I am currently an Iseult Honohan PhD scholar in Quantitative and Computational Social Science at the University College Dublin as well as a member of the Connected_Politics research lab and the Text and Policy research group. I received my Bachelor’s degree in History and my Master’s degree in Political Science from the University of Southern Mississippi. My research focuses on comparative higher education policy with an emphasis on quantitative text analysis and computational methods.
Education
PhD – University College Dublin 2022-
I started my PhD in Quantitative and Computational Social Science at the University College Dublin in September 2022 as an Iseult Honohan Doctoral Scholar. My research focuses on applying quantitative text analysis methods to analyze political rhetoric concerning higher education policy reform.
MA – University of Southern Mississippi 2020-2022
During my coursework in the Political Science MA program at USM, I maintained a 4.0 GPA while working as both a Graduate Teaching Assistant and a Graduate Research Assistant. I also presented my research at the 2021 Midwest Political Science Association Conference and the 2021 Susan A. Siltanen Graduate Research Symposium.
BA – University of Southern Mississippi 2016-2020
I graduated with honors from USM with my Bachelor’s in History. I also earned my teaching license in Social Studies for grades 7-12. In addition to my History major, I double minored in Political Science and Spanish. I am licensed to teach Spanish for grades K-12.
Professional Experience
Graduate Research Assistant – Text and Policy Research Group
January 2023-
As a member of the Text and Policy Research Group, I have assisted colleagues on projects and worked on solo research related to the application of computational text analysis methods to address substantive research questions and provide policy recommendations. I have also participated in several workshop sessions to provide feedback for colleagues.
Graduate Research Assistant – The Connected_Politics Lab
September 2022-
As a member of the Connected_Politics Lab at the University College Dublin, I have assisted faculty with research, edited manuscripts for publication, worked with faculty and other lab members on projects requiring data production and preparation, and attended workshops focusing computational methods to study politics and society.
Graduate Tutorial Instructor – University College Dublin
September 2022-
As an Iseult Honohan Doctoral Scholar, I had the opportunity to provide mentored tutorial teaching and teaching assistance for INRL 10010 Foundations of Political Theory and International Relations during my first term at UCD. During my second term, I also provided tutorial sessions and teaching assistance for PS20050 Research Methods in Social Science. I will provide tutorial teaching for other modules as well in the coming terms.
Graduate Research Assistant – Institute for Advanced Analytics and Security
June 2021-May 2022
While assisting with research for the Institute of Advanced Analytics and Security (IAAS) at USM, I prepared literature reviews, participated in learning new statistical machine learning methods and reviewed documents for publishing.
Graduate Teaching Assistant – University of Southern Mississippi
August 2020-May 2022
As A Graduate Teaching Assistant for the Political Science Department at USM, I assisted professors with instruction, grading, and communications with students for several courses including Economics, State and Local Politics, and Introduction to Statistics. I also designed and implemented my own introductory political science curriculum in two courses related to American government.
Student Teacher – N.R. Burger Middle School
January 2020-May 2020
To fulfill requirements needed to earn my teaching license, I completed my student teaching experience at N.R. Burger Middle School teaching 7th grade Early World History. I designed multiple units with formative and summative assessments to track student progress effectively. I also implemented several differentiation strategies to assist different types of learners.
Relevant Skills
- R – Natural Language Processing (Tidyverse, SentimentR, Quanteda), Time Series Analysis, Machine Learning, ANOVA, Multiple Regression.
- Python – Numerical Computing, Statistics, and Machine Learning, Data Visualization, Textual data, Geographical Data.
- LaTeX/Overleaf – Created professional documents, prepared academic manuscripts for journal submission, worked with Rmarkdown.
- Curriculum Design – I have had experience designing curriculum for term long courses ranging from a 7th grade level to a college level.