Research assistants and collaboration
Work With Me
This page turns the old Jobs page into a clearer invitation for students and collaborators to get involved in empirical research.
Who should reach out
Graduate and undergraduate students interested in empirical research on criminal justice, policing, public defense, law and economics, and related public-policy questions.
Helpful background
- Quantitative RA work in social science, statistics, engineering, or science
- Programming experience in Stata, R, Python, JavaScript, Git, ArcGIS, or related tools
- Strong subject-matter interest and close attention to detail
How to apply
Email dabrams@law.upenn.edu with:
- a short note explaining your interest and which projects are most relevant to you,
- a paragraph describing prior RA or data work,
- relevant coursework in economics, statistics, math, or related fields, and
- a resume and unofficial transcript as PDFs.
Project areas
Police reform
Research on which reforms reduce police violence and racial disparities while preserving public safety.
Research on which reforms reduce police violence and racial disparities while preserving public safety.
Crime fundamentals after COVID
Using pandemic-era changes in mobility, crime, and policing to learn about criminal behavior and deterrence.
Using pandemic-era changes in mobility, crime, and policing to learn about criminal behavior and deterrence.
Race-neutral policing and stop-and-frisk
Using large-scale stop data and pandemic-era changes to test core assumptions in discrimination models.
Using large-scale stop data and pandemic-era changes to test core assumptions in discrimination models.
CityCrimeStats
Maintaining and extending a public-facing crime-data resource that has been used by journalists, researchers, and the public.
Maintaining and extending a public-facing crime-data resource that has been used by journalists, researchers, and the public.
Additional projects
- Using machine learning to improve decision-making in a public defender office
- Using hospital data to learn about crime in a pandemic
- Understanding the rise in shootings and homicides in 2020
This language is written so you can keep it broad year-round, then tighten it when you are actively hiring for a particular project.