Tag: Fall 2014 Research Assistantship

Election Alliances in India
Professor Adam Ziegfeld
The Project: Before almost every election in India, parties bargain with one another to form what are known as pre-election alliances or seat-sharing agreements, which determine how and in which seats a party will field candidates. These agreements have a huge impact in determining how many seats each party wins and who ultimately comes to power after the election. I am currently in the early stages of a new book project that explores election alliances in India. It asks questions such as: Why do parties sometimes form alliances but not at other times? With whom do parties ally? Do these alliances last after the election? 
Research Assistant Tasks: I am looking for a research assistant to help me with data collection for this project. Data collection will involve locating Indian newspaper sources at the library, conducting searches of online journal databases, and then using these resources to collect and record information on election alliances. The project could also involve, depending on the project’s progress and student interest, writing up short memos on the history of electoral cooperation in a particular election or state. The project requires a student familiar with navigating online library resources. Preferred qualifications also include a student with some knowledge of Indian politics and experience using the library’s archival resources (such as microfilm). 
Time Commitment: 4-6 hours per week
Credit Hour Option: 2
Application Instructions: Please send me a CV/resume along with a short statement indicating your GPA (if not on your resume), courses taken, and any relevant skills or experience. Also, please indicate how many hours you would like to work, as I am flexible about the weekly time commitment. 
Contact Email: awz@gwu.edu

Shaping Kids’ Diets: Home and Neighborhood
Professor Uriyoan Colon-Ramos
The Project: We seek a self-driven, motivated undergraduate to assist in data collection and analysis in the participatory research ‘Shaping Kids’ diets: Home and Neighborhood”. The project, funded by the GW Center for Civic Engagement, seeks to identify strategies that support healthy food acquisition at home in Washington DC. The assistant must demonstrate scholar interest in qualitative data analysis and participatory research methods. S/he will work closely with the research team collect tha data through interviews and to analyze the data qualitatively.  
Research Assistant Tasks: 
1) Conduct Photovoice interviews (the assistant will be trained by Dr. Colon-Ramos).
2) Analyze data from the interviews (the assistant will receive training to do this).
3) Conduct literature reviews related to the topic.
4) Aid in logistics of meetings related to this project.
The assistant will report directly to Dr. Colon-Ramos. The position is based at GWU in Washington DC; some meetings may take place in Ward 7 in DC or Langley Park, MD. Spanish-speaking is a plus!
Qualified applicants must demonstrate careful attention to detail, and ability to break a goal into achievable and timely milestones. Applicants must also be willing to work in a team, learn, and manage multiple tasks in a timely fashion. Experience living or working with low-income urban families is a plus. We will meet weekly or bi-weekly as a research team to assess progress in the project, and the student chosen will play a key role in these meetings. Prior to starting work, we will require CITI training for responsible conduct of research from the chosen student.
Time Commitment: 10 or more hours per week
Credit Hour Option: 3
Application Instructions: Send me your Resume, Cover Letter, Transcript, and Letter of reference.

Contact Email: uriyoan@gwu.edu

The Rhetoric of Entry-level Job Postings: An Analysis of Writing Skills and Tasks
Professor Jessica McCaughey
The Project: This project examines the rhetoric of entry-level position postings with an eye toward the ways in which employers state, define, and emphasize the required or desired writing skills of job applicants. Questions central to the project include: What kinds of writing skills do employers say they want? How do they categorize and define communication tasks? How much value do they place on writing and communication skills? In what ways do posted qualifications align (or not) with the writing skills students learn in college? Are differences substantial or mostly a matter of semantic differences in two different contexts? Ultimately this research will build toward a larger body of scholarly work examining the ways in which universities (both writing programs and major disciplines) can better prepare students for their professional writing lives.
Research Assistant Tasks: The research assistant will primarily help to code these job postings (looking at how the employers describe writing-related tasks and skills), but they will also have the opportunity to work closely with me in analyzing the data and considering implications. Additionally, they will seek out and compile existing research that will contribute to the work. No coding experience is necessary; I will train and work closely with the research assistant, and I will provide background reading to help situation him or her prior to beginning the work. Skills that are key to the position include extreme attention to detail, strong critical thinking skills, and patience for occasionally repetitive work. The student will gain insight into how such a study is conducted in terms of data collection and analysis, and they will also have the opportunity to take on a more creative role in determining how data is delineated.
Time Commitment: 4-6 hours per week
Credit Hour Option: 2
Application Instructions: Students should submit a resume and brief letter of introduction explaining their interest in the research and examples of how they meet the general qualifications of the position.
Contact Email: jessmcc@gwu.edu

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