Current BLISS Projects

• Meenakshi Verma-Agrawal, Director of Administration and Operations
• Jennifer Perry, Research Scholar
• CJ Bigsby, Program Coordinator

The core mission of the Center for Race, Inequality and Social Equity Studies (CRISES) is the scholarly analysis of the contemporary interplay of economic inequality with ethno-racial social identities and backgrounds employing rigorous methodologies, theory-driven insights, and empirically grounded research. The social scientific research conducted by CRISES will inform the vision and attainment of a world without invidious ethno-racial social conditions and blocked opportunities that are rooted in historical, institutional, and systemic inequality. Through its research, collaborations across FAS and Harvard, convenings and residency of scholars, activists, and students, CRISES envisions collective healing and a liberated society. CRISES will pursue its mission and vision through across five areas of scholarly work:

• Racial Change and Inequality in the U.S. Studies
• Comparative Ethno-Racial Transformation
• Racial Attitudes, Beliefs, and Identities Studies
• Work, Economic Change and Opportunity Structures
• Intersectional Dynamics of Race, Class, and Gender

The summer research assistant will support two specific projects:

Community Mapping: In an effort to better understand the work of racial justice organizations in Massachusetts, CRISES is pursuing a community mapping process. This project will be exploring existing organizations that are currently working on racial justice through a range of interdisciplinary topics. The summer research assistant will support this project by researching organizations, attending meetings, taking notes, summarizing topics and organizational data. Through the use of GIS software, this project will culminate in an accessible map that showcases the work of these projects in Massachusetts.

Research Design & Analysis: The summer research assistant will help with planning and analysis of an ongoing research project on support for a multiracial democracy in the United States. The project focuses on directly assessing the underlying attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors of the U.S. population in relation to upholding and improving democracy. The student will have the opportunity to gain experience in multiple areas of social science research, including conducting and interpreting focus groups, experimental design, survey coding and data analysis, literature review, and communication of findings. 

Skills needed: Organizational, writing, and communication skills are required, as is an interest in studying race relations, inequality, and democracy through a social science lens. Experience in community mapping and GIS software would be beneficial but is not required. Experience with data collection, management, and analysis is beneficial, but not required.

• John Weisz, Professor of Psychology
• Sean Toh, doctoral student
• Josh Steinberg, doctoral student

In recent decades, there have been major advances in the assessment, prevention, and treatment of mental health challenges in children and adolescents (herein “youths”). However, these efforts have not markedly reduced rates of psychopathology among youths on a large scale. Indeed, approximately 1 in 4 youths will experience at least one psychiatric disorder—such as depressive, anxiety, and conduct-related disorders—before adulthood, and these rates have not considerably changed over the years. With this in mind, our lab aims to explore methods for improving the effectiveness of youth psychotherapies.

A BLISS student in the Lab for Youth Mental Health will be involved in two distinct, but related, lines of research. A BLISS student will spend most of their time (~80%) under the day-to-day supervision of Sean Toh, assisting with the management of a database of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of youth mental health interventions, to be used in meta-analyses that test which treatments work best for which mental health problems. This database of youth psychotherapy RCTs targeting anxiety problems, depressive problems, conduct/misbehavior problems, and ADHD problems began in January 1960 and has been continuously updated since through comprehensive and systematic searches in PubMed and PsycINFO. By screening articles for inclusion in the database and coding them for analyses, a BLISS student will develop an understanding of the structure and contents of youth mental health treatments for anxiety, depression, ADHD, and conduct problems; skill in reviewing and evaluating the quality of treatment studies; and and understanding of key differences between effective and ineffective treatments. Additionally, the student will acquire valuable skills in managing systematic reviews using COVIDENCE, a leading software for streamlining systematic review processes. There may also be opportunities to assist with meta-analyses currently led by graduate students in the lab.

The second component of a BLISS Fellow’s experience in the Lab (comprising ~20% of student’s time) will be supervised by Josh Steinberg. Specifically, a BLISS Fellow working with Josh will assist with one or more projects related to the evaluation of digital mental health interventions for youth mental health problems and/or a meta-analysis investigating whether the environmental conditions children and adolescents are living in have an impact (good or bad) on their mental health outcomes when they receive psychotherapy. These projects are already underway, and exact tasks will depend on what steps are completed by this summer, but work will very likely involve: 1) data cleaning and management, 2) literature review, and 3) assistance with interpreting and writing up statistical analyses. For this project, some experience with R and Excel is preferred, as is an ability to be meticulous in data management activities. For interested and motivated fellows hoping to make a longer-term commitment to this project, Josh will gladly support secondary analyses or related literature reviews, and support fellow-led poster presentation and manuscript submissions as appropriate. We are excited by the possibility that a BLISS student might participate in these projects.

The BLISS student will be encouraged to identify pieces of these projects that are most interesting to them to pursue for their final project, and opportunities to be involved with manuscript development will be offered, as appropriate.

Skills Needed: This BLISS experience will be especially relevant to students who plan to pursue graduate study in clinical psychology. Students are most likely to thrive in our lab when they prioritize kindness and collaboration, attention to detail, reliability, and a genuine willingness to learn. Previous coursework in clinical psychology and/or research methods may be helpful but is not required. Previous experience with data management and statistical computing software such as R Studio are preferred but not required.

• Mark L. Hatzenbuehler, John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences
• Nathan L. Hollinsaid, clinical science doctoral student

Psychological interventions such as LGBTQ-affirmative cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) have produced promising reductions in LGBTQ young adults’ disproportionate burden of mental, behavioral, and sexual health concerns. Although the efficacy of LGBTQ-affirmative CBT has been established in randomized controlled trials (RCTs), the exact mechanisms through which these benefits are conferred have yet to be comprehensively identified.  

Our lab will take three approaches to answer the question of why LGBTQ-affirmative CBT works. First, using meta-analytic structural equation modeling (MA-SEM), we will test candidate mediators by aggregating individual data from dozens of RCTs of LGBTQ-affirmative CBT. Second, we will apply natural language processing (NLP) to transcripts from LGBTQ-affirmative CBT therapy sessions to determine whether LGBTQ young adults’ language related to assertiveness and other treatment targets changes during treatment. Third, we will use network analysis to examine how interrelationships between treatment mechanisms and outcomes change over the course of LGBTQ-affirmative CBT. Broadly, these projects can advance mechanistic insights into LGBTQ-affirmative CBT and inform future efforts to enhance this treatment’s efficacy.

Throughout the summer, BLISS fellows will assist with one or more of these projects. Although daily tasks vary, fellows can expect to assist with data extraction, cleaning, coding, and analysis. Fellows can also anticipate training opportunities in advanced statistical methods (e.g., NLP, SEM, network analysis, meta-analysis) and programming languages (e.g., R, Python).

Fellows will be supervised by and have weekly check-in/mentorship meetings with one of our lab’s graduate students, Nathan Hollinsaid.

Skills Needed: In our experience, the most successful students are highly motivated, independent, and curious. Although not required, familiarity with R, successful completion of PSY 1900, 1901, and 1845, and interest in pursuing graduate studies in clinical psychology or related fields are preferred.

Dr. Carla D. Martin, Assistant Director of Undergraduate Studies in African and African American Studies

This summer research program is focused on archival, database, and ethnographic material analysis related to two ongoing, overlapping projects, one based on data provided by cocoa producers and one based on data provided for cocoa producers. These projects are entitled, respectively, “Towards a Cocoa Producer-Focused Climate Policy in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana” and “Sizing the Specialty Market: Tracking Cocoa and Chocolate Companies.” Through these projects we will study the impact of climate change on the health, livelihoods, and agricultural practices of cocoa producers and their communities, investigate producer and current policy responses to these challenges, and explore the governance and policies needed to support cocoa producers as full citizens with voice and agency moving forward. We also plan to continue an ongoing effort to track the size of the specialty cocoa and chocolate market through a mixture of surveys, database building, and company analysis. Each of these intersecting projects involves many dynamic scholar and practitioner stakeholders, some of whom the student researcher will have the opportunity to meet virtually during the research process.

The student research assistant will:

• learn methodologies for library and internet based research
• review primary and secondary sources
• analyze survey, interview, and negotiation workshop data
• investigate chocolate companies via their online presences
• develop meta-analyses, visual representations, and/or summaries of research in progress
• have the opportunity to meet virtually with a number of different stakeholders, both scholars and practitioners

The mentor will:

• introduce the research assistant to the topics
• provide hands-on guidance at each step of the research
• meet with the research assistant at regular intervals each week
• offer constructive feedback on methodology and skill development each week
• invite the student to group research meetings throughout the summer
• advise on the process of developing a research abstract and presentation

Skills Needed: Prospective fellows should have or be willing to develop skills in: HOLLIS and search engine research; Microsoft Word and Excel; Google Docs, Forms, and Sheets; Zoom. Ideally, the research assistant will have interests in some or all of the following:

• commodity crops
• chocolate
• international trade
• ethics and sustainability
• engaged scholarship

Richard B. Freeman, Herbert Ascherman Professor of Economics

Unionization of the ‘Best and Brightest’: The Drivers and Effects of the Burst of Unionism Among Graduate Students , Post-Docs, and Faculty in Higher Education and MD Residents and Interns in Hospitals

The project begins with a fact: that in the last decade or so, the US has experienced the most rapid growth of trade unions in decades among young workers in higher education, where PhD and Master’s students (and increasingly undergraduates) as well), post-docs and adjunct faculty have successfully organized unions and gained collective bargaining contracts, and where MDs and other workers in teaching hospitals and HMOs have similarly unionized and obtained collective bargaining agreements. There are three questions we seek to answer: Why the stunning growth? What will it do to the well-being of young workers and to the institutions that employ them? And will the union breakthrough in higher education and hospitals will spill over to young and older workers in other sectors?

Major analysis will be empirical study of the institutions that have been unionized compared to those that have not been unionized using a database that contains data on 2,000 to 4,000 universities and 6,000 or so hospitals; a growing sample of 1500 union activists to see their career progression after they graduate/complete residency; and of several hundred NLRB and other elections that decide union status and of collective bargaining contracts that newly organized workers have obtained. Most of these data will be available for analysis this summer in a database to be housed in Harvard’s Institute for Quantitative Social Science (IQSS).

We will explore the extent to which the explosive growth can be modeled as a form of social contagion, per contagious disease models. As these models have origins in viruses or bacteria spreading, they do not give the attention to optimizing purposive behavior nor to potential market interactions that would ideally better for humans, so we will try to modify them to better fit with economic analysis. We will use various event study econometric modeling to assess potential causal links between.

We will develop a set of questions for interviewing and surveying the student/MD workers whose decisions determined whether their workplace did or did not unionize and a parallel set of questions for representatives of the employing college, university, hospital, or HMO. This will involve learning and pre-testing questions that ideally will help quantify the factors that lie behind the burst of unionism and test proposed hypotheses.

Day to day work will depend on student skills and interests. A student with strong computer science, statistics, or econometrics training would presumably work with the data sets estimating models and finding which fit and which do not. They would seek ways to explain the failure of the models to account for some data, possibly by examining as a case study the higher education institution or hospitals that varied greatly from the statistical analysis. A student with strong skills or interest in survey research would work on devising and testing a survey/interview questionnaire that would be tested for roll out by the fall. Would anticipate that students will come up with novel ideas for statistical analyses, for modeling social contagion, and for using survey questions to obtain estimates of individual responses to conditions at their workplace.

We will guide the student in whichever research activity they find most appealing. We have a small team of researchers involved, including professors from outside Harvard but with Harvard connections; and someone at IQSS who will help with data and computer issues. In addition to me, there will likely be 1-2 researchers in Cambridge over the summer. The entire research group will have weekly zoom meetings. I will be at my NBER office at 1050 Mass Ave all summer working on the project and expect to see the BLISS student regularly. I anticipate a student with reasonable skills and an inquisitive “detective/researcher” mind will come up with results and ideas that will help the project move forward. By the end of summer, the student will be experienced in presenting research results and ideas for improving the analysis.

Skills Needed: Knowledge or ability to learn statistical modeling, web scraping or search web for evidence on hypotheses on why some institutions of higher education/hospitals show different outcomes than others, and how to test those hypotheses. Great if student has some background in survey research. Most important is having scientific/detective sense about quantitative data and how to test proposed explanations of patterns in data, either with additional quantitative data or through cogent survey/interview questions.

• Philip Deloria, Leverett Saltonstall Professor of History
• Joyce Chaplin, James Duncan Phillips Professor of Early American History
• Alan Niles, Visiting Lecturer in English
• Saffron Sener, Graduate Student in History
• Kabl Wilkerson, Graduate Student in History

For centuries, Harvard University has stood as one of the world’s leading institutions. Its wealth and prestige have garnered the university a legacy unmatched by other institutions; yet, few accounts of Harvard’s history attempt to understand its relationship of the University’s success to the very conditions in which it was founded: the colonization of North America. This topic was briefly explored in the Report of the Presidential Committee on Harvard & the Legacy of Slavery, but many unanswered questions remain. This summer research project asks students to research, write, and narrate Harvard’s legacy of colonization as it relates to Native communities. Utilizing archival research and drawing upon the research conducted by other related projects, such as the Harvard & Native Lands course, students will work to answer the question: “how has Harvard University sponsored and benefitted from the colonial project in New England with regard to Native communities?”

Over the summer, students will meet with graduate and faculty advisers for their respective projects, exploring a facet of the University’s contribution to the colonial project. Applicants must able to manage their research, keep it organized in a sharable format, and make their research notes available to the research team and Harvard University Native American Program (HUNAP) staff. Students’ research will culminate in a presentation to the entire project team, HUNAP staff, and affiliated faculty. Moreover, all student contributions will be incorporated into the ongoing effort to narrate Harvard’s complicated colonial legacies.

Major questions to be researched:

• Who are the major figures we need to know more about? (e.g., such as Senator Henry Dawes connected to the institution?)
• What events are undescribed or relatively unknown? (e.g., reusing bricks from the Indian College to construct other Harvard buildings, with the promise to provide free tuition and housing to Native students)
• What archives and sources can best address the research question?

By the end of their summer research, students will possess the ability to:

• Undertake original research and complete an original piece of scholarly writing;
• Navigate archives and understand how to utilize and perform archival research in multiple archival contexts;
• Organize research, and utilize tools such as Excel, Word, Google Drive, and Sheets; and
• Present scholarly work to diverse, public audiences, and develop all the presentation skills necessary to do so.

Skills Needed: Students should be familiar with archival research or be willing to learn how to perform archival research. Students must be willing to learn skills such as paleography and digital tools such as Excel to aid them in organizing their research if they do not already have experience with it. Ideally candidates will have experience in historical archives/with historical writing and coursework in:

• Harvard & Native Lands
• History courses in which archival research was present or encouraged;
• Other university courses in which archival research was present or encouraged.

George Aumoithe, Assistant Professor of History and of African and African American Studies

“Tracing the Political, Legal, and Economic History of Medical Scarcity” is a summer research program focused on assisting Prof. Aumoithe with archival and database analysis related to public hospitals, economic and fiscal public health policies, and legal cases related to nondiscrimination law in health. The method is primarily archival and may involve examining Prof. Aumoithe’s personal database of photocopied archival sources, investigating archival sources located at Harvard, and finding and analyzing Excel datasheets from U.S. federal and state agencies as well as non-governmental entities. Research assistants would produce meta-analyses of secondary literature, tabulate basic statistics, and create charts that visualize numerical data for illustrative purposes. Research assistants may also conduct fact-checking of existing manuscript material and learn how to proofread and copyedit scholarly material.

Skills needed: All applicants with skills in Microsoft Word, Excel, Google Docs, FileMaker Pro, or other similar database software, are welcome to apply. Students with experience in ArcMap GIS or other spatial analysis software are also welcome to apply.

• Alisha Holland, Gates Professor of Developing Societies, Government Department
• Gautam Nair, Assistant Professor, Harvard Kennedy School

Public procurement has risen as a share of government expenditures over time. While economists tend to focus on the efficiency reasons to move services and expertise outside the state (e.g., Hart, Schleifer, and Vishny 1997; Tirole 1994), the politics of contracting out to private providers, experts, and administrators remain poorly understood. When do governments move activities traditionally done in-house to private firms? What explains the choice between public procurement and privatization? Is contracting out a form of privatization, and how does it differ in its origins and consequences?  

These choices are gaining new relevance in the United States, as President Trump declares his intention to slash the federal bureaucracy.  Will cuts in government employees lead to heavier reliance on private-sector contractors, and with what consequences for government-business relations?  Similar questions can be seen in many parts of the world seeking new efficiencies in government, such as Argentina and India, as well as in new sectors, such as AI and cybersecurity, where government actors often have limited experience.   

This project explores choices in the form of government provision and their political and business consequences. Part of our goal is conceptual. Privatization often is used as shorthand for a range of contractual relationships between the government and private providers. Yet many contracting relations fall short of the transfer of ownership to private firms, and instead bring in firms, experts, and even ordinary bureaucrats to work with the state. We hope to bring greater clarity to the ways in which governments contract with private firms, ranging from the construction of goods to the operation of services to the provision of expertise and staff. What dimensions characterize the different ways in which states rely on private providers?

A second goal of the project is explanatory. A narrow definition of privatization has tended to produce studies that explain private sector reliance by looking to factors like partisan ideology, financial constraints, or union strength. Studies of contracting out also have tended to focus on particular sectors (education, prison, infrastructure), and single types of providers (private firms, churches, NGOs). We hope to develop a richer theory of political decisions to contract out state activities. When do politicians turn to private firms, the church, or NGOs as service providers? To what extent does the structure of interest groups, institutions, regulatory burdens, or political rents shape government decisions?

Finally, this project explores the consequences of contracting out for state capacity, democracy, and business politics. Does reliance on private contractors weaken or strengthen states, and under what circumstances? To what extent do contractors lobby for additional spending, responsibilities, or expansion of services? What are the consequences for who gets served and what services get provided? And to what extent do public sector choices reshape the organization and practices of providers? Throughout, we hope to explore the normative consequences of contracting out and the challenges that it can pose to sustaining liberal democracy and inclusive economies.

We are looking for a research assistant to help with a literature review on the politics of contracting.  We also will be gathering statistics on how reliance on private contractors varies across sector and country to produce a global comparison of the phenomenon.  The research assistant also will help to follow ongoing decisions about government reform in the United States and the extent to which private contractors gain or lose power with reforms to the state bureaucracy.  We will plan to meet with the research assistant on a weekly basis to set an agenda for the week’s work, share feedback, and work towards a writing the introduction of a book on the topic. 

The student will gain familiarity with social science research on bureaucracy, public contracting, and business power.  S/he will also gain skills in the construction and analysis of social science statistics.  The research assistant will also have the chance to use office space and take part in events for the Business and Government Cluster at the Weatherhead Center.

Skills needed: Some familiarity with data management and analysis in Excel, R or Stata is helpful but not required.

Rakesh Khurana, Professor of Sociology; Marvin Bower Professor of Leadership Development at HBS; Dean of Harvard College and Co-Master of Cabot House

This project studies the World Economic Forum (WEF), focusing on its structure and how it responds to global crises, such as the 2008–09 financial meltdown, to reinforce globalization and embed a shared elite ideology/worldview among its members. Over its half-century of influence, the WEF has shaped the global system by influencing the global understandings and identities of participating organizations and individuals.

Despite its prominence, the WEF remains an under-studied organization. On the surface, it appears to be an elite gathering. On a deeper level, it is a venue where organizations and their leaders are exposed to perspectives that foster a shared worldview—one that ripples out into daily life in ways both visible (think: the cost of your morning coffee) and less apparent (think: how climate policy becomes a marketing opportunity).

The WEF isn’t just about “elites” in the headline-grabbing sense—it’s about understanding how the world is organized and how power flows through networks that may seem distant but impact everything from the types of jobs available to whether “sustainability” is merely a buzzword or a meaningful commitment.

The research assistant will support this study by:

1. Data Collection and Organization: Digitizing and structuring data on WEF member organizations and participants for statistical analysis.
2. Enhanced Profiling: Expanding datasets with publicly available information on participants’ roles and affiliations (e.g., LinkedIn).
3. Video Analysis: Developing methods to analyze WEF conference videos, generating transcripts, and identifying key themes.

This is an opportunity to contribute to a significant study of global governance, elite networks, and the mechanisms of globalization. The candidate will engage in detailed conversation and drafting of sections on research methods used and in generating descriptive tables and graphs of this data. 

Skills Needed: Ideal candidates should have experience in data collection, database management, and video analysis tools, with strong attention to detail and an interest in uncovering how organizations shape global governance. Archival research skills and proficiency in working with public datasets are highly desirable.

David Jones, A. Bernard Ackerman Professor of the Culture of Medicine

Devastating heat struck Phoenix in summer 2024. Daytime highs soared past 100° for 113 days. Hundreds died. Heat wreaked havoc in Europe in summer 2022, killing over 60,000 people. It’s only going to get worse. Heat wave mortality, especially in cities, will be one of the direst consequences of global warming and the climate crisis. Politicians and urban planners now race to prevent and adapt to these dangers. But while the intensity of urban heat may be new, the basic problem is not. Noah Webster described the urban heat island effect in the 1790s. By the 1870s, summer heat waves were a familiar problem in the United States. Modern readers can easily relate to some aspects of this historical heat wave discomfort and suffering. Other aspects, however, are surprising. Heat wave mortality now is highest in Black and Brown elders, but then it was highest in young white laborers. While people then, as now, died of heat stroke, many also drowned as beleaguered city dwellers—who generally did not know how to swim—sought respite from the heat in cool rivers and harbors. Some of the most important heat waves struck the US in the 1930s. While the Dust Bowl is the most famous aspect of this, the Dust Bowl itself was caused by the heat and drought.

The goal of this project is to reconstruct the lived experience of urban heat waves in Boston and Phoenix in the 1930s. The first step will be to learn what historians have already written—there’s no need to reinvent the wheel. The second step will be to figure out what more can be learned. Most of the work will involve mining the rich newspapers collections (print, microfilm, and digitized) of Lamont Library and the Boston Public Library to narrate life and death during these heat waves. Other sources can be explored as well, including diaries, memoirs, sermons, fiction, art, photographs, and possibly even film. We will meet at least weekly, usually in person, and more often as needed. The student will learn how to search newspapers effectively to identify telling details and craft engaging narratives. If the student has sufficient coding skills, we can also explore quantitative analyses of newspaper databases to identify key themes in the coverage and trends over time.

Skills Needed: The fundamental prerequisites are curiosity about the lives of past humans and willingness to appreciate the humor and tragedy of life in an early 20th century city. Prior course work in History of Science, History, or Anthropology is a bonus, but not required. The work demands a certain kind of attention: scanning large volumes of material in search of telling vignettes. The student should know (or be willing to learn) how to navigate Harvard’s digital resources, microfilm readers, and print collections. We will collaborate to find the right balance between independent research and useful guidance and mentorship.

Adaner Usmani, Assistant Professor of Sociology and Social Studies

American mass incarceration is one of the major social problems of our times. The United States incarcerates more people than perhaps any other country in world history except for Stalin’s Soviet Union. Those it incarcerates are disproportionately likely to be poor and nonwhite. Scholars have offered various compelling explanations for American mass incarceration, but one of the weaknesses of most work on punishment is that it seeks to understand America by studying just America. This project seeks to bring comparative and historical perspective to the study of the American carceral state.

We aim to gather several kinds of historical data on punishment, policing and violence in other countries (with a focus on other advanced capitalist countries and Latin America). The RA will be responsible for collecting these data, which will involve reading and transcribing archival documents, trawling for new sources online, maintaining an existing database, emailing scholars in the field, and more. This continues research done by other RA’s over the past two years, so there is a lot to do and a lot to build on.

You’ll be joining a team of RA’s from Harvard and the University of Chicago, as well as some independent scholars. I will ask that you write weekly summaries of what you have done. You will meet once weekly with me and the whole research team, and you and I will also meet occasionally to make sure all is going well. You will end the summer with experience building a big dataset from a patchwork of sometimes inconsistent archival sources. We will also talk regularly about how to use these data to test arguments about punishment and policing.

Skills Needed: Spreadsheet and basic quantitative skills to curate and maintain the dataset. More advanced skills (programming, webscraping, regression analysis, etc.) would be a real plus.

Doris Sommer, Ira and Jewell Williams Professor of Romance Languages & Literatures, African and African American Studies

Project overview: To conduct research for a book solicited by University of Oxford Press on the connection between culture and citizenship, with a focus on pedagogy in Latin America, in the tradition of John Dewey.

“Profe” has a familiar ring in the political life of Latin America. The title for educators and, by extension, for political leaders, shows deference softened by affection for authorities who teach in classrooms and in public forums. Great leaders have, typically, moved from one space to the other. Shortening the term for teacher from the three syllables of profesor to two takes an edge off the divide between leaders and followers.

The casual, almost intimate, mode of address deployed by students, and by citizens, counts on superiors to reciprocate the people’s invitation to talk with a disposition to listen and to engage with the public. Those who lead and those who follow recognize one another as partners in conversation through this abbreviation of power that leaves room for students to sound smart. Commonplace on the continent but maybe remarkable elsewhere, judicious liberty with language establishes interactive roles for informal contracts meant to achieve good outcomes for all, despite the admittedly unequal distribution of resources and power. To call a minister, a mayor, a governor, or even a president “profe” confirms admiration for his or her superior information and wisdom. But it also conscripts those advantages as resources to be shared with the public, because teachers don’t hoard erudition and good judgment. They measure their success by how great a legacy of learning they leave to students who take up the lessons as responsibilities for further development.

Transmission is a teacher’s mission to multiply the learners, a mission made possible through the intimacy – call it trust — that should bind public figures with the public. Together, teachers and students, elected officials and the citizens who elect them, can pursue personal and public goods.

Research will focus on a particular country or on the region to 1. Identifying key profe figures throughout Latin America by canvassing experts through emails and verbal consultations [zoom, phone]. 2. Collecting relevant texts in Spanish, Portuguese, English, French, to track the primary writings and responses of other public figures and the general public – through magazines, newspapers, personal archives. 3. Arranging consultations between me (Doris Sommer), and scholars in literature, history, politics, cultural studies to test innovative readings of these materials. 4. Help to prepare drafts of chapters, in collaboration among students and identified experts before submitting a full book draft.

The “day in the life” will look different at different stages of the research. Some of the time will be dedicated to contacting experts, and more time to collecting documents and developing a rhythm with me about determining the pertinence of each text. So typical days will include reading and dialogue with me.

The outcome is clear, a draft, or several chapters of a book for OUP. And the skills to be developed are basic to our work in the humanities: close reading in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and French; interviews with close listening; making connections among various genres of texts (fiction, legislation, memoirs, journalism); writing correspondences with experts; and writing reports on findings from research and correspondence, concisely and to the point.  

I will meet the students at least twice a week and dedicate my office to this research project, for us to collect materials, conduct zoom interviews, and to meet in a quiet space. I will personally accompany the students to meet with appropriate librarians to facilitate the retrieval of materials. And I will carefully review communications and drafts of reports before they are sent out and filed for future use. This project is my priority for the summer and the following months. The mentoring relationship will continue with regular meetings to support the students in their own pursuits and take advantage of the skills we will have developed over the summer.

Skills Needed: Students should have good reading command of Spanish and French and some familiarity with Portuguese or the desire to acquire it. They should also have a lively interest in the intersections between literature and history/politics in Latin America. 

Feyaad Allie, Assistant Professor of Government

What role have universities and students played in democratic deepening and backsliding? This early-stage project seeks to understand how student protests and politician-university linkages have shaped India’s democratic trajectory. The project will delve into several critical moments in Indian politics, including the freedom struggle, the Emergency, and the rise of majoritarianism. Components of the project that the RA will support include developing a dataset of student protests from 1900 to the present day, collecting and coding politician-university linkages over time, creating a dataset of universities, collecting information on affirmative action (reservations) at Indian universities, analyzing survey data of students, and writing short case studies of particular instances of student and university action related to Indian politics. Depending on timing, the RA may also explore similar processes in other countries in South Asia. I will be traveling for some of the summer but will meet with the RA weekly, either in person or over Zoom. 

Skills Needed:

• Advanced coding and webscraping experience in R and/or Python
• Hindi reading skills are a plus but are not required

Gabriel Kreindler, Assistant Professor of Economics

How should planners design large transit networks? How can we design real-world, large-scale experiments to learn how to do this best? Through a collaboration with TransJakarta, the largest Bus Rapid Transit operator in the world, we are using past fine-grained data on ridership patterns and operational decisions (route level bus allocations) to propose improvements to the bus network in Jakarta. We then plan to embed these recommendations within a randomized experiment at the level of the system, and learn from how ridership responds. You will work with one of our data processing pipelines, either with big data on bus ridership or big data on cell phone location traces to map out mobility patterns — in either case, critical inputs to our experiment. You will write and test a lot of code, share results with the team in weekly meetings, and rapidly iterate. The summer coincides with our planned experiment rollout phase.

Skills Needed:

• excellent coding and data analysis skills (in python, R, and/or julia)
• works well autonomously to make progress with difficult coding and data problems
• courses in algorithms very desirable, courses in intermediate statistics, econometrics, or data analysis desirable

Elika Bergelson, Associate Professor of Psychology

The Bergelson lab explores how linguistic, cognitive, and social skills contribute to word learning in infancy, and how caregiver input may scaffold learning on different timescales. We additionally explore how this process is affected for children born blind and/or Deaf/HoH. We use eyetracking, headturn preference, behavioral games, EEG and corpus methods with babies and toddlers.

BLISS Fellows will be paired with a graduate student or postdoc mentor to guide their focus on one thread of the lab’s work. Mentorship pairs will meet weekly to discuss relevant literature, project tasks, and monitor the student’s progress.

BLISS Fellows will participate in 

• Recruiting and scheduling participant families from the greater Boston community and for online studies
• Conducting literature reviews and familiarizing yourself with background literature
• Collecting data using a variety of methods (e.g., EEG, eye tracking, behavioral studies, habituation, violation of expectation, corpus analysis)
• Creating experimental stimuli and assisting with experimental design
• Transcribing daylong audio recordings of children’s language environments
• Coding and analyzing data (e.g., using R Studio, ELAN)
• Assisting with write-ups
• Attending a variety of meetings, seminars, and professional development events that will contribute to their learning of the literature and the psychology research process

Skills needed:

• Particular interest in cognitive development and language acquisition
• Reliable, motivated, organized, detail-oriented, enthusiastic and ready to learn
• Experience working with children and families 

Elizabeth Spelke, Marshall L. Berkman Professor of Psychology
Georgios Dougalis, Lab Manager

The Spelke Lab conducts research in developmental cognitive science with infants and children and investigates the development of perception and knowledge of objects and their motions, agents and their actions, people and their social engagements, number, geometry, and formal mathematics.

Throughout the summer, student research assistants have the opportunity to learn about a wide variety of research topics within the cognitive sciences and attend professional development workshops. Student research assistants will be responsible for:

• recruiting and scheduling infant and child participants and their families
• assisting lab researchers in testing infants and children on Zoom and on campus
• interacting with families who participate in study sessions
• coding infant looking time responses and toddler behavioral responses
• working with grad students/postdocs to complete tasks specific to their research
• analyzing data

Students may also have the opportunity to assist in designing new studies.

Each student RA is paired with a grad student or postdoc in the lab to focus on one topic in depth. Students will always be supervised by the lab manager and/or mentor. Students will have weekly check-in meetings with the lab manager and will meet with their mentor weekly, or more frequently on an as-needed basis.

Skills Needed: An interest in and ability to work with young children is required, and previous experience is a plus.

Ashley Thomas, Professor of Psychology

The Thomas lab explores how infants and children make sense of the social world. Specifically, we study how infants and children reason about close relationships, including caregiving relationships, intergroup relationships, social hierarchies, and group structures.

Summer interns will gain hands-on developmental research experience by working with the lab managers, graduate students, or postdoctoral fellows, closely supervised by the PI. Students will have the opportunity to learn about and contribute to different aspects of the research process, including the following:

• Recruiting and scheduling participant families
• Reading and discussing relevant theoretical and empirical papers
• Assisting with experimental design
• Creating experimental stimuli
• Running studies with infants and children
• Coding infant looking time responses and children behavioral responses
• Analyzing data

Skills Needed: An interest in social cognitive development, and some experience, formal or informal, working with children.

Jesse Snedeker, Professor of Psychology

Language is not one representation but many. A spoken utterance can be characterized as a string of phonemes, a nested set of prosodic phrases, a series of lexical items, a hierarchically organized syntactic tree, a configuration of semantic relations, or the impetus for inferences about the speaker’s intentions. A fundamental challenge for the psychology of language is to understand the relations between these representations: the degree to which they are distinct, the ways in which they constrain one another, and the role that these connections play in language acquisition. My lab explores these questions with a primary focus on meaning.

Our approach to these questions is experimental and developmental. We use methods such as: EEG (measuring the electricity generated by the brain); eyetracking (monitoring children’s gaze patterns to infer what they are thinking); and behavioral experiments with a wide range of populations and languages.

BLISS fellows will be given the opportunity to work on one of several EEG projects investigating how children acquire and process language. Fellows will be assigned a project based on their interests and will be involved in all major steps of its lifecycle: preparing study stimuli, conducting literature searches, recruiting participants, coding, entering, and transcribing data, and presenting their results. This will allow fellows to work closely with their mentors to make a contribution to the design of the study and the interpretation of its results.

The typical day in the life of a BLISS fellow in our lab varies depending on the specific project to which they are assigned and their progress over the summer. However, most fellows can anticipate spending 2-3 hours each day running participants, 2-3 hours recruiting participants, and the remaining time in the lab on tasks such as reading literature relevant to their project, attending research meetings with their mentor, or coding and entering data.

The BLISS Fellow(s) will be paired with a graduate researcher and will be involved in all major steps of psycholinguistic research. They also participate in a weekly Reading Group to talk about 1-2 journal articles with other interns, while 1-2 research mentors moderate the discussion, in weekly Lab Meetings, and in weekly meetings with their graduate student mentor and Dr. Snedeker.

In short, BLISS Fellow(s) get a chance to experience firsthand how scientific knowledge is actually produced, potentially helping them to decide whether to pursue graduate studies and a career in science, or not.

Skills Needed: An active interest in working with children, some background in linguistics and psychology, a high degree of independence, problem-solving skills and the ability and interest to quickly acquire new skills.

Caroline Light, Historian and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Program in Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality

Since the passage of the first “Stand Your Ground” law in Florida in 2005, similar expansions to the laws of justifiable homicide have spread to 3/4 of the states. There is significant variation among these state-based legal innovations, with some placing the burden of proof onto the prosecution (when it used to rest on the defense) and some providing civil immunity for defendants who escape criminal prosecution. Mapping the SYG Terrain represents an interdisciplinary effort to map the shifting contours of SYG law by assembling and analyzing the sociolegal, policy, and cultural implications of our nation’s steady progression towards a fully but selectively armed citizenship. At a time when gun violence has surpassed automobile accidents as the number one cause of death in minors, and when “gun rights” policy-makers prioritize the dismantling of evidence-based gun regulations, this project sets out to enumerate how armed self-defense has been codified into law. This systematic review of state-based legal codes will help foster a better understanding the laws’ impact on individuals and communities.

Mapping the SYG Terrain will track and assemble the elements of the contemporary legal landscape that often go unremarked, particularly the patterns that can help us better identify how and why the laws appear to have a disparate impact on non-male and non-white individuals, both as would-be self-defenders and as targets of allegedly self-defensive force. For instance, we willattend to the way the concepts of “imminence” and “reasonableness” (which prior scholarship has identified as layered with racial and gendered assumptions) play out across different jurisdictions, including in states that use case law and jury instructions (instead of formal statutes) to adjudicate instances of armed, self-defensive force. Ultimately, the goal of this collaboration is to create a publicly accessible resource for concerned citizens to better understand what our shifting legal terrain means for our own security interests and for broader public safety.

An average day may have the researcher reading through and coding state-based legal statutes concerning the use of self-defensive violence, or seeking out cases that illuminate the effects of legal codes. The researcher might scan state legal codes to update our database of state level “Stand Your Ground” laws. Researchers may also investigate homicide proceedings to determine how the criminal justice system adjudicates different people’s claims of self-defensive violence.

We will start the summer with frequent meetings where we check in and plan each day’s work. Depending on the student researcher’s level of familiarity, we might start with some shared readings to set the conceptual stage (e.g. articles on “intersectional” violence, an introduction to the various databases and archives we’ll be working with, some basic overviews of the kinds of questions we want to ask).

Skills Needed: The ideal researcher will be self-motivated, intellectually curious, and capable of working independently. Ideally, it would help to possess some familiarity with the basics of gender and ethnic studies, perhaps having taken one or two relevant courses in WGS, EMR, or African American Studies. Some experience in statistics, social scientific methods, and comfort analyzing quantitative data is especially welcome. Above all, the ideal researcher will possess an open mind and an abundance of curiosity, plus a capacity to look beyond the surface of our culture’s prevailing assumptions about safety and justice.

Hannah Marcus, John and Ruth Hazel Associate Professor of the Social Sciences and Interim Faculty Director of the Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments

Joshua Gorman, CHSI Executive Director

The Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments is eager to recruit 2 undergraduates to join our team for summer 2024. CHSI SHARP/BLISS fellows will learn about how university museums function and will participate in the following activities:

• Learning how to handle historical scientific instruments
• Working with staff to curate a mini exhibition that will be on display in the front foyer of the History of Science Department
• Familiarizing themselves with the permanent exhibition in the Putnam Gallery in order to be able to give student-led tours and advise on visitor experience updates in a Fall 2025 refresh of the space
• Participating in supervised cleaning, preservation, and documentation of objects in the collection

CHSI has a deep team of professionals covering different areas of museum work including: executive and faculty leadership, curation, collections management, operations, and preservation. BLISS/SHARP fellows will be mentored by different team members for the various aspects of their work, but they should plan on being present for weekly all-staff meetings, and M-Th daily check-ins with their assigned daily lead. The Executive Director, Joshua Gorman, will be their primary contact though they will also work closely with the faculty director, collections manager, curators, and project manager. On Fridays, fellows will be encouraged to read about and conduct research on the subject selected for their exhibition, and to continue to familiarize themselves with objects in the galleries in order to lead tours. Throughout the summer, the interns will travel with Collections staff to area museums for behind the scenes discussions with colleagues about specific professional practices.

This project will be in-person at the museum at least 4 days per week.

Prerequisites/Selection Criteria:

• Enthusiasm about hands-on work with historical collections
• Interest in public history, museums, and the history of science
• Ability to think about and produce content for public consumption

Michael McCormick, Francis Goelet Professor of Medieval History

This project will train a student researcher in the tools necessary to digitally map and investigate the distribution of archaeologically attested exports from Roman and Post-Roman Africa, helping to understand the connection of Africa to the rest of the ancient world and to better understand fluctuating trends in the ancient economy and trade.

The Roman province of Africa (modern Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco) was a cultural crossroads and melting pot.  Its strategic location at the centre of Mediterranean shipping routes helped it to emerge as a vibrant hub of economic productivity and trade.  The wheatfields, vineyards, and olive groves of Africa supplied the needs of the capital via an imperially subsidized shipping operation that stimulated a broader regional export economy.  One of the region’s most archaeologically visible products was its pottery.  An export-oriented ceramic industry flourished from the 1^st to the 7^th century AD, with African pottery in high demand as far away as Britain and the Near East.  Better understanding the changing distribution of this pottery can shed direct light on the economic and political fate of the Empire, its trade routes, and its inhabitants.  In this Science of the Human Past project, students will work with the SoHP team to develop existing geodatabases mapping the exports of Roman and Post-Roman Africa throughout the Empire, creating geodatabases and mapping pottery and other trade goods to understand how the economy and communication networks transformed over the period from 50 to 700 AD. This will be done in the framework of Mapping Past Societies (MAPS), a Harvard-created digital resource which allows innovative spatial and temporal analyses of world civilizations from 1500 BCE to the present. As part of this unique summer project, you will be involved in mapping African pottery and other exports where they have been found across West Eurasia. As such, you will learn much about the economy and material culture of Roman North Africa, its far-reaching connections across the ancient world, and the vicissitudes of the Roman and Post-Roman economy.  You will have the opportunity to learn how the Science of the Human Past team uses and constructs its geodatabases, in combination with the most advanced scientific analyses of ancient genetics and environmental evidence, to make revolutionary new discoveries about ancient Mediterranean political and economic patterns and structures. Additionally, as part of our work on recent discoveries in the Roman landscape, you will also have the opportunity to learn to use basic archaeological and historical databases of secondary sources, collecting information into a database to understand the spatial patterns and policies behind the sites.

By crossing disciplines and embracing innovation, this project pushes the boundaries of convention as it relates data from the social sciences and humanities to allow undergraduate researchers to reveal undiscovered facets of the human past and, especially, the changing role of Africa at the heart of a pan-Mediterranean ancient economy. Students who contribute substantially to each database will be cited as co-authors of digital dataset releases as well as, potentially, research publications. The project will improve the contributor’s skills in data science, Geographic Information Systems (GIS, the technology behind all digital maps), and management of “big data,” to reveal revolutionary insights into the distribution of sites and the political strategies that shaped the ancient world and which define ours.

Types of tasks: Reading historical sources and literature and translating them into data that computers and mapping software can understand. Locating unknown sites on maps and atlases. Deep reading of texts to understand overall context and meaning of historical circumstances in which documents were produced. Producing digital maps of pottery and other exports. Reading scholarly research in history, archaeology, and several other disciplines and translating that information into maps or databases for additional research applications.

Mentoring and collaboration: Selected student will meet weekly in person with faculty leads and keep in touch regularly with the team via Slack or email. Assignments will be made via a combination of in-person and Zoom tutorials. Ideally, you will learn the basics of GIS software and how to build digital maps. You will also learn how to create databases, how to coordinate work in a sizeable team, how to quality-check and deliver a finished, reliable research dataset. If warranted, you will be asked to develop basic analysis queries through GIS or other software that can reveal hidden patterns in big-data.

Skills Needed: The successful candidate will have familiarity with Microsoft Excel, PDFs, and will be able to learn quickly how to use Google Translate. Familiarity with foreign languages (French, German, Latin, Greek, or Arabic) is a plus but not required. Familiarity with GIS and/or statistical software desirable but not at all required. Prior coursework in history or archaeology a plus, but not a pre-requisite. Discipline, enthusiasm and enjoyment of a team environment working closely with senior researchers is essential.

In addition to the menu of BLISS projects on offer, students may propose their own campus-based social science research projects under supervision of a faculty mentor. (At this time a maximum of two “independent research” students will be accepted to the program.) NOTE: These slots may be extremely competitive, and priority will be given to advanced students demonstrating strong research skills. Students earlier in their academic careers should consider applying to faculty-led projects.

This option may be most suitable for an existing student-faculty research collaboration that would benefit from the student’s ability to commit to fulltime work over an extended period.

To propose a BLISS independent research project, student applicants must a) identify a mentor, and b) describe the proposed research in detail, including:

• an outline of the overall research objective and methods
• a description of the goals/expected outcomes for the 9-week summer research period specifically
• a general plan for your daily/weekly research-related activities (“fulltime” defined as 35-40 hours per week)
• information about the resources and materials to be engaged on campus
• a plan for communicating with the research mentor (How often will you meet? What will you do if you encounter problems or have questions between meetings?)

In the BLISS application (see the general application instructions), your independent research proposal will be your response to the first essay prompt, 750 to 1500 words. (Answer the other two essay prompts as framed.) If you have already conducted research with your mentor, make sure to explain how this summer opportunity is significantly different from term-time research and particularly beneficial to your scholarly development.

Research Mentor Confirmation Letter

All applicants to BLISS must identify a recommender in CARAT and ask them to submit an evaluation form (see the general application instructions). However, applicants to the “independent research” option must also obtain a mentor confirmation letter addressing the points below:

1. Is the applicant qualified to carry out the research as they describe it? That is, are the goals feasible within the specified time period, and does the applicant’s workplan seem reasonable?
2. What is your mentoring plan? That is, what will the student learn from you, and how will you oversee their work? If you are away for any part of the summer, how will you stay in contact with the student?

If your proposed mentor is not the same person as your recommender, your mentor should email their confirmation letter to jmsheph@fas.harvard.edu with the subject “BLISS applicant [applicant’s last name] Mentor Confirmation Letter” (and your recommender should upload their evaluation into CARAT per the general instructions). If your proposed mentor is also your recommender, they have the option of attaching their letter addressing the points above to the evaluation form and uploading the combined document to CARAT instead of sending a separate email.