2024 Junior Professional Research cohort joins nine projects at ISR
July 22, 2024
Contact: Jon Meerdink ([email protected])
ANN ARBOR — The nine scholars in the 2024 Junior Professional Researcher (JPR) cohort at the Institute for Social Research (ISR) are now at work, each joining one of nine different projects that represent many different research disciplines. The JPRs are joining these projects for the next two years, and will have the opportunity to grow their research skills in the unique environment that ISR offers. Below is a brief outline of the projects and JPRs participating in this year’s cohort.
Monitoring the Future (MTF)
Led by Ginny Laetz and Megan Patrick
Monitoring the Future (MTF) is a nationally representative study of eighth, 10th, and 12th grade students in the United States, with a subsample of 12th grade students followed longitudinally across adulthood. MTF is a crucial data source for researchers studying changes in beliefs, attitudes, substance use, and behavior of young people in the U.S. Juliana Obia has joined the team and started to work on data collection, data cleaning, and participant tracking as part of her role.
Decennial Census Digitization and Linkage Project (DCDL)
Led by Trent Alexander and David Bleckley
A collaboration between ISR and the U.S. Census Bureau, the Decennial Census Digitization and Linkage Project (DCDL) digitizes and links individual survey records from decennial censuses from 1960 through 1990. This project will be a resource for transformational opportunities in education and research. Doug Rosin is working with the DCDL team to learn about large-scale government data and digitization efforts, record linkage, and probabilistic matching.
Criminal Justice Administrative Records System (CJARS)
Led by Michael Mueller-Smith and Jordan Papp
CJARS is a non-partisan organization at the University of Michigan, with partners from the U.S. Census Bureau, that works to integrate and harmonize dispersed criminal justice data from jurisdictions across the United States with the aim of advancing knowledge and capacity for research and statistical reporting on the criminal justice system. Daniel Luce has joined the growing CJARS team, and is working with his colleagues in developing cutting-edge data tools and platforms.
Promoting Community Conversations About Research to End Suicide and At-Risk Substance Use (PC CARES)
Led by Lisa Wexler
PC CARES is an intervention involving a series of learning circles (LC) led by local facilitators to address complex behavioral health issues, helping to build communities of practice in under-resourced communities to reduce suicide risk and prevent at-risk substance use to promote youth wellbeing. Angel Zhong has joined the team to gain experience in participatory research, creating and contributing to presentations for both community and academic audiences, and translating scientific research to useful products for practitioners.
American National Election Studies (ANES)
Led by Nicholas Valentino
The American National Election Studies (ANES) inform explanations of election outcomes through data-driven research. The ANES has collected its own high-quality nationally representative data before and after every U.S. presidential election since 1948. Elora Choudhury has been diving into the world of ANES, and will gain experience in different phases of the data collection cycles, analyzing real-time data, and report writing regarding the data collection process.
National Addiction and HIV Data Archive Program
Led by Amy Pienta and Chelsea Samples-Steele
Dependency on legal and illegal substances has long been understood to diminish health and well-being, especially among vulnerable population groups. The research team involved with the National Addiction and HIV Data Archive Program collects data from major research studies and processes it to ensure it is Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR), and analyzes these data to better understand the factors around substance use at different states of adolescent development and through the transition to adulthood, exploring its effects. Belle Kneeland is working with the NADHAP team in evaluating and selecting secondary data, navigating the research cycle, and working hands-on with datasets.
The Effects of Criminal Record Expungement
Led by JJ Prescott and Sonja Starr
This project focuses on the policy effects, implications, and challenges of criminal record expungement as a strategy for improving re-entry success and reducing recidivism for people with criminal records. Some states have recently increased opportunities for people with criminal records to clear their records, and this project seeks to explore the outcomes and effects of criminal record expungement. Ritsa Giannakas has joined this project to gain experience applying analysis tools to real-world policy problems and data while working across agencies and institutions, including government agencies, lawyers, and non-profit organizations.
Part-time water management: Untangling the role of technology in rural water stewardship
Led by Noah Webster
Rural water managers carry out their decisions in locally isolated vacuums, often unable to contextualize how their actions can negatively affect the collective watershed. This pilot project will establish the knowledge base necessary to develop a digital watershed — a massive landscape covered by connected sensors, whose data can be analyzed and disseminated to help rural communities coordinate water flows and reduce negative effects of extreme weather events. Madelyn McLain is at work on this pilot endeavor, gaining exposure to cross-disciplinary collaboration by working with sociologists and colleagues in engineering to determine the best practices for conducting mixed-methods research.
Modernizing the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) Training
Led by Thomas Crossley and Noura Insolera.
The PSID is the longest running longitudinal household survey in the world, with data used by researchers, policy analysts, and teachers around the world. Malak Kalasho is working on this project, and throughout her two years will have the opportunity to learn about the PSID and assist in teaching new data users around the world through developing new training materials, data analysis projects, and creating online educational content.