Short-Term Research Assistant Service

MPC members can apply to use the services of a 10-hour per week graduate research assistant for a short period of time (up to 40 hours). Priority is given to projects that (a) have a population studies focus, broadly construed; (b) can quickly result in a publication and/or grant proposal; (c) can clearly benefit from short-term research assistance; and (d) do not already have external funding. Preference will be given to junior faculty.

Population Studies Trainee Chris Levesque is the graduate RA in 2018-2019.  His basic skill sets and experiences are described below.

To apply for this service, please send an email to mpctrain@umn.edu and include the following information:

  1. Your name and departmental affiliation

  2. Details about your project: A title and a short (~2 paragraph) description of the overall project's goals and activities

  3. Information about the product that will result (e.g., a publication, a grant proposal, a conference presentation) and when that product will be produced

  4. A statement about current external funding support for the project

  5. A description of the specific activities the research assistant would do and (if not obvious) how they fit into the overall project

  6. The number of weeks the research assistant's services would be needed (at 10 hours per week) and a proposed starting date

Chris's Skills and Experiences

Proficient in Stata, QGIS, basic knowledge in Carto, R, & SPSS. Also have experience in ArcGIS from geospatial analysis course in undergrad. Trained in OLS and logistic regression, event history (survival) analysis, multilevel modeling; geospatial analysis including chloropleth maps, spatial joins, geoprocessing, hex bins, etc.; received core sociological methods and theory training (e.g. sampling and case selection, intersectional methods and survey design). Has special sworn status with the U.S. Census Bureau to work in the MnRDC.