SISRM Report 2023

SISRM REPORT 2023

Connecting students to research opportunities

Photo Credit: María Ferreira

The Summer Institute in Social Research Methods (SISRM) connects undergraduate students to the core research mission of the Division of Social Sciences.

Through our training program, students develop methodological skills and gain first-hand experience in research with faculty experts across the University. As a result, students exit our program with refined skills in critical analysis that can be applied to a number of career aspirations and academic endeavors.

SISRM offered a mixture of inperson and virtual classes, inperson workshops with streaming options, and flexible RAships in its 2023 program.

2023 SISRM Fellows

SISRM welcomed 79 fellows, a mixture of UChicago undergraduates, visiting scholars from Chicago State University and the Insper Institute of Education and Research, and UChicago Laboratory students, to the 2023 cohort.

Our fellows come from diverse academic backgrounds, with majors ranging from the biological sciences to philosophy to political science. In total, 31 majors and 9 minors are represented in the 2023 cohort.

RA Program

SISRM Fellows were placed into summer RAships with faculty from 21 departments (Appendix). Each fellow received a $5,000 stipend for the summer—a total commitment of $395,000. Stipends were sponsored by SISRM and generous contributions from the Kemper Foundation and the University’s Jeff Metcalf Internship Program.

Academic Year Funding

Evidence of SISRM’s training success can be found in the increased faculty requests for funding to continue working with summer RAs during the academic year.

In the 2022-23 academic term, SISRM received $68,000 in support from the College Curricular Innovation Fund to provide continued funding for 30 faculty projects (37 students). This was a significant increase from the previous academic year: 23 student/faculty pairings at $54,000.

A priority moving forward will be to seek sustained funding sources that will regularly guarantee continued support for 30-35 projects during the academic year.

Partnerships

SISRM aligns with the University’s mission to engage with the city and the world through its mutually beneficial partnerships with Chicago State University and the Insper Institute of Education and Research in São Paulo, Brazil.

SISRM Fellows Robii F., David S., and Breenay W. participate in a workshop during the Field Museum excursion

“ I’ve gained an understanding of the importance of collaboration and interdisciplinary perspectives in research.

Recognizing that diverse insights and expertise can enrich the quality and impact of research outcomes has broadened my appreciation for the interconnectedness of knowledge and the value of interdisciplinary collaboration.

Edward G. SISRM ‘23

“The class I’ve taken, Computing for the Social Sciences, was incredibly illuminating. Never would I have thought that I could be able to code, but that class made me completely rethink my capabilities. Not just that, but I realized that I really enjoy working with data and to be able to extract information from it. I’m now thinking of minoring in quantitative social

Lavinia C. SISRM ‘23

SISRM Director Paul Poast and SISRM fellows at the Nuclear Energy sculpture during a stop on the American Century tour.

research methods, to be able to really handle data.

Chicago State University

After a successful launch in Summer 2022, SISRM continued its relationship with Chicago State University (CSU), a public university located in Chicago’s Roseland neighborhood, by welcoming a cohort of 3 students to campus. CSU students received full programmatic funding and participated in the RA fellows program.

Insper

New in 2023 is the SISRM international partnership with the Insper Institute of Education and Research from São Paulo, Brazil. Similar to the CSU relationship, this partnership brings a cohort of students from Brazil to Chicago for the 10-week summer program.

Participating students lived on campus and immersed themselves in courses,

workshops, and excursions for the duration of their stay.

The SISRM-Insper partnership is made possible by the generous support of the Haddad Family Foundation.

2024 and Beyond Student Body Growth

After a successful launch, SISRM anticipates hosting 5 CSU and 5 Insper students in Summer 2024.

In addition, SISRM has been working with the Office of Civic Engagement and the Chicago City Colleges to build a programmatic option for City College students’ participation. Program exploration is underway with an intended soft launch in Summer 2024.

Alumni Engagement

After 5 successful years of summer programming, SISRM has

305 program alumni, 97 of whom have not yet graduated.

In the last year, SISRM has focused on increasing the opportunities for alumni engagement and professionalization during the academic year. Programs included a competitive ambassadorship program where selected alumni shared their perspectives and experiences in research with prospective fellows, co-sponsored professional events and professional advising with Career Advancement, and the launch of a weekly alumni newsletter that features opportunities, connections, and research-relevant news.

In addition to maintaining connection with our on-campus alumni in the coming school year, SISRM will partner with Career Advancement to gather information about alumni job placements and graduate school matriculation trends.

A full engagement strategy for the next 5 years will include developing opportunities for post-SISRM internship placements and implementing an alumni mentorship network.

Funding

The continued success of SISRM is dependent on the ability to provide adequate academic and financial support to students of all backgrounds. SISRM continues to explore opportunities to expand funding support. In the coming year, SISRM will work closely with the University to identify donor opportunities as well as grant initiatives that align with our core mission. Successful funding will be used to increase RA funding availability for the academic year and to reduce the cost of tuition for courses.

COURSES

SISRM sponsored 8 methodological courses which ranged from Archival Methods to Computing for the Social Sciences. SISRM courses are designed to fulfill curriculum requirements in numerous degree programs. As such, SISRM fellows choose their required course based on their curricular needs and interests.

In addition to SISRM fellows, the methodological course enrollments include other University of Chicago undergraduate and graduate students, as well as non-degree visiting students and precollegiate students.

Summer 2023 enrollments totaled 122 students, with SISRM fellows representing 64% of total enrollments.

Carolina B. is a business major and member of the inaugural InsperSISRM cohort. She took Survey Data Analysis and worked with Professor Christina Brown on a statistics model called IRT, or Item Response Theory.

As an RA, Carolina has gained experience with literature review and statistical analysis and modeling. She thoroughly enjoyed the chalk talks, especially hearing other professors talk about their research and experience. Carolina is still in the process of discovering what she would like to do after graduation, but she is confident in her love of statistics and knows that she would like to stay in the realm of data science.

During her stay at UChicago, Carolina enjoyed being on a walkable campus, which she described as “a small city,” and took advantage of the campus libraries to work and study in. She enjoyed getting to know UChicago students and experiencing an academic environment apart from the one she was used to. Carolina was especially appreciative of how the students at UChicago were constantly asking questions and felt at home in an environment where students enjoyed critical thinking and reading as much as her. Through her summer experience with SISRM, Carolina has learned to embrace her love of research and studying, and is excited about what her academic future holds.

Figure: SISRM enrollments by academic level

SISRM Fellows Soyoon M. and Harry C. participate in a study during a visit to Mindworks: The Science of Thinking

MAJORS

Anthropology

Art History

Biological Sciences

Business Studies

Cognitive Science

Comparative Human Development

Computation and Applied Mathematics

Computer Science

Creative Writing

Criminal Justice

Critical Race and Ethnic studies

Data Science

Economics

English

Environmental and Urban Studies

Gender and Sexuality Studies

Global Studies

History

Inquiry and Research in Humanities

Law

Law, Letters, and Society

Mathematics

Media Arts and Design

Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations

Philosophy

Political Science

Psychology

Public Policy Studies

Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity

Sociology

Statistics

MINORS

Architectural Studies

Data Science

English and Creative Writing

Health and Society

Media Arts & Design

Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations

Spanish Statistics

Visual Arts

Declared majors and minors in the 2023 cohort of SISRM fellows. 50 fellows are pursuing double majors.

COURSES

Archival Methods & Historical Thinking

Alexander Hofmann

Department of History

In this course, students will be introduced to archival research methods and to the ways in which historians work with and interpret the sources they use in constructing historical narratives and arguments. We will visit Special Collections, explore digital archives, and consider the range of possible sources and archives, from texts held in national government archives to material objects, maps, audio or video recordings, and everything in between. We will also engage with the work of historians as they seek to make sense of the material they find in archives, considering questions of interpretation, narrative, and holes— that is, what is missing from archives. Students will gain an understanding of the mechanics of archival work and an appreciation for the complexity of historical thinking.

Computing for the Social Sciences

This is an applied course for social scientists with little-to-no programming experience who wish to harness growing digital and computational resources. The focus of the course is on generating reproducible research through the use of programming languages and version control software. Major emphasis is placed on a pragmatic understanding of core principles of programming and packaged implementations of methods. Students will leave the course with basic computational skills implemented through many computational methods and approaches to social science; while students will not become expert programmers, they will gain the knowledge of how to adapt and expand these skills as they are presented with new questions, methods, and data.

Econometrics

This course covers the single and multiple linear regression model, the associated distribution theory, and testing procedures; corrections for heteroskedasticity, autocorrelation, and simultaneous equations; and other extensions as time permits. Students also apply the techniques to a variety of data sets using PCs. The purpose of this course is to give a fundamental understanding of the liner regression model used on a variety of economic analysis. It also stresses the many issues that students may encounter when doing their own empirical analysis using the linear regression model as a tool.

Jean Clipperton Computational Social Sciences

Murilo Ramos

Kenneth C. Griffin Department of Economics

Introductory Statistical Methods & Applications for the Social Sciences

This course provides an overview of how spatial thinking is translated into specific methods to handle geographic information and statistical analysis, with a focus on research questions relevant in the social sciences. Basics of cartography, spatial data wrangling, and the essential elements of spatial analysis are introduced within this context.

This course introduces and applies fundamental statistical concepts, principles, and procedures to the analysis of data in the social and behavioral sciences. Students will learn computation, interpretation, and application of commonly used descriptive and inferential statistical procedures as they relate to social and behavioral research. These include z-test, t-test, bivariate correlation and simple linear regression with an introduction to analysis of variance and multiple regression. The course emphasizes on understanding normal distributions, sampling distribution, hypothesis testing, and the relationship among the various techniques covered, and will integrate the use of SPSS as a software tool for these techniques.

This course introduces concepts and methods used in behavioral research. Topics include the nature of behavioral research, testing of research ideas, quantitative and qualitative techniques of data collection, artifacts in behavioral research, analyzing and interpreting research data, and ethical considerations in research.

This course overviews the way scientific surveys are conducted, the survey data structure, and common techniques to analyze survey data. Students will explore the actual survey data (using major surveys such as the General Social Survey) and look for answers to their research question. Students will learn where to find information about survey data sources and how to conduct analyses for their research project. The course also introduces some Online tools and statistical software.

This course is designed to provide students in the social sciences with a review of ethnographic research methods, exposure to major debates on ethnographic research, opportunities to try their hand at practicing fieldwork virtually, and feedback on a proposed study that employs ethnographic methods. An emphasis will be placed on multimedia, digital, and virtual ethnography.

Introduction to GIS & Spatial Analysis

Crystal Bae

Center for Spatial Data Science

Yanyan Sheng

Committee on Quantitative Methods in Social, Behavioral, and Health Sciences

Psychological Research Methods

Frederica Rockwood Department of Psychology

Survey Data Analysis

Jaesok Son

Benjamin Schapiro NORC at the University of Chicago

Virtual Ethnographic Research Methods

Caterina Fugazzola Global Studies

Yaroslav V. is a rising second-year in the College. He took Computing for the Social Sciences and worked alongside Professor Molly Offer-Westort on a project related to an emerging polling technology which utilizes a chatbox function on Facebook to collect survey data.

Through his work in the project and in his computational social sciences class, Yaroslav feels as though he has already learned several useful elements of the research process. In summer 2023, he learned many things, including code in R, how to perform literature reviews, and data analysis for econometric projects. Currently, his major remains undecided, but he’s leaning towards statistics, econ, and computer science.

In research, Yaroslav appreciates practical application. Through SISRM’s workshops on ethics, GIS, and hearing about others’ research, he was able to further narrow his research interests and identify that theoretical research is not for him. Prior to participating in SISRM, Yaroslav had little formal research experience, with most of his experience lying in the realm of personal passion projects. Through SISRM, he now better understands the research process and feels as though he has greatly grown his skills, contributing to his confidence in research, especially interdisciplinary aspects of research.

“It has been a real joy to work with my SISRM RAs this summer. They have both been a tremendous asset to my research on the reception of asylum seekers in the city of Chicago.

I trained them extensively throughout the summer through a series of tailored workshops and weekly on-the-ground fieldwork and research team meetings, and they have developed excellent ethnographic research skills as a result.

They have also established invaluable relationships of trust with our community partners and research participants. They are now able to navigate field research independently, connecting with participants and eliciting information from them and positioning themselves strategically in the field, and they have learned how to write rich and detailed field notes. I have noticed a great deal of growth and improved skills in these budding ethnographers during the past 3 months.

Chiara Galli Comparative Human Development

Workshops

As a supplement to their methodological coursework and the RA program, SISRM fellows begin their summer with a five-week co-curricular workshop series on the practice of social science research.

This workshop series exposes fellows to research practices from a variety of disciplines, and gives them the opportunity to meaningfully engage with faculty and other campus experts in a smallgroup setting.

The 2023 SISRM workshop topics ranged from making the most of the library’s resources to using GIS and spatial

visualization tools, to applying to graduate school.

In addition to the regular workshops, SISRM fellows participated in excursions to the Field Museum, the Newberry Library, Argonne National Laboratory, the Jane Addams Hull-House, the Art Institute of Chicago, and Mindworks: The Science of Thinking. Fellows were also able to participate in a special tour of Hyde Park with director Paul Poast.

Alongside providing fellows with opportunities to explore Chicago, these excursions exposed students to research resources as well as examples of potential career paths and industry experts.

SISRM Fellows at the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum

WORKSHOPS

Excursions

American Century Tour of Hyde Park Director Paul Poast’s tour of Hyde Park with stops at the locations that helped establish the United States as a World Power

Stops Included: The 1893 World Fair’s Statue of the Republic; the site of the first nuclear chain reaction, Stagg Field; and the classroom where Francis Fukuyama delivered his “End of History” speech.

The Argonne National Laboratory

Connecting sciences to social sciences

SISRM fellows received tours of the particle accelerator and the advanced photon source, and learned about Argonne (and UChicago’s) role in the study of nuclear energy.

Art Institute of Chicago

Experience, Marketing, and Technology Design

SISRM fellows received an inside-peek of how the AI uses research to create and market its exhibits from members of the creative team.

The Field Museum

Public-Facing Collections

SISRM fellows received a private tour of the 3D archives collections, and learned from researchers about how their ongoing research using the vast collections relates to contemporary conversations surrounding ecology, anthropology, and ethics.

The Jane Addams Hull-House Museum

Community-Based Research

Fellows learned about the history of community engagement and research-based social reform at the Jane Addams Hull-House

The Newberry Library

Exploring the Archives

Fellows enrolled in Archival Methods and Historical Thinking course visited their physical archives and learned how to navigate and use the collections.

Mindworks: The Science of Thinking

Bringing behavioral science research to the public

The Mindworks exhibit provided SISRM fellows with the opportunity to see hypotheses tests, data collection, and research findings in action. Fellows were able to participate in research data collection as a group as well as individually through MIndworks-issued research surveys.

SISRM Fellows at Eugene Raikhel’s Chalk Talk

WORKSHOPS

An Introduction To the Social Sciences

SISRM begins its workshop series by introducing the social sciences at UChicago: what are they, what makes them important, and how do students participate in them?

Panel: What Do We Mean By ‘Social Science Research?’

A discussion of how disparate fields fit within the context of the social sciences and the advantages and disadvantages of interdisciplinary work

Jenny Trinitapoli, Department of Sociology

Ophelia D. is a rising third-year pursuing a double major in Computational Biology and Anthropology. She took the Virtual Ethnographic Methods course and worked as an RA for Dr. Savitri Kunze, Human Rights, investigating presentations of patriotism and statelessness.

Prior to SISRM, Ophelia participated in Dr. Kunze’s Human Rights class as part of the UChicago Civ core, where her interest was sparked enough to inquire about research opportunities with Dr. Kunze over the summer. Ophelia explained that SISRM came at an opportune time, as it provided her with the opportunity to participate in a structured research program and dedicate time to subject matter she is passionate about. SISRM has given her a better understanding of and appreciation for different research methods and interdisciplinary toolkits.

Ophelia has a multifaceted set of academic interests. Ethnography and history contribute to the larger scale questions she hopes to research in the future. On top of her SISRM research, Ophelia works in a statistical genetics lab and often finds her interests necessitating both the biological and the social sciences. These fields will eventually help her pursue ethnographic work relating to scientists and how society views science professions. By participating in science research, she has access to the scientific spaces, while her current work in SISRM will aid in a qualitative analysis of these science professions.

Benjamin Lessing, Department of Political Science

Social Science For Humanity: We Can’t ‘Tech’ Our Way Out Of It

Explored the value of social science research as it applies to solving Big Problems

Paul Poast, Department of Political Science

Professional Development

This set of workshops addressed students’ experiences as community members, prospective graduate students, and future professionals.

Graduate School 101

Lindsey Weglarz, Assistant Dean of Students For Admission

Transferring Your Skills: Turning Your Passion Into a Career

Daniel Clark, Program Director, Careers in Behavioral Sciences

Faculty Chalk Talks

Spotlights UChicago faculty members’ personal research pursuits and their approaches to disciplinary methods

Christopher Campus

Booth School of Business

Doing Research in Economics

Esteban Rossi-Hansberg

Department of Economics

Building a Quantitative Framework to Evaluate the Economic Impact of Climate Change

Ada Palmer

Department of History

Material History

Paul Poast

Department of Political Science

Empowering the Problem Solvers: Economic War Origins of Global Governance

Eugene Raikhel

Department of Comparative Human Development

Unpacking Ethnography and Qualitative Research Development

Research Best Practices

Introduced tools, formats, and structures that ensure research is ethical, accessible, and easily interpreted.

An Introduction to the IRB and Ethics of Research

Cheryl Danton, IRB Managing Director

Civic Inquiry: Ethical Research and Community Engagement

Leila Brammer, Parrhesia Program for Public Discourse

An Introduction To GIS and Spatial Visualization

Crystal Bae, Center for Spatial Data Science

Tools for Visualizing Geospatial Data, Big and Small: Finding and Making Use of Open Data Sources

Dylan Halpern, Data Science Institute

Library Workshops

These sessions introduced fellows to the resources available to them for their research, and connected them to the librarians who support their major and minor programs.

Tour: Getting To Know the Library

An in-library tour of resources, people and where to find them

Rebecca Starkey, Head of Research and Instruction Services at Regenstein Library

Starting Your Research: Best Practices for Finding and Using Library Resources

Rebecca Starkey, Head of Research and Instruction Services at Regenstein Library

Digital Scholarship

Cecilia Smith, Director of Digital Scholarship, Regenstein Library

SISRM Fellows receive a tour of Mansueto Library from Rebecca Starkey

APPENDIX / FACULTY

Mike Albertus

Political Science

The Impact of the Freedmen’s Bureau on African American Welfare

Alexander Arroyo CEGU/Urban Theory Lab Urban Theory Lab: From Fossil Urbanization to Climate Forensics

Evelyn Atkinson History

American Frankenstein: Corporate Constitutional Personhood in the Nineteenth Century

Crystal Bae

GIS/Center for Spatial Data Studies Spatial Analysis of Chicago Neighborhoods

Margaret Beale Spencer

Comparative Human Development Primed to (Re)Act: Can changes in procedural language prevent adverse events between police and minority male youth?

Marc Berman Psychology

Can Chicago Gangs be Studied Through Crowd-Sourced Social Media?

Thomas Best Biological Sciences Division

Estimating the Distribution of Total Annual U.S. Dental Expenditures by Age, Payer, and Dental Service Type

Christina Brown Economics

Understanding Discrimination by Managers

Leo Bursztyn Economics

Admiration Project

Alexandra Ciomek Sociology

Spatial Network Characteristics Of Urban Crime

Shannon Dawdy Anthropology Anthropology Archives

Steven Durlauf Harris School of Public Policy

Evolution of Black/White Differences in Occupations

Eve Ewing Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity Project on Black Chicago history

Chiara Galli

Comparative Human Development Ethnography of Latinx Asylumseekers in Chicago

Adom Getachew Political Science

The Universal Race: Garveyism and the Practices Of Pan-Africanism

Julian Go Sociology

The First War on Drugs, Policing and Incarceration

Susan Goldin-Meadow Psychology

Gestural Communication of Social Cognitions

Susan Goldin-Meadow Psychology

Communicative Development Across Modalities

Alessandra Gonzalez Economics

Economics of Culture Change and Female Employment in Saudi Arabia

James Heckman Economics

Chicago Home Visiting Partnership Project

Anne Henly

Psychology

Effects of Co-curricular Activities on Civic Engagement

Marc Hernandez

NORC

Head Start Training and Technical Assistance Evaluation

Melissa Howe

NORC

Research to Spot and Stop Elder Financial Exploitation

James Iveniuk

NORC

Social Network Turnover in Older Adulthood: Homeostasis and Change

Ashani Johnson-Turbes

NORC

Evaluation of Corporate Coalition Racial Equity Initiatives

Juanna Joensen Economics

Causes and Consequences of Human Capital Investments

Ariel Kalil

Harris School Of Public Policy About TIME

Ariel Kalil & Susan E. Mayer

Harris School of Public Policy Learning Curiosity

Leslie Kay

Psychology

Cognitive Structure of Odor Discrimination Decisions

Matthew Knisley CEGU

Ethnography & Archaeology of African Foragers

RESEARCH PROJECTS

Savitri Kunze

Human Rights

Naturalizing Soviet Wives: Archibald Cary Coolidge’s Work with the American Relief Administration

Stacy Loewe

NORC

Surveys of Head Start Disabilities Services Coordinators

John P. McCormick

Political Science

Untitled Book Project

Molly Offer-Westort Political Science

Chatbots for Flexible Online Experimentation

Brianne Painia

MAPSS

Dual Purposes of Gender Roles and Treatment Of Women In Belief In Religious-Feminist Compatibility

Ada Palmer & Michelle Friedner

History and Comparative Human Development

Social World of Disability, UChicago Case Study

Ada Palmer

History

Lucretius and Shakespeare Project

Patricia Posey

Political Science

Financial Markets from the Cradle To the Grave: Narrating the Economic, Political, and Social Costs of Life

Eugene Raikhel

Comparative Human Development

Towards an Ecology of College Mental Health

Augustus Rose

English

After Us, the Savage God

Monica Rosenberg

Psychology

Predicting Attention to and Memory for Narratives

Esteban Rossi-Hansberg Economics

Local Green Technology Innovation

Ebony Scott-Anderson Urban Labs

Connecting Research to Cities— After the Research is Complete

Jamshid Sourati Sociology

Measuring Subjective Uncertainty in Scientific Articles

Paul Staniland Political Science

Major Power Competition and Domestic Politics in Asia

Emily Talen

Social Sciences Division

Tracking Density in Chicago’s Transit Serviced Neighborhoods

Andres Uribe Political Science

Subnational Authoritarianism in Latin America

Fan Yang Psychology

Adults’ and Children’s Beliefs About Duties to the Self

Luigi Zingales

Chicago Booth Board Homophily

Undergraduates participating in the program are matched to work as RAs with UChicago faculty on an assortment of ongoing projects. To date, SISRM has supported 305 student RAships with 142 members of the research community.

Unit Representation

• Anthropology

• Art History

• Becker Friedman Institute for Economics

• Biological Sciences

• Booth School of Business

• Center for Latin American Studies

• Center for Spatial Data Science

• Chicago Project on Security & Threats (CPOST)

• Committee on Environment, Geography, & Urbanization

• Comparative Human Development

• Computational Social Science

• Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice

• Economics

• English

• Environmental Frontiers Project

• Harris School of Public Policy

• History

• Linguistics

• Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation

• Master of Arts Program in the Social Sciences

• Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society

• NORC

• Political Science

• Pozen Family Center for Human Rights

• Psychology

• Race, Diaspora, & Indigeneity

• Smart Museum of Art

• Sociology

• UChicago Medicine Center for Healthcare Delivery Science and Innovation

• Urban Labs

“Danielle has been excellent to work with. She is curious, responsive, and engaged with the project. This project involves her working directly with an elder and learning how to use archival materials that she was previously unfamiliar with, digitizing VHS and cassette tapes as well as print materials. These are techniques that I know she can envision using in her own community to do similar archival work in the future and she has expressed a sense of awe at the fact that she was previously unfamiliar with these approaches at building historical databases for stories that would otherwise be forgotten.

Eve Ewing Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity

“Before [SISRM], I had already given some thought to the importance of the social sciences. My perspectives have grown even more after participating in the workshops and doing the human subjects research training because I have realized how much this knowledge can be used through my work as a writer for the arts.

Robii F. SISRM ‘23

CSU-SISRM Fellows Robii F. and Ally B. pose in front of the Gammasphere at Argonne National Laboratory