Application links available to undergraduates subscribed to the Schar listserv
Project 1: Mapping the Cross-Strait Military Balance
Description: I am trying to build a detailed map of the cross-Strait military balance. To pull this off, I need a small team of RAs who can help me scour open source documents in order to build an accurate map of American, Chinese, Japanese, and Taiwanese military bases, ports, airfields, radar sites, silos, urban centers, beaches, navigable waterways, MSRs, etc. This map will help support future policy research on cross-Strait security and stability.
Tasks: Data collection; Coding (data entry);Managing spreadsheets or databases; organizing data; Library research; Translation; Support in statistical analysis, writing code, scraping data, etc.;
NECESSARY Skills: Potential RAs should be interested in East Asian security and/or military affairs; and they must be responsible, reliable, and able to work independently.
DESIRED Skills: In terms of desired (but not necessary) skills: A military background, familiarity with military terminology, and/or the ability to read simplified and traditional Mandarin characters are all desirable (but certainly not required)
Project 2: Infrastructure Public-Private Policy Project
Description: Our Center conducts research on infrastructure delivery (i.e., planning, design, construction, financing, operations, and maintenance) for a wide range of asset classes, including transportation, K-12 and higher education, energy. We are seeking interested undergraduates to work with our small team of Ph.D. students.
Tasks: Data collection; Coding (data entry); Writing literature summaries; Library research; Support in conducting interviews, arranging appointments for interviews, or logistics related to research of this kind; Support in statistical analysis, writing code, scraping data, etc.; Proofreading, editing, and/or manuscript preparation;
NECESSARY Skills: Good problem solver, self-motivated, good communication and writing skills.
DESIRED Skills: Domain area knowledge in one or more infrastructure asset classes.
Project 3: Collaboration in Crisis - State Politics, Policy Coordination, and the Opioid Epidemic
Faculty: Robert J McGrath
Description: I am examining how state policy coordination can help to address the opioid overdose epidemic in the United States. Crucially, state coordination (or lack thereof) interacts with federal-level initiatives. In this segment of a larger project, we will search for efforts of the national government to mandate and coordinate responses. Doing so will involve reading through executive orders and agency rules, as well as collecting congressional bills and analyzing patterns of legislative co-sponsorship.
Tasks: Data collection ;Coding (data entry);Managing spreadsheets or databases; organizing data; Support in statistical analysis, writing code, scraping data, etc.; Proofreading, editing, and/or manuscript preparation;
NECESSARY skills: Knowledge of the policy process in the United States; an interest in health policy
DESIRED skills: Facility with collecting and analyzing congressional data
Project 4: Network data visualization
Faculty: Jennifer N Victor
Description: Students skilled with data analysis or visualization will help prepare graphs for a book manuscript on Political Capital using congressional data. Experience using R, Python, or Gephi is required. Students with some background in social network theory and data preferred.
Tasks: Coding (data entry); Support in statistical analysis, writing code, scraping data, etc.;
NECESSARY skills: R, Python, or Gephi
DESIRED skills: Social network theory and analysis
Project 5: Political Capital manuscript support
Faculty: Jennifer N Victor
Description: Students will support manuscript development through library research, copyediting, project management, and other.
Tasks: Managing spreadsheets or databases; organizing data; Writing literature summaries; Library research; Proofreading, editing, and/or manuscript preparation;
NECESSARY skills: Writing skills
DESIRED skills: Communication skills and project management
Project 6: At Risk: Democratic Culture in a Community Boarding School for 'At-Risk' Youth
Faculty: Christopher Berk
Description: "URAP students will primarily assist me with my current book project, which centers on a boarding school for ""at-risk"" children. This book, titled At Risk, combines in-depth observations and interviews conducted with young boarders and school staff a decade ago, along with a recent follow-up at the same school. At Risk examines the use of total institutions, like boarding schools, to mend communities fractured by poverty and racial discrimination. It further investigates the philosophical beliefs about youth that underpin various modern juvenile justice initiatives.
I'm looking for 2-3 research assistants to help build annotated bibliographies, code interview transcripts, proofread drafts, and help with other related tasks. "
Tasks: Managing spreadsheets or databases; organizing data; Writing literature summaries; Library research; Support in conducting interviews, arranging appointments for interviews, or logistics related to research of this kind; Proofreading, editing, and/or manuscript preparation; Coding (data entry);
NECESSARY skills: No prior experience is necessary.
DESIRED skills: "Finding data is a kind of treasure hunt -- you'll need to work with an incomplete map and finishing the task often requires sequential puzzle solving. (What does information 'X' look like? If information 'X' is not located here, then where else might it be? Who might know? If 'X' is not available, perhaps it can be reconstructed from information 'Y' and 'Z'. And so on.) No prior experience is necessary, but I want to find a research assistant that is dedicated to the hunt! Familiarity with online library databases, prior independent research experience, and a keen eye for copy-editing errors are all desirable for this position."
Project 7: Knowledge Production on the Middle East
Faculty: Bassam S Haddad
Description: The Knowledge Production Project (KPP) is a dynamic, open-access archive, search tool, and data visualization platform. It collects, catalogues, and makes available for analysis knowledge produced on the Middle East since 1979 in the English language in eight databases.
Tasks: Data collection; Managing spreadsheets or databases; organizing data; Writing literature summaries; Library research; Producing Infographics Based on our Databases;
NECESSARY skills: Spreadsheet knowledge, interest in the Middle East (does NOT have to be an expert by any means)
DESIRED skills: Coding, Big Data Analysis
Project 8: Assessing Contract Management as a Discipline
Faculty: Jessica Terman
Description: The overarching goal of this research is to develop a database of the MPA schools that have courses on collaboration and contract management. This is a growing area of research and data being collected is both survey and archival. Furthermore, there will be merging of the data in addition to some rudimentary analysis.
Tasks: Coding (data entry);Managing spreadsheets or databases; organizing data;
NECESSARY skills: Comfort learning new software such as the survey software Qualtrics. Use of Excel, Word and extreme comfort with online searching, dataset building
DESIRED skills: Knowledge of how to use artificial intelligence to collect and code data.
Project 9: History of 1990s Western Aid to Eastern Europe
Faculty: Janine Wedel
Description: In this project you will work with the scholar who conducted ethnographic research in Central and Eastern Europe, Russia, and Ukraine in the 1990s on foreign aid policies and outcomes after the end of Communism.
Tasks: Data collection; Coding (data entry); Managing spreadsheets or databases; organizing data; Writing literature summaries; Library research; Translation; Copying/scanning documents
NECESSARY skills: Must be very well-organized, very responsible, and easy to work with.
DESIRED skills: Library or archival experience; Russian language ability.
Project 10: Military Veterans and Congressional Collaboration
Faculty: Lucas Núñez
Description: Prof. Victor and I seek research support for an article project. The article focuses on the determining whether legislator identity, in this case military veteran status, encourages or facilitates collaboration among members of Congress, both within parties and across the aisle. RAs will work on data collection, manage data, and library research. Students will also have the opportunity to engage in data analysis and visualization for the project.
Tasks: Data collection; Coding (data entry);Managing spreadsheets or databases; organizing data; Support in statistical analysis, writing code, scraping data, etc.; Library research;
NECESSARY skills: Interest in Congressional politics or US politics. Students should be motivated and work well independently
DESIRED skills: Zotero, MS Word, MS Excel, R
Project 11: Search firm article for AAUP's magazine Academe
Faculty: James Finkelstein
Description: Judith Wilde and I have been commissioned (no remuneration) to write an article for the magazine of AAUP, Academe. The article will most likely appear in Fall 2025. The focus is on the use of executive search firms in selecting university presidents with an emphasis on how secrecy and the lack of due diligence diminish shared governance. The result will be a 4000 word article in a national publication which has a circulation of approximately 120,000.
Tasks: Writing literature summaries ;Library research; Proofreading, editing, and/or manuscript preparation;
NECESSARY skills: We need an individual with superior skills using online search tools and the ability to write summaries of articles. The student must clearly understand plagiarism to ensure that we do not inadvertently use someone else's work without proper credit.
DESIRED skills: Excellent writing skills and an interest in higher education policy.
Project 12: Washington's Evolving Approach to International Liberal Norms in an Increasingly Illiberal World
Faculty: Eric McGlinchey
Description: An enduring objective of US foreign policy is to make competition with adversaries as unfair as possible. Washington's ability to maintain advantage over adversaries, however, is difficult when adversaries embrace effective--though illiberal--strategies that the US will not. This project investigates three such strategies that, to varying degrees, the US engaged during the Cold War and that remain mainstays of Russian and Chinese foreign policy:
1. Disinformation
2. Military support for autocracies, and
3. Participation in illicit economies.
URAP participants will research evolving US views toward disinformation, military support for autocracies, and engagement in illicit economies as tools of foreign policy:
- To what extent and to what effect did Washington use these tools during the Cold War?
- Why and to what degree has the US abandoned these tools in the post Cold War period?
- What is the incoming Trump administration's approach to disinformation, military support for autocracies, and participation in illicit economies as tools of US foreign policy?
- What harms or benefits might accrue to the US were Washington to increase its use of illiberal foreign policy strategies?
While the focus of the spring 2025 semester's research is changing US willingness to deploy illiberal foreign policy strategies, undergraduate research assistants are encouraged to contrast Washington's approach to shadow cases in which Russia and China are attempting to advance their international objectives through the use of disinformation, military support for autocracies, and participation in illicit economies.
Undergraduate research assistants (URAs) will draw on multiple sources to address the study's questions: existing scholarship on US, Russian, and Chinese foreign policy, foreign policy archives, and original interviews with foreign policy experts and practitioners that URAs will conduct.
Tasks: Managing spreadsheets or databases; organizing data; Writing literature summaries; Library research; Support in conducting interviews, arranging appointments for interviews, or logistics related to research of this kind;
NECESSARY skills: Experience with or a willingness to learn Zotero (reference management software). Experience with or a willingness to learn how to conduct interviews with foreign policy experts and practitioners.
DESIRED skills: Experience with or a willingness to learn Zotero (reference management software). Experience with or a willingness to learn how to conduct interviews with foreign policy experts and practitioners.
Project 13: After the Pandemic: Nonprofit Job Losses and Recovery during and after Covid
Faculty: Stefan Toepler & Mirae Kim
Description: Did you know that nonprofits employ nearly 13 million people in the U.S., making up 10% of private jobs? Nonprofits do more than you might think—they’re at the heart of arts and culture, education, healthcare, environmental protection, and so much more. They’re also critical for providing public services that many of us rely on every day. The economic health and development of this important sector has been tracked by the GMU Nonprofit Employment Data Project using Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data: https://nonprofitcenter.schar.gmu.edu/nonprofit-employment-data-project/
This project focuses on understanding how the nonprofit sector has weathered the major challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic presented. It will also allow us to gauge the impact on different types of nonprofits in select policy fields.
As a member of this research team, you will play a key role in conducting a comprehensive review of existing literature on the impact of the COVID-induced crisis on the nonprofit sector, with a particular focus on nonprofit jobs and employment across key policy fields. Your responsibilities will include coding and organizing the literature database, as well as reviewing and summarizing key articles. The goal of this research is to evaluate how studies conducted during the pandemic assessed its impacts on nonprofits and to compare those findings with real-world BLS data. This analysis will help us develop a deeper understanding of how to assess the impacts of real-time crises more effectively in the future.
Tasks: Managing spreadsheets or databases; organizing data; Writing literature summaries; Library research; Proofreading, editing, and/or manuscript preparation
NECESSARY skills: A basic library and internet search skills, attention to detail, an interest in learning about the nonprofit sector
DESIRED skills: Background or experience in the nonprofit sector, high interest in learning about the nonprofit sector and research skills
Project 14: Russia's Vaccine Narratives
Faculty: Janet Marroquin Pineda
Description: The research project would entail coding translated media articles from a Russian-owned, Ukrainian media site as "anti-government" and/or "pro-Russian state" or "neither". The students will code a random sample of 150 articles from a dataset of 1,522 articles. Each student will have the same sample of articles and will work with a codebook. The project is expected to take 15 hours total, expectation is for 3-5 hours per week.
Tasks: Coding (data entry)
NECESSARY skills: Ability to objectively analyze international politics literature
DESIRED skills: Experience with qualitative text analysis (e.g., content or sentiment analysis)