ICPSR Announces its 4 Undergraduate Interns for Summer 2016!

ICPSR announces the four participants in this year's Summer Internship Program for undergraduates. This year, ICPSR celebrates the 12th year of this highly competitive program with major funding coming from ICPSR’s Instructional Resources and participating archives. The interns will be placed in the following archives at ICPSR: National Addiction & HIV Data Archive Program (NAHDAP), Resource Center for Minority Data (RCMD), National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (NACJD) and the Members’ Archive.

During their 10 weeks in Ann Arbor, from June 6 to August 12, the interns will:

The Summer Internship Program's objective is to support ICPSR's strategic focus on inclusion and diversity by providing undergraduates valuable educational opportunities involving social science research data. As with prior internship cohorts, we will encourage the interns to pursue graduate studies or a career in the social or behavioral sciences. Perhaps in the future they will be data depositors, Summer Program instructors, Official Representatives, or even Council members.

The Internship Program is proud to number 61 alumni. Many currently attend graduate school or have successfully completed their schooling and have started a career in the social or behavioral sciences.

The Internship Program is managed by Abayomi Israel (Intern Alumni class of 2005), with Dr. Lynette Hoelter of the Instructional Resources unit serving as the Principal Investigator and providing support and guidance as the Research Program Mentor. Each intern also will be assigned an experienced data processor as his/her Process Mentor. In addition, the interns will have the opportunity receive support on their summer research projects and advice on graduate school from the ICPSR faculty and staff.

The following are the 2016 interns:
 

Austin McKitrick
West Virginia University, West Virginia (ICPSR Member Institution)
Archive: The National Addiction & HIV Data Archive Program (NAHDAP)
 

McKitrick is a Double Major in Psychology & Biology (emphasis in Neuroscience) graduating December 2016. He is the recipient of the West Virginia Promise Scholarship, the Mountaineer Scholarship, the Judge Gray Silver Jr. Health Professional Scholarship, the WVU Alumni Association Scholarship, and has recently been inducted into Psi Chi, the international honor society in Psychology.  Since 2014, he has worked as a research assistant on two different projects at WVU. His research experience is quite broad, ranging from research on the behavioral effects of acute and chronic cannabinoid administration through mice models, to research involving attitude formation, disgust, prejudice, and emotional disorders in humans. In 2015, McKitrick was selected out of approximately 500 applicants to conduct research at George Mason University as a part of the American Psychological Association’s Summer Science Fellowship Program. His worked focused on social and monetary reward/punishment systems among adolescents using electroencephalogram (EEG) measurements, which he presented at the Summer Symposium. Outside of the classroom, he was a member of the West Virginia Men’s Rowing Club and a current member of Habitat for Humanity. After graduation, McKitrick aspires is to continue on in academia through a Masters of Public Health in Epidemiology and a PhD program in Social Neuroscience or Social Psychology.

 

Elaine Vilorio
Amherst College, Massachusetts (ICPSR Member Institution)
Archive: Members’ Archive 

Vilorio is a double major in Black Studies and Latin American, Caribbean, and Latinx Studies graduating in 2017. In 2016, she received Amherst College’s Samuel Walley Brown Scholarship, awarded to juniors who rank highest in character, class leadership, scholarship and athletic ability. Vilorio is a fluent Spanish speaker with introductory proficiency in Haitian Creole. She is currently a research assistant analyzing the trajectories of high-achieving Latinx students, and a Diversity Intern at Amherst College’s Office of Admission. Last summer, Vilorio served as a Research and Policy Intern at the National Head Start Association. She was involved in the student group Amherst Uprising, which, along with other groups in colleges and universities nationwide, aimed to address the struggles of students of color. Vilorio has been a member of the women’s cross country/track and field team and has written and edited for several campus publications, among them the student-run newspaper, The Amherst Student, and the blog, AC Voice. Her interests lie in socioeconomic inequality and mobility, race, ethnicity, and immigration. Vilorio, who immigrated from the Dominican Republic, hopes to specifically look at how immigrants integrate into their host countries. She would like to examine questions such as “Why do some immigrants prosper in their host countries while others do not?” and “Why do immigrants leave their home countries in the first place?” After graduation, Vilorio plans to continue her studies by pursuing a PhD in Sociology.

 

Nicolo Pinchak
Bowling Green State University, Ohio (ICPSR Member Institution)
Archive: National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (NACJD)

Pinchak is a Sociology major with a minor in Educational Studies graduating in 2017. Before attending BGSU, Pinchak earned college credit while in high school utilizing the dual enrollment program of Columbus State Community College. He is the recipient of the Dr. Aida Tomeh Memorial Scholarship for Outstanding Juniors and has served as a research assistant on a NICHD R15 grant project examining individuals’ violent trajectories as they relate to changing neighborhood contexts. For the last three years, Pinchak has served as the executive board chair of the Educators in Context and Community (ECCO) and has helped the coordination of the 2014 Annual ECCO Conference. Since 2014, he has also served as an undergraduate Teaching Assistant in the Education department of BGSU. Additionally, Pinchak traveled to Normal University in Shanghai, China, where he was able to complete his paper titled “Educational Processes in Singapore, Urban China, and the United States: A Comparative Analysis of Social Influences and Career Decision-Making” (which he presented at the Northeast Ohio Undergraduate Sociology Symposium (NEOUSS) at Kent State University). He is experienced using SPSS and SAS and is familiar working with large datasets such as the General Social Survey (GSS) and the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health (Add Health). He has volunteered at BGSU’s IREX-TEA International English-Educator Fellows Program and has recently been inducted into Alpha Kappa Delta (AKD), the International Sociology Honor Society. After graduation, Pinchak plans on pursuing a PhD in Sociology (or very closely related discipline), focusing on how schools and other formal educational institutions affect societies (both nationally and internationally). 

 

Patricia Martin
University of California at Santa Barbara, California (ICPSR Member Institution)
Archive: Resource Center for Minority Data (RCMD)

Martin is a Sociology major with minors in Education and Applied Psychology graduating in 2017.  She is the recipient of the Paul Chatom Jr. Scholarship, the UCSB Chancellor Scholarship, and a McNair Scholar. She is a first generation college student and a fluent Spanish speaker. Her interests include Latino/a education as demonstrated in her research entitled “Latina/o Parent Communication Influencing Students’ College Aspirations” which she presented at the McNair Scholars Summer Research Symposium in 2015. Additionally, she hopes to examine teacher/counselor support in high school for students other first generation students and the impact on students of being undocumented. Martin has served as a research assistant on two projects at the UCSB Gervirtz School of Education and recently, one of her papers was presented at the 2016 American Educational Research Association's (AERA) annual meeting in Washington, DC. Outside of the classroom, she served as a member of La Escuelita UCSB, Hermanas Unidas, and in 2015 she was a Co-Facilitator of the Summer Transitional Program. After graduation, Martin plans to pursue a PhD in Education and continue her research on the educational trajectories of underrepresented students.

 

The work of interns from prior years is linked from the Summer Internship Program web page.