Urban Studies Departmental Research Program 2025

The Stanford Poverty, Violence, and Governance Lab (PovGov) is looking to a part time Research Assistant for the Winter and Spring quarters (’25).

You will be working with a team of dedicated scholars whose mission is to innovative methodologies and data streams to generate scientific understanding about the causes, consequences, and dynamics of violence. We aim with our research to contribute to restore peace, security, and protect human rights.

About the position: 

• You will support our team of researchers on one to two ongoing projects that may include a survey experiment on the relationship between corruption, rule of law and populism and support analyzing interviews for a project on the relationship between organized crime presence and gendered violence.  
• You will be assigned a mentor who will coordinate your tasks.
• Pay is $22 / hour.
• You will work an average of 10 hours/week, not to exceed 90 hours for the quarter.
• You can be asked to help the Lab on a range of ad-hoc tasks and projects from our project portfolio. 
• Tasks include but are not limited to: cleaning data, help compile data-sets, help write literature reviews, support with survey design, help with data analysis. 

What we are looking for: 

• Committed and reliable RAs with a demonstrated passion for questions pertaining to poverty alleviation, violence, and governance. 
• Fluency in Spanish. 
• Demontrated skills and experience with data analysis in STATA.
• We encourage students with a background in Computer Science, Economics, or Political Science to apply. 

If you're interested in working with PovGov, please apply and attach your resume by the priority deadline of Sunday January 19, 2025, 11.59 PM PT in Handshake, Job #9581304.

About: In Europe, drowning emerged as a notable form of accidental death in the mid-18th century. “Apparently drowned” bodies, teetering between life and death, presented objects of fear, revulsion, and fascination and the advocates faced intense religious and scientific resistance. In the complex project of making drowning into a public health issue that could be solved, the minting, awarding, and presenting of lifesaving medals took center stage: saving someone from drowning would become a heroic act. The medals were expensive to mint, and their aim was to induce lifesaving action while also seducing the middle and upper classes to the value the cause; the Society; and not incidentally, the very project of the new Enlightenment science. I have designed and cast in silver five medals that investigate the paradoxes I have unearthed in my scholarly research on drowning. I have been working with students to build dioramas related to the questions raised by medal-making as a social ritual and to display and configure the source materials used in their design.

Research Tasks: A student RA would work with me to finish the dioramas and prepare the elements of the show including helping write and design labels, curatorial issues, writing the final statements, and work in the product realization lab. I will guide the student through these processes and the RA will develop skills in design, product realization, and curation.

Qualifications: The student should have some experience in (or strong desire to learn) work in design (fabric, lighting, woodwork, etc).

If you're interested, please apply in Handshake, Job #9581360.

The Stanford Poverty, Violence, and Governance Lab (PovGov) is looking to a part time Research Assistant for the Winter and Spring quarters (’25).

You will be working with a team of dedicated scholars whose mission is to innovative methodologies and data streams to generate scientific understanding about the causes, consequences, and dynamics of violence. We aim with our research to contribute to restore peace, security, and protect human rights.

About the position: 

• You will support our team of researchers on one to two ongoing projects that may include a survey experiment on the relationship between corruption, rule of law and populism and support analyzing interviews for a project on the relationship between organized crime presence and gendered violence.  
• You will be assigned a mentor who will coordinate your tasks.
• Pay is $22 / hour.
• You will work an average of 10 hours/week, not to exceed 90 hours for the quarter.
• You can be asked to help the Lab on a range of ad-hoc tasks and projects from our project portfolio. 
• Tasks include but are not limited to: cleaning data, help compile data-sets, help write literature reviews, support with survey design, help with data analysis. 

What we are looking for: 

• Committed and reliable RAs with a demonstrated passion for questions pertaining to poverty alleviation, violence, and governance. 
• Fluency in Spanish. 
• Demontrated skills and experience with data analysis in STATA.
• We encourage students with a background in Computer Science, Economics, or Political Science to apply. 

If you're interested in working with PovGov, please apply and attach your resume by the February 14th deadline in  Handshake, Job #9596496.

About: In Europe, drowning emerged as a notable form of accidental death in the mid-18th century. “Apparently drowned” bodies, teetering between life and death, presented objects of fear, revulsion, and fascination and the advocates faced intense religious and scientific resistance. In the complex project of making drowning into a public health issue that could be solved, the minting, awarding, and presenting of lifesaving medals took center stage: saving someone from drowning would become a heroic act. The medals were expensive to mint, and their aim was to induce lifesaving action while also seducing the middle and upper classes to the value the cause; the Society; and not incidentally, the very project of the new Enlightenment science. I have designed and cast in silver five medals that investigate the paradoxes I have unearthed in my scholarly research on drowning. I have been working with students to build dioramas related to the questions raised by medal-making as a social ritual and to display and configure the source materials used in their design.

Research Tasks: A student RA would work with me to finish the dioramas and prepare the elements of the show including helping write and design labels, curatorial issues, writing the final statements, and work in the product realization lab. I will guide the student through these processes and the RA will develop skills in design, product realization, and curation.

Qualifications: The student should have some experience in (or strong desire to learn) work in design (fabric, lighting, woodwork, etc).

If you're interested, please apply in Handshake, Job #9596476.

Abstract: This project addresses the challenge that American poverty has stacked up in particular cities, towns, and counties. When local governments are populated mostly by low-income people, there is typically much less money for public schools and services. Weak, broke local governments make it harder for residents to lead decent lives on low incomes or get their families out of poverty. But current poverty metrics (which focus on poverty at the individual, neighborhood, metro, and larger scales) rarely measure or document poverty within city and county government borders—that is, the incidence of poverty and lower incomes within the local borders that define tax bases and affect funding for services. In collaboration with the Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality, Professor Anderson is seeking a measurement for poverty that captures both concentrated poverty and lower median incomes within local tax bases, then applying that metric within each state to document cities, towns, and counties facing this problem. The RA will be involved in the empirical research to define/find such places and in the work of gathering feedback and building coalitions among affected places.

Research Tasks: The RA's primary responsibilities will be to conduct online research and work with partners in affected states to help identify, organize and share information among affected cities. They will also prepare data for academic and non-academic deliverables, contribute to reports and other explanatory pieces for partners and broader public audiences, and help edit academic papers stemming from this project. Professor Anderson will work closely with and mentor the RA through weekly meetings (either one-on-one or with the full team of students and researchers at the Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality), partner meetings, and regular communication via text/email.

Qualifications: Experience handling Census data would be a plus, as would basic coursework relating to the history or sociology of American poverty; life experience or interest in poverty/inequality.

Apply on SOLO here.

About: In 2018, the Brazilian government closed 13 fake high schools. We examine how these diplomas affected the lives of these high schools' "graduates." We use quantitative data on individuals' earnings before and after they "graduated." We look for additional patterns on whether employers seem to learn about the fake credentials.

Research Tasks: Statistical analysis. Literature reviews.

Qualifications: Basic econometrics.

Apply on SOLO here.

About: There has been an increase in the number of people experiencing homelessness in cities, especially since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Providing timely and early intervention can improve the well-being of those experiencing homelessness; however, the dynamic nature of unhoused populations makes it difficult to determine the magnitude and location of service needs. We are using granular vehicle and mobile crowdsensing data collected in San Jose to uncover complex mechanisms that link neighborhood environments to well-being and optimize intervention strategies to improve overall wellness. Our goal is to understand how natural and visible neighborhood environments, such as litter, building facade and maintenance, air pollution, and greenery, affect individual and community well-being. While studies have shown that neighborhood environments are correlated with well-being metrics, the specific mechanisms linking them together and with neighborhood inequities in well-being are not well understood.

Research Tasks: There is a diverse list of tasks the student might help with, including but not limited to (1) conducting literature reviews into affordable housing, sustainability, and public policy, (2) collecting, organizing, and analyzing well-being survey data and eye-tracking study data using programming languages such as R, (3) researching frameworks for well-being interventions given granular spatiotemporal data, and (4) learning to give technical presentations and provide brief technical write-ups of their work.

Apply on SOLO here.

The Stanford Poverty, Violence, and Governance Lab (PovGov) is looking to a full time Research Assistant for the summer quarter (’25).

You will be working with a team of dedicated scholars whose mission is to innovative methodologies and data streams to generate scientific understanding about the causes, consequences, and dynamics of violence. We aim with our research to contribute to restore peace, security, and protect human rights.

About the position: 

• You will support our team of researchers on one to two ongoing projects that may include a survey experiment on the relationship between corruption, rule of law and populism and support analyzing interviews for a project on the relationship between organized crime presence and gendered violence.  
• You will be assigned a mentor who will coordinate your tasks.
• Pay is $22 / hour.
• You can be asked to help the Lab on a range of ad-hoc tasks and projects from our project portfolio. 
• Tasks include but are not limited to: cleaning data, help compile data-sets, help write literature reviews, support with survey design, help with data analysis. 

What we are looking for: 

• Committed and reliable RAs with a demonstrated passion for questions pertaining to poverty alleviation, violence, and governance. 
• Fluency in Spanish. 
• Demontrated skills and experience with data analysis in STATA.
• We encourage students with a background in Computer Science, Economics, or Political Science to apply. 

Apply on SOLO here.

About: The recent opening of the City of Cape Town (CoCT)'s Attic Museum in the City Hall provides an exciting opportunity for digital collaboration. Grant Parker (PI) is already working with the City on an in-depth digital co-curation, provisionally called Museum of Cape Town in 25 Objects. The selected objects are tied with both historical and contemporary maps. Further archival depth is welcome, supported by the unofficially agreed partnership between GP and the CoCT. The intern(s) will help to supply this depth.

Research Tasks: The intern(s) will engage in archival research to identify salient historical documents, get them photographed and obtain permission for the online use. They will also work with other members of the team to plan the build-out of the via other related media. They will work with both the David Rumsey Map Center and the CoCT to identify and digitally obtain historic maps of the city for inclusion in the website, and then georeferencing them once scanned. If possible, finally, the intern(s) will also be responsible for the creation of a smart phone version of the museum.

Apply on SOLO here.

About: The Educational Opportunity Project (EOP) at Stanford University uses a range of data on educational conditions, contexts, and outcomes to help scholars, policy makers, educators, and the general public learn about the landscape of educational opportunity and academic achievement in the US. The EOP houses four main initiatives: 1. The Stanford Education Data Archive (SEDA): SEDA is a 15-year national database of academic performance based on 500+ million 3-8th grade math and reading and language arts test scores from the 2008-2019 school years. We hope that researchers, practitioners, and policy makers will utilize SEDA to generate evidence about what policies and practices are most effective at increasing educational opportunity. 2. The Early Childhood Opportunity Project (ECO): the ECO team is collecting data on early childhood educational opportunities and kindergarten readiness in communities in 15 states. 3. EOP NYSED Equity Indicators Project: We are partnering with the New York State Education Department (NYSED) to construct a series of equity indicators using longitudinal teacher, student, and staff level data. These indicators will help us better understand the landscape of educational equity across NY state and inform system-level changes to improve equitable access to educational opportunity. 4. The Segregation Index (run by Professor reardon and Professor Ann Owens (USC/UCLA)), which is constructing data archives on residential and school segregation from 1967-2025 and a data set of housing and school policies. Together we use these to study the factors that lead to more or less segregation.

Research Tasks: The EOP RA will be responsible for assisting on current projects that include the Stanford Education Data Archive (SEDA), the Early Childhood Opportunity Project, the EOP NYSED Equity Indicators Project, and/or work on the Segregation Index project. The RA will learn skills in assembling complex data sets useful for studying educational opportunity and social and educational policy analysis; the RA will learn statistical measurement and analysis skills relating to the measurement and analysis of segregation, equality of educational opportunity, and educational outcomes. The RA may also have the opportunity to research and prepare a report on their own topic of interest related to the work of the EOP – including work on patterns of kindergarten readiness, segregation, and educational outcomes. Conducting online background research on relevant topics and writing literature reviews; collecting, cleaning, and organizing data for preliminary analyses; producing memos and data reports for various projects; collaborating with EOP research staff, partners, and other RAs; outreach (via email, phone, and conference calls) to stakeholders; supporting the promotion of the EOP's work through social media and the EOP website.

Apply on SOLO here.

About: By 1990, Latinx New York had grown to over 1.7 million residents, surpassing the population of Houston, then the fourth-largest city in the U.S. Yet it was a tale of two cities: one marked by strides in political and union power, the other by deepening poverty on a broad scale. The stagnant Latinx political landscape of the 1980s received a boost with the citywide district elections in November 1991, which increased representation on the City Council. Additionally, by 1990, about 38 percent of the approximately 534,000 of the city’s Latinxs boasted union membership. At the same time, nearly one-third of Latinxs lived below the poverty line. This project delves into the paradoxes within the Latinx experience in New York City during this era, where growing political and labor representation unfolded alongside pervasive hardship. It also seeks to explore how these dynamics were shaped by the city’s conservative political shift and rising anti-immigrant sentiment nationwide.

Research Tasks: Conduct literature reviews of scholarly sources in both English and Spanish; locate and analyze quantitative data relevant to the project’s themes; identify, summarize, and organize relevant English and Spanish-language media articles and reports.

Apply on the SOLO here.

About: This project seeks to produce a state-of-the-discipline report on the primary factors that contribute to, and obstruct, the successful reintegration of formerly incarcerated people back into the community.

Research Tasks: RA will be responsible for locating, summarizing, and synthesizing research studies (articles and books) analyzing the factors impacting formerly incarcerated individuals.

Apply on SOLO here.