��ƷSM����ӰƬ

Professor Adrian Shin��seeks to answer questions surrounding the use of public transportation in connecting people together through a study of the high-speed railway (HSR) in Spain. Through this collaborative project with PhD Candidate Alberto Burgos-Rivera, Shin asks “What are the effects of HSR lines on population movements and individual attitudes toward regional autonomy and independence? How do these demographic dynamics shape the politics of identities and political relationships between the central and regional governments in Spain?”����

How can undergraduate students and graduate students work better together?�� Professor Sarah Sokhey��and��Professor Megan Shannon��are conducting research to answer this question. They explain that “learning more about the TA experience can help TAs meet classroom challenges and ultimately improve undergraduate education” which distinguishes it from much of the literature on how graduate students and undergraduate students engage with each other from the perspective of the graduate student, rather than the undergrad. This will offer new insights into the classroom experience at ��ƷSM����ӰƬ.����

How do elections shape the ways that people feel about each other? While elections are the cornerstone of democracy, they can also intensify negative feelings that different groups have toward each other.��Professor Jaroslav Tir,��who is working to help us understand how self-proclaimed ethnopolitical rivals respond to each other in the context of democratic elections, writes, “Paradoxically, elections may be both a foundational element of democracy and a source of potentially problematic and destabilizing attitudes. Such attitudes arise from divisive campaigns and electoral results that separate people into winning and losing camps.”