“Before Duke, I was working for the Department of Education in NYC doing data analysis on the lowest performing schools in the city, trying to improve student outcomes and teacher success.

We wanted to use large scale initiatives to mitigate negative outcomes related to the social identities of gender, race, and SES-status. I had never considered getting my PhD, but I wanted to learn more about the research designs and how to answer the questions my own questions. There is already some work underway that is using my research on masculinity/gender norms as a means of reducing sexual assault among undergraduates at Duke. It’s a Bass Connections project where I’m helping to spearhead the design, testing, and implementation of interventions that (I think) are a beautiful tie between how the social identity/norms research I do over in psych can be useful/impactful at a policy or community level!

I leverage my experience and skillset from both psych and pubpol in my role as co-president of Duke Interdisciplinary Student Innovators (DISI). DISI is student-run pro bono consulting organization that creates and trains teams of graduate students to work with nonprofits on semester-long projects. The way it works is that each semester, grad students from across Duke apply to DISI, nonprofits apply with projects to work with us, and we curate/pair the teams of grad students based on their skills/interests to the projects we accept based on what is being asked in the project (e.g., marketing, impact analysis, data analysis, etc.)” – Adam Stanaland, Psychology & Public Policy dual PhD student #PhD