Daniel Duque Hernandez Class of 2027 & Karla Evangelista Class of 2026

Daniel Mendiola, professor of History

In the summer of 2024, Daniel Duque Hernandez ’27 and Karla Evangelista ’26 spent 6 weeks in Poughkeepsie as Ford Scholars for professor Daniel Mendiola’s initiative, Somos Vecinos. The oral history project comes from the premise that Latin American immigrants are vital to the Poughkeepsie community, and that making their stories available to others has the power of strengthening bonds by illuminating their experiences, memories, ideas and advice.

Daniel Duque Hernandez and Dr. Mendiola dedicated Fall 2023 and Spring 2024 to the preparation for the project. Their efforts included securing funding from the Consortium on Forced Migration Displacement and Education obtaining Institutional Review Board approval, drafting consent forms, initiating discussions with community members, and envisioning the project’s ultimate impact to Poughkeepsie and the Vassar community.

During this six-week period, we dedicated significant time to biking throughout Poughkeepsie to engage our neighbors in participating in our project. For the business owners who agreed to be part of the project, we scheduled and conducted interviews at the Chicago audio studio. We utilized the Audacity software to edit the recordings into our desired documentary style. The next step involved transcribing the interviews and translating them from Spanish to English, a lengthy process as we often had to rewind to hear the precise words they spoke, and choose the appropriate wording that would best match the sentence in Spanish.

The project concluded with 7 translations and transcriptions along with 5 mini promotional videos. Professor Mendiola made some final edits in order to finally upload all the interviews, along with some promotional videos we recorded and edited to Vassar’s digital library. We hope you have the opportunity to listen to them!

Our neighbors as we call them, told their narratives of resilience, perseverance, bravery, but most importantly, triumph. We know that everyone who listens to the stories shared, will find in their words a wellspring of wisdom.

Thank you to our Vecinos!

Yusuf Bomba, Class of 2026

This summer I worked with Professor Sarah Pearlman and looked at the changing rates and demographics of migration from Mexico to the United States, and how they impacted the labor market. During the first half of the project, I focused mainly on the changing demographics of the people migrating. I began by collecting census data and ACS data from IPUMS and by cleaning data from the Mexican Migration Project. The Mexican Migration Project collected retrospective data from different regions in Mexico about peoples first and last trips to the United States, and began collecting data in 1986. Once I had collected data, I utilized Stata to create line graphs, bar graphs, and scatter plots to outline how the demographics of people migrating have changed since the early 1900s and found that, on average, migrants in recent decades were older and more educated. Through this process I also found just how impactful the Bracero program was in influencing the flow of migration and the impact on the labor force between 1942 and 1964. The Bracero program was a bilateral agreement between the United States and Mexico that provided temporary agricultural visas to Mexican workers and allowed them to come to the United States and return to Mexico multiple times over the course of two decades.

We also took a trip to Ellis Island to visit the immigration museum. At this museum, I was able to learn more about the general migration patterns in the US and much of my own research was confirmed by information present at the museum.

I then moved over to mapping migration by US state to outline the areas in the US that were most impacted by the flows of migrants. This then evolved into mapping the flows of migrants by state and by industry as I sorted the data into groups of those working in agriculture, construction, and manufacturing. I concluded by beginning to look at wage regressions for Mexican born workers in the United States.

Maya Lubetsky ’26

This summer, I worked with Professor Christine Howlett to help run the Hudson Valley Bachfest that is held at Vassar. The first part of this project involved studying community engagement. I was able to become acquainted with the members of Bachfest and understand how choral music had led them to meet and care for people from many different walks of life. I was able to interact with the Bachfest members not only as an administrator but also as a fellow choral singer as I had the pleasure of joining the choir. For the second part of the project, I wrote the program notes for the four pieces that the choir sang. While writing these detailed notes I learned how complicated it can be to research pieces dating back to the 17th century as a lot of information has been lost to history. However, it can be exciting to parse through lots of sources to come up with a clearer understanding of these compositions and their place in history. I created a bibliography to help track all the research and sources I used to create the program notes.

For Bachfest we of course sang some Bach. But we also sang pieces from Dieterich Buxtehude and Heinrich Schutz. By singing pieces written before Bach’s time, choral singers and listeners can better understand his contributions to music (in this case choral music) and how it continually evolves.

Thank you Professor Howlett for the opportunity to work on such an engaging project and further discover my passion for music history.

Nathan Shih ’25, Charlie Wan ’26

Benjamin Ho, Professor of Economics

This summer, I had the pleasure of working with Professor Benjamin Ho and fellow scholar Charlie Wan ’25 on three behavioral economics projects: Big Lies, Trading Favors, and Altruism and Attachment. Our research involved analyzing data to explore the reception to and detection of lies, the factors that influence the reciprocity of favors, and the relationship between altruism and material attachment. These projects provided us with valuable insights into the complex interplay between human behavior and economic principles. The sections below outline a brief summary of each project.

Big Lies (Charlie Wan ’26)

This study aimed to look at the human ability to detect lies and how we perceive them. I began by reading “Is Journalistic Truth Dead? Measuring How Informed Voters Are About Political News” by Charles Angelucci and Andrea Prat, which provided essential data on voters’ ability to distinguish between true and fake political news. Using the data they collected, I developed various GPT prompts and APIs to categorize their fake news stories into big lies, near-maximum lies, and small lies, using sample data from Politifact.com for training. After refining the prompts for accuracy, I analyzed the categorized data, revealing a balanced distribution across lie types. Logistic regression analyses then showed that big lies and near-maximum lies were less likely to be perceived as true compared to small lies. In addition, reflection scores suggested participants were more skeptical of big lies and reflected more positively on near-maximum lies.

Trading Favors (Charlie Wan ’26)

In this study, I investigated how the passage of time influences the likelihood of reciprocating a favor, and whether introducing additional “high cost” or “high benefit” incentives further mediates the effect of time. Basic regression analyses on survey-collected data revealed that while the passage of time significantly decreased the probability of returning a favor, “high cost” and “high benefit” incentives can counteract this effect. Including additional controls like altruism, risk, and trust – as well as performing stratified analyses based on factors such as context, gender, and student status – further validated the initial results. I then also explored whether the amount of time taken to request a follow-up favor influenced the completion of such follow-up requests. As expected, the results indicated that the amount of time taken to request a follow-up favor significantly affected whether an individual would actually complete it.

Altruism and Attachment (Nathan Shih ’25)

This final study explored the relationship between altruism and the endowment effect. Specifically, we examined whether altruistic behavior could mitigate the cognitive bias of overvaluing owned objects, and looked at whether other factors, such as high altruistic benchmarks and outward-focused framing, could further moderate this effect. Extensive data cleaning and analysis on survey-collected data confirmed the existence of the endowment effect and revealed that altruism, as well as a reminder of social norms and an outward change in perspective, does indeed play a small but significant role in reducing material attachment. This reduction in the endowment effect appears to be specifically due to a decrease in the amount individuals are willing to accept to part with their belongings, rather than an increase in the amount people are willing to pay for similar items. Furthermore, this finding seems to be more prominent with age, and abstract thinkers are particularly likely to experience this reduction in ownership bias.

Manal El Achraoui, Class of 2025

Erin McCloskey, Professor of Education

This summer, I spent 8 weeks conducting research on early childhood education with Professor Erin McCloskey of the Education department. During these 8 weeks I observed three Pre-K classrooms in a Poughkeepsie school and researched aspects of early childhood education such as play, teaching methods, curriculum, and class environment.

The first five weeks of this project, I went to the school and observed the children while taking field notes of my observations. We utilized a more exploratory approach, meaning we did not have an initial research question or focus when we began observing. This flexibility allowed us to notice many different things rather than being limited into looking at one aspect or issue. One of the first observations I made was the expression of gender stereotypes and roles through play. An example of this is how the girls almost always took on caretaker or motherly roles in the group play dynamic. They would cook, clean, and take care of Baby Alive dolls whereas the boys did not display any of these behaviors. I also observed that the lack of male teachers and figures in the classroom may be leading to the boys feeling less connected to the teachers as they don’t relate in certain ways that the teachers and the girls do. This led to the question: How does the background and identity of teachers affect the learning environment and views of the children they teach? 

The last three weeks of this project consisted of coding our field notes and reading books and articles pertaining to early childhood education and gender, identity, race, and other influential factors. This project really expanded my knowledge and experience of education and the early impact it has on children that may continue to influence them as they grow up. I was able to apply my psychology background and look at this from a behavioral perspective as well. Professor Erin McCloskey and I will continue to work together and write our findings to possibly be published later. Thank you, Erin, for this amazing experience. I will use all that I have learned for my future endeavors and experiences.

Abbe Colgan ’26 & Oliver Berger ’26

This summer we worked closely with Professor Andrew Lemon ’00 to develop a 300-level seminar on economic litigation. The work consisted of three phases, and my research will continue into the fall.

As a seminar, the class meets once a week for two hours; each week, students will focus on one court case that uses economic theory to settle the dispute of alleged harm. We wanted to introduce students to different types of economic analysis plaintiffs and defendants use to advance their interests in the courtroom in cases ranging from antitrust to discrimination. In addition, we wanted this course to provide an understanding of the inner workings of a lawsuit, specifically the role of expert witnesses. To further this understanding, we choose to include the initial complaint, the expert witness’ testimonies, and finally, the judge’s opinion as required reading for each case.

Once we decided on the course structure, we turned to finding the actual cases to include on the syllabus. The primary resource we used was Law360, a media site typically used by consulting firms and lawyers to stay updated with recent news in the legal field. It benefited our purposes because it is easy to navigate, and the site boasts summaries and documents related to many cases in the US court system. We were quickly able to scan complaints and read short articles to determine if the case would suit our goals for the course. We were looking at the category each case fell into, the presence of economic expert witnesses, and the fact that the case would use clear, accessible, and engaging economic analysis.

We combined ended up amassing just shy of 60 cases from Law360 that we thought would be interesting. Then, it was time to acquire the necessary documents. This proved to be the most challenging and most lengthy phase of our research. Complaints and Judge’s opinions are usually readily available, often on Law360 itself, but finding the expert reports was the most significant challenge. These reports are often filed under seal because they contain sensitive financial information concerning the parties involved. When filed under seal, the public cannot access the reports, making the case unusable for our purposes. Of the 57 cases we initially flagged as potential candidates, we only had all the documents for twelve.

The last phase of the research, which is still in progress and will continue this fall, is to start putting together the syllabus and discussion questions for the seminar. Each case has an average of 400 pages of reading between all the documents, so as we read these documents and ask ourselves what the most important part is, are there pages/paragraphs that can be cut from the required reading? What should the students taking this class focus on in their discussion? Are additional readings needed to supplement and explain the economic analysis used by the experts? As of August 5th we have gone through three of the cases, my tasks for the fall is to go through all the cases.

Working on this project was rewarding, and we learned a lot about how the economic theory we covered in our classes applies to the real world. We hope this seminar will become a favorite for economics students at Vassar.

Anna Kozloski, Class of 2025

Jess Brier, Curator of Photography

This summer, I conducted full-time research for Curator of Photography, Jess Brier, in the Loeb. My findings will guide a future exhibition with the working title, Photo-Design: Making the World New, which highlights the ways in which communities have used photography and design to imagine alternative futures in the wake of profound loss and devastation.

For the first four weeks of my Ford experience, I explored promising case studies for Photo-Design. My research ranged anywhere from climate activism in Antarctica to the AIDS epidemic and queer activism in America. Jess encouraged me to pursue any historical moment that we could relate to unorthodox applications of photography and design. Although the initial breadth of the project was daunting, taking the time to explore every possible direction we could take the exhibition helped clarify what “photo-design” might look like and what specific historical moment I might want to focus on. The annotated bibliography I created during this period will guide future research on this exhibition.

For the second four weeks, I narrowed down my research topic to postwar, avant-garde architectural design in the 1960s and ‘70s. My findings paid specific attention to the ways in which architects used photomontage, collage, and combination printing to articulate an evolving relationship between humans, nature, technology, and consumerism amidst global rebuilding projects. For example, I considered the rise of Metabolist architecture in Japan after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Italian architects’ experimentation with “architecture-less architecture” as a reaction against the hyperrationality of pre-WWII, Modernist designs, and English architectural designs for the Golden Lane Estate rebuilding project of 1953. In addition to Japan, Italy, and England, my research also explored architectural design in America, Austria, and Venezuela in the postwar period. I identified over 60 artworks (both at the Loeb and other museums collections or archives) that might be included in the final exhibition.

This project culminated in a research report that amassed my extensive research into one cohesive document. My essay, notes, artwork proposals, and annotated bibliography will serve as vital references for Jess and future interns when work on Photo-Design resumes. Thank you, Jess, for your mentorship and this wonderful opportunity to explore my historical and creative interests in a museum setting.

Abigail McLaughlin ’26

This summer I worked with Professor Esteban Argudo in the economics department to explore the effect of business cycles on the income and employment nativity for immigrant and native populations in the United States. The ultimate goal was to formally quantify the differential effects of business cycles on labor market outcomes for native and immigrant populations.

I began by collecting data from the Current Population Survey (CPS) through IPUMS to complement the analysis done using the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) data. Since the time series dimension of the data analysis requires the harmonization of variables, IPUMS was the best option for data collection, despite the fact that it required new code.

I replicated figures from existing literature (Albert 2021) to ensure the IPUMS data (right) was the same as the raw CPS data (left).

Job Finding Rate Gap to Natives

There is a slight discrepancy between the figures, attributed to a difference in the number of observations. Since the Census Bureau releases the basic and supplement files as separate files and IPUMS integrates and releases the supplement files as a part of the data, IPUMS has slightly more observations.

The CPS data (right) was then used to complement the findings from the SIPP data (left). It indicated that the unemployment rate for immigrants was consistently higher than natives up until 2008. A similar story is true for wages, the average wage of immigrants becomes higher between 2010 and 2015. Further regression analysis and data visualization will help to explain why.

SIPP & CPS Data Skilled Workers Unemployment Rate

SIPP & CPS Data Skilled Workers Wages

My experience with this project reinforced the importance of data in forming a qualitative argument. Data provides numbers that tell a story, however, it is further analysis that explains what that story is.

Julian Funaro 25′

This Summer, I have assisted Professor Ge in his ongoing undergraduate level textbook project entitled Industrial Organization: Theory and Practice, 6th Edition. My work consisted of three key concepts to industrial organization.

First, I wrote an outline for a section on two-sided markets. Two-sided markets consist of one or more intermediaries, called platforms, that allow for transactions between two groups. For example, eBay is a platform that allows for transactions between buyers and sellers. Much of the required mathematics to model two-sided markets is not suitable for undergraduate economic students. Hence, my task was to select a basic model and derive the necessary math needed to find profit-maximizing prices for two-sided markets that can be understood by students who have taken an introductory class in microeconomics. Then, I used the model to explain the pricing strategies of Yellow Pages. 

Next, I expanded the content on network economics. The network effect occurs when the value of a good or service increases as more people use it. For example, a larger number of agents on a social media platform increases the number of possible connections, thus increasing the potential benefit agents gain from joining the platform. We can describe a network with a graph consisting of a series of nodes connected by links. I used my knowledge in graph theory to help students’ further understanding of network economics.

Finally, I wrote an outline for a section on status quo bias. In standard theory, agents are assumed to be rational. However, their bounded rationality limits their ability to make rational decisions all of the time. One shortcut agents use is a bias towards the status quo, resulting in many economic consequences. 

I will be continuing my research with Professor Ge in the Fall 2024 semester.