LUCAS BOSCHELLI
Lucas Boschelli is a Ph.D. candidate with a focus on urban politics and political methodology. He recently accepted a position as a Senior Data Scientist at Maritz in St. Louis. He'll be joining their business solutions and data science division once he finishes his research at WashU.
Where were you born? Where are you from? I grew up in Santa Fe, New Mexico
What are your studying? How did you become interested in the field of study you're involved in? I'm currently studying American Local Politics. Within the umbrella of local politics, I study participation and direct democracy within the country's smallest governments (cities, school districts, etc.). I'm fascinated in what drives people to reach out to their local governments and how local policies and practices can alleviate (or at time exacerbate) historic socio-economic inequities. I actually stumbled into my field. I entered my PhD wanting to study elections, but I could never quite get into the field. After failing to find a good topic for a seminar paper, I stumbled into a series of early local politics papers and quickly became engrossed in the topic.
What’s the best book you've read recently? When part of your job involves combing through countless articles, reading can become a tricky thing to learn to enjoy again. Luckily, I've fallen into the world of audio books and absolutely love it. I'm a huge sci-fi and fantasy geek and just finished second to last book in the Expanse series (Tiamat's Wrath I think?).
What's your favorite app on your phone? I would say my Audible app. While I'm not attached to the app in particular, I use it every day to listen to books and stories. Without out it, my days would be a significantly less interesting.
What is your favorite STL place? I absolutely love the botanical gardens.
ARIELA SCHACHTER
Ariela Schachter, is an Associate Professor of Sociology, Associate Director of the Weidenbaum Center, Executive Committee member of the Weidenbaum Center, and Faculty Affiliate in Asian American Studies. Her research focuses on immigration, race relations, and inequality in the United States. Her current research efforts focus on projects on public attitudes towards immigrants; racial/ethnic relations; and neighborhood selection and residential inequality. She primarily uses experiment and causal inference methods. Professor Schachter additionally uses big data and computation text analysis in her work.
Where were you born? Where are you from? Born in San Diego, CA and grew up in Southern California and later New Jersey.
What’s a talent or hobby you have that not many people know about? I loved to bake.
What’s the best book you’ve read recently? I loved the new Abraham Verghese book (The Covenant of Water)
What's a trend or story that doens't get enough attention? I might be biased because of my research, but I don't think we are paying nearly enough attention to the lack of due process for migrants seeking asylum at the southern border.
What's your favorite app on your phone? I use my NYTimes app every day to wordle..and read the news