Working With Students

Interacting with students has been one of the highlights of my time in graduate school. In addition to helping undergraduates in my capacity as a teaching assistant for a variety of substantive and methodological courses, I have had the immense privilege of working with students who assist me with my own research.

While TAing data science courses, numerous students inquired about research opportunities to further hone their skills and gain hands-on experience. Since 2021, I have trained and managed over a dozen exceptional undergraduates to help me collect original data for my dissertation project. Hearing my RAs’ perspectives on the data and project has been invaluable to my research.

If you are a current Vanderbilt undergraduate who is interested in congressional elections, considering graduate school in political science or a related field, or otherwise wishing to gain hands-on experience with research and data collection, you may inquire about research assistant opportunities by emailing me at mellissa.b.meisels@vanderbilt.edu.

Some of my current and former research assistants are listed below:

Tyler Owen Horton, Class of 2022

Marisa Kim, Class of 2022

Riley Black, Class of 2023

Liam Thompson, Class of 2023

Lexi Tuch, Class of 2023

Amanda Bortner, Class of 2024

Cora Chen, Class of 2024

Kurt Urban, Class of 2024

Devan Wiley, Class of 2025

Matthew Shipley, Class of 2025

Louis-Haslan Dorsinvil, Class of 2025

Brutus Li, Class of 2025

Saayili Budhiraja, Class of 2025