. Blockbuster movies, television specials, bestselling books, packed museum exhibits, and a glistening, granite memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. all sing its praises. That this military was deeply divided along color lines, however, is seldom seriously discussed. Even among specialized scholars, many of the details of these lines remain a mystery. What exact form did they take? Whom did they divide precisely? How were they instituted and, in some cases, mightily struggled over? What impact did they have on the country? My book project explores these important questions.
Research Assistant Tasks
I’m looking for a student who will carefully review and take notes on World War II veteran oral histories. These oral histories, housed at the Library of Congress as part of its Veterans History Project (http://www.loc.gov/vets/), come in several forms – audio tapes, video tapes, and written transcriptions. And so the student will read, listen to, and watch these oral histories and transcribe for me the relevant portions. As noted, my research project focuses on race-making during the war, and so the student will be looking in particular for instances in which that topic is discussed.
Time Commitment: 4-6 hours per week
Contact Email: tgugliel@gwu.edu
Additional Instructions for Applying: The student must be exceedingly meticulous and responsible; have excellent typing skills; and be willing and able to visit the Library of Congress regularly. An interest in World War II, and in race relations, would be a plus. Please submit a resume and a transcript.

Professor Greg Wallace
Department: Speech and Hearing Sciences
The Project
Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) share significant deficits in the ability to successfully navigate the social world and engage in effective social interaction. From a Vygotskian perspective, these social impairments may hinder development of self-regulatory executive function (EF) skills. Indeed, individuals with ASD demonstrate impaired EF, as indicated by difficulty with problem solving tasks like the Tower of London. It may be that impaired inner speech or self-talk mediates the relationship between broader social and EF difficulties in ASD. The current study will examine this relationship first in a sample of typically developing adults by having them complete assessments of EF, pragmatic (i.e., social) vs. structural language, and inner speech. Subsequent studies will then assess this association in the context of individuals with ASD.
Research Assistant Tasks
The research assistant will complete various tasks in the context of this study, ranging from recruiting subjects, performing assessments with subjects, entering data, and analyzing data.
Time Commitment: 4-6 hours per week
Contact Email: gwallac1@gwu.edu
Additional Instructions for Applying: Interested students should send an up-to-date CV/resume to Dr. Wallace.

Professor Harvey Feigenbaum
Department: Political Science
The Project
I am interested in the consequences of America’s dominance of popular culture markets, especially film and television. My hypothesis is that people around the world are becoming more familiar with American culture than their own and that this affects the way they think about politics. People are increasingly likely to think in American political categories (eg: liberal or conservative) rather than the much richer set of options found outside the US (monarchist, nationalist, centrist, socialist, social-democratic, green etc).
Research Assistant Tasks
I would like a student to research different empirical examples of the influence of American culture abroad (parties converging toward American style ideologies, school systems adopting American style education, movies becoming more action-oriented, etc. Some exploration of large N data such as Eurobarometer surveys of political values in the EU.
Time Commitment: 1-3 hours per week
Contact Email: harveyf@gwu.edu
Additional Application Instructions: Students should let me know if they have had courses in the social sciences, if they have statistical skills, and if they can read any foreign languages. Study abroad is also a bonus.

Professor Paul Duff
Department: Religion
The Project
I am currently working on a book that looks at first-century Christianity against the background of Greco-Roman paganism. I am particularly interested in exploring the costs and benefits of joining the Christian movement. What would a pagan gain by joining? What would he/she have to give up? I am investigating these questions in a variety of contexts, including religious, urban social, and familial contexts (i. e., assuming that not all family members converted).
Research Assistant Tasks
I have drafted of the first three chapters. I would like to have an assistant read, edit, make suggestions about the material in these chapters. For the remaining (as yet, unwritten) chapters, I would ask a student to do some literature review to make sure that I am working with the most up-to-date scholarship.
Time Commitment: 1-3 hours per week
Contact Email: duff@gwu.edu
When Applying: Please let me know about your interest in the academic study of Religion. Have you taken any religion courses at GW or another university? .