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Contact: Jon Meerdink ([email protected])

ANN ARBOR — Four Michigan Ph.D. students recently presented at the International Doctoral Symposium in Hong Kong. ISR represents the University of Michigan at the event every year, which supports Ph.D. students at any stage of their academic career by giving them a chance to interact with students from other highly regarded universities as they lay the groundwork for their careers.

“This symposium is a great opportunity for Ph.D. students to present their research while networking with other scholars from around the world,” said ISR director Kate Cagney. “Our students gave excellent presentations, and asked insightful questions during the Q&As.  I’m grateful for their hard work and dedication to advancing the social sciences.”

The four Michigan students presenting at this year’s symposium were Curtiss Engstrom and Stephanie Morales, both of ISR’s Survey and Data Science program, as well as Keion Harris of U-M’s social work and psychology programs and Maggie Meyer of the Department of Psychology.

Engstrom’s presentation was titled “Does the Approach used to Measure Sexual Identity in Surveys affect Estimates of Identity-based Health Disparities Differentially by Race/Ethnicity? A Randomized Experiment from the National Survey of Family Growth.” He considered the symposium a great opportunity to connect with students from all over the world.

“It meant a ton to me to present there,” he said. “It shows the importance of my research in a much broader and worldwide context, while shoring my thoughts that my research is important to others, and not just myself.”

Morales presented on the measurement of self-rated health (SRH), discussing how respondents from different ethnic, racial, and linguistic groups conceptualize health.

“The symposium was highly interdisciplinary, so it helped me gain a different perspective on social issues, especially those from abroad that I was not aware of before,” said Morales. “As someone who engages in cross-cultural methodology, it encouraged me to broaden my perspective and not think about or analyze social problems strictly using a Western lens.”

Harris, a second-year Ph.D. student, presented on the potential implementation of an entertainment tax policy in Detroit, leveraging data from the University of Michigan’s Department of Psychology, the Detroit Initiative, and an organization called Detroit Excellence in Youth Arts. This was Harris’ first major presentation.

“As an early interdisciplinary student with interests in public policy and the legal field, it was great to present at a conference which focused on such topics,” Harris said. “It correlated very well with my interests and I hope to gain more experiences in the future that resemble the theme and style of the symposium in Hong Kong.”

Finally, Meyer presented her findings from computational models exploring police search decisions. Her study found that police office racial bias scores are not predicted by characteristics of an individual officer, but are instead predicted by the characteristics of the environment in which they are policing.

“Presenting at this conference was particularly meaningful to me because I was able to speak with a bunch of researchers who are all interested in affecting public policy across the globe. It was very rewarding to receive feedback on my work from a group of engaged scholars,” said Meyer.

ISR partnered with Hong Kong Baptist University, the University of British Columbia, the University of Chicago, Seoul National University, and Nanyang Technological University to present the conference.