Part-Time Undergraduate Research Assistant
About The Position
The Department of Agricultural Economics, Sociology, and Education is seeking an undergraduate research assistant to support a project to create a database cataloguing state immigration policies across the United States from 1989-2026. The RA will work directly with the study PI and a team of RAs to collect, clean, and code state legislative data. This position is for both the fall 2026 and spring 2027 semesters, with there being a possibility of extension into summer 2027. This is a great opportunity for any student interested in topics surrounding immigration, sociology, public policy, political science, and/or data science, and will allow students to gain hands-on experience with real-world research data and contribute to an active research project.
Requirements
- Interest in U.S. immigration, public policy, and/or law.
- Interest in gaining familiarity with social science and/or legal/legislative research.
- General familiarity with Excel and/or Google Sheets.
- Excellent self-management skills.
- Ability to work independently, meet deadlines, and stay organized with minimal day-to-day supervision.
- Strong attention to detail and comfort with repetitive, careful data work.
- Strong written and oral communication skills.
Nice To Haves
- Prior research assistant experience.
- Record of coursework in demography, sociology, political science, public policy, Latin American studies, and/or economics.
- Experience with social science and/or legal/legislative research.
- Experience using statistical software (e.g., R, Stata, SAS, SPSS, Python).
Responsibilities
- Collect state legislation pertaining to immigrants/immigration from state legislative websites and other public sources.
- Systematically enter legislative data in a structured spreadsheet following an established coding protocol.
- Assist in cleaning collected state policy data for accuracy and consistency.
- Assist with basic data cleaning (e.g., spot-checking data entries, flagging discrepancies for PI review).
- Communicate regularly with the PI on progress and participate in regular team meetings.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Part-time
Career Level
Entry Level
Education Level
No Education Listed
