“My favorite thing about working with Professor [Jennifer] Chudy is how she always listens to and takes into account our input and advice for the project,” says Mallika Sunder ’27. “It is clear that she prioritizes listening to youth voices.”
Their voices are especially relevant to the project Sunder is working on. She and Anika Sridhar ’27, Cheynie Singleton ’26, Reyna Winter ’26, and Sabrina Miller ’26 have been collaborating with Chudy, the Knafel Assistant Professor of Social Sciences and assistant professor of political science, on a study that surveys 18- to 35-year-old voters about their political opinions and tracks changes in their responses over time, from the summer’s conventions through the inauguration. Chudy is the principal investigator, and her colleague Maneesh Arora, assistant professor of political science, collaborated with her on the survey design, administration, and analysis. The project received seed money funding through a faculty research incubator of the Wagner Centers for Wellesley in the World.
The student researchers talked about their ongoing work at the October 8 Youth Election Panel at Wellesley. They said they focused on two guiding questions as they crafted their surveys: What do young Americans think about political issues, figures, and politics? And do their political opinions shift throughout the election cycle, or are they stable?
Chudy, Arora, and the students have now surveyed the same group of people three times: in July before the Republican National Convention; in August ahead of the Democratic National Convention; and in October leading up to Election Day. They will conduct a final survey in January after the presidential inauguration. For the panel event, they presented the results they have compiled so far about young people’s opinions on climate change, crime, abortion, gun violence, immigration, and the presidential candidates.
Throughout the process, her student team has given Chudy valuable insights. “A lot of young people follow politics on Pinterest, which was not something I would have expected because I use Pinterest, you know, for picking out sweaters,” she says. “But indeed, when we surveyed, we found that there were a healthy percentage of young people who were pinning things that were political. And that’s not something I would have known about had I just kind of relied on a Pew study or my own instinct.”
“Professor Chudy actively encourages us to contribute our ideas to the study,” says Sridhar. “It doesn’t feel like we are the assistants who merely clean up the spreadsheets, but rather actual members of the team who can substantially contribute to the project.”
“Although we are her research assistants, she treats us as equals and encourages constant dialogue about our work,” adds Miller.
Researching topical subjects can be both rewarding and challenging, Chudy says. At the end of the spring semester, for example, the research assistants anticipated asking questions about student protests, but they changed their approach as other events took center stage over the summer. Instead, Sridhar, Singleton, and Winter focused on questions related to the assisination attempt on Donald Trump, but then had to quickly craft different questions after President Joe Biden’s exit from the race.
As they developed their surveys, Chudy also reminded her research assistants that not all young people approach politics the way most Wellesley students do. “There is a high amount of political engagement and interest across the campus,” Chudy says. “There is broad knowledge about politics by all Wellesley students, not just the political science majors, and the sense of civic responsibility is more mainstream at Wellesley.” She encouraged the students to ask their sample group of 18- to 35-year-olds broad questions, such as whether they planned to vote in the upcoming election.
Chudy is proud of her research assistants not just for their findings, but for learning how to conduct this type of survey. “There are really interesting research opportunities for students here,” Chudy says. “It’s not just sending someone to the library and telling them to come back three months later. Maneesh and I are trying to develop an engaging research culture in the political science department, and all the students I chose [as research assistants] had no background in polling or statistics. After only a year of coursework they were able to do it.”
Miller, for example, had previously only done quantitative research in POL 299: Introduction to Research Methods in Political Science. At first she was intimidated by the research elements of the Youth Election Panel project, but she says that “working with Professor Chudy and the other assistants has made me realize how accessible research can be with collaboration and open communication.”
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Colleen Heaslip ’28 assisted with reporting for this story.