Students Present Posters in Inaugural Research Showcase

March 12, 2020

Pardee RAND's Ph.D. students conduct a wide range of research at RAND and beyond. At the inaugural Research Showcase organized by Career Services on February 28, nearly two dozen of them had the opportunity to share their current research and proposals with more than 50 community partners and RAND researchers.

The Showcase was organized around 22 poster presentations of work ranging from an idea for a dissertation up to fully fleshed-out research with results derived from dissertations. Local community partners included city and county government officials and nonprofit professionals, who engaged with the students over a two-hour afternoon tea.

Career Services director Sandy Buchan explained, "Our community partners were interested in getting ideas for their own agencies, providing feedback on implementation challenges in the real-world, gaining a better understanding of the latest research on key policy topics, and having an opportunity to spot future talent."

Several of the community partners sent Pardee RAND alumni to represent their companies or organizations. These included Ricardo Basurto-Davila ('03), Myles Collins ('05), Tad Daley ('86), Mary Anne Doyle ('87), and Marlon Graf (cohort '12).

Career Services provided a small incentive for students to participate: Three monetary awards were presented for the best poster and two runners-up. The judges — Melissa Rowe, RAND Vice President for Global Research Talent, and Senior Policy Researcher Malcolm Williams — both commented on how well the fellows conveyed and presented their research.

First prize went to Melissa Diliberti (cohort '19) for her poster on racial disparities in schools’ disciplinary practices. Runners-up were Gabriela Alvarado (also '19) for her poster, “Community-Wide Mental Health First Aid Training Suicide Prevention in Alaska,” and Bilyana Lilly ('16) for her poster on “How to Predict Russian Cyberattacks Against Election Infrastructure.”

Other student presenters included Lawrence Baker, Carlos Calvo Hernandez, Pedro Nascimento de Lima, Kelsey O’Hollaren, Michelle Priest, Keller Scholl, and Max Steiner ('19); Jarrett Catlin, Hardika Dayalani, Max Griswold, Max Izenberg, David Kong, and Nabeel Qureshi ('18); Allie Huttinger ('17); David Catt, Alexandra Mendoza-Graf, Hilary Reininger, and Nima Shahidinia ('16); and Meg Chamberlin ('14).

RAND researchers had a second opportunity to view the students’ research and provide critiques at lunchtime on March 9, at a pop-up poster session at the new RANDezous Café.

Buchan commented, "Based on the interest at large, and the high quality of work produced by our student participants, the Showcase will definitely be an annual event for the school."

Event Photos