Meet the New Voters Research Network Team!
In our second newsletter, we introduce you to each of our research assistants and share updates on three ongoing projects.
We are so excited to share our second newsletter! We (Jahnavi and Sydney) were joined by our amazing research team seven months ago and together, we have collaborated with dozens of academics and youth-serving organizations, been recognized with multiple awards, and made progress on a variety of projects.
In this newsletter, you will find:
An overview of three additional NVRN Projects:
High School Civic Engagement Literature Review
PA Voter File Analysis
Monthly Research Training Sessions for high school students
An introduction to our team
If you want to help us in our mission, please share this newsletter!
In each monthly newsletter, we describe a few of our ongoing research projects. Read below to learn about three projects being conducted by our high school and college student research assistants!
Select Projects
(1) High School Civic Engagement Literature Review
Team Members: Catherine Chan (team lead), Advait Rajan, Tanishka Sharma, Jaden Wu, and Olivia Zhang
The literature review aims to be 1) a comprehensive review of a majority of the existing literature on high school civic engagement, 2) an aid to both practioners and academics interested in civically engaging high school students and 3) a model for involving high school students as researchers.
After multiple training sessions, 18 high school students in the New Researchers program created literature reviews for 85 articles related to high school voting and civic engagement by identifying, reading and analyzing 4-5 articles each. All of the students will be co-authors on the final product.
Now, we are reviewing, grouping and revising the previously written literature reviews to create a consolidated literature review (modeled off the Vote 16 Literature Review).
(2) PA Voter File Analysis
Team Members: Collin Wang and Olivia Zhang
In the PA Voter File project, two NVRN researchers are analyzing the PA voter file (including all counties) to determine the voting patterns of 18-year-olds.
This project specifically explores whether factors such as school funding and economic status impact the voting behavior of young people.
(3) Monthly Research Sessions
Team Members: Josephine Murphy (team lead), Catherine Chan, Advait Rajan, Tanishka Sharma, and Collin Wang.
In the 24 sessions hosted in the New Researchers Summer Program (2022), we taught high school students how to conduct research in the social sciences, with topics varying from research ethics to generalizability.
Building off the framework from the summer program, we will host monthly virtual sessions throughout the school year for high school students, teaching them valuable skills needed to conduct research in the social sciences and translate their research into impact. Stay tuned for our first session!
Collaborate with us!
If you are interested in collaborating with us on our projects, we would love your support! We are currently looking for academics and researchers to partner with us on six ongoing projects, proposed by our high school and college student researchers. We are open to many different levels of involvement, which you can learn about on the link below.
Meet the Team!
In addition to our Director Jahnavi Rao and Deputy Director Sydney Fahn, we have 8 Research Assistants. Of our 8 Research Assistants, five are current high school students, and three are current college students from all over the United States and beyond! Our Research Assistants aim to empirically identify the best ways to increase civic participation among high school students through a variety of studies, as well as teach other high school-aged students how to conduct research.
This newsletter was created by Research Assistants Advait Rajan (ASU ‘27) and Josephine Murphy (High School).
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