2025-26 AY PT Research Fellowship: Refugee Policy in Kenya
The Stanford King Center on Global Development’s Academic Year Part-Time Research Fellowship Program connects King Center faculty affiliates and affiliated researchers with undergraduate students committed to providing research support during autumn, winter, and spring quarters.
Students have the opportunity to engage in world-class research that has real-world impact. Undergraduate student research fellows are paid $19/hour. Students must be enrolled full-time to participate and must be able to commit to research 8-10 hours per week.
*Students must attend orientation and submit an I-9 form to verify employment and receive payment.
Research Project Description:
In this project, we will examine the politics of refugee policy in Kenya. This will include analyzing five years of committee meeting minutes from the national parliament in Kenya in which members discussed and debated policy reforms related to refugees. By analyzing internal committee reports as a source of text and narrative data, we aim to describe a nuanced picture of policy debates, concerns, and opportunities for refugees in Kenya and the East Africa region more broadly.
Primary Research Mentor: Shelby Carvalho, Postdoctoral Fellow, King Center on Global Development
Stanford undergraduate students in good academic standing and enrolled full-time are eligible to apply. Co-term students must have undergraduate student status; if co-terms are in graduate billing status (after 12 quarters) they are ineligible to participate.
All majors are welcome!
Students Responsibilities:
- Organize documents and committee reports in online repository
- Code committee meeting minutes and other policy documents using qualitative and document analysis techniques
- Analyze findings and trends
- Work with PI to write summary reports and possibly research papers
Students qualifications:
- Interest in refugee policy and/or politics in East Africa; or an interest in education and migration
- Experience with qualitative coding and software is a plus but not necessary prior to beginning work
- Attention to detail
Time Commitment:
The time commitment is 8-10 hours per week (equivalent to a 3-unit course) each academic quarter. The expectation is that students will work the full academic year with their mentor (Autumn, Winter, and Spring quarters). Students planning on studying abroad are not eligible.
To Apply:
Along with the application, applicants are asked to submit:
- a cover letter
- resume or CV
- unofficial Stanford transcript (first quarter frosh do not need to submit transcripts for autumn quarter applications)
