Athena Haq

I work as an undergraduate research assistant in the Political Science Department under Professor Randall Stone. I use R to assist with data compilation, analysis, and visualization for his forthcoming book Multinational Order: Business, US Foreign Policy, and International Organization in Cambridge University Press.

As an office assistant at the Susan B. Anthony Center, I support the center’s mission to translate research into policy. I manage all of the center's social media pages and our website. I also manage communication with local nonprofits and work with them to organize programming for the center's monthly nonprofit partnered volunteering event. I lead our undergraduate Student Advisory Board, comprising fifteen undergraduate students each year, and assist in organizing the execution of student-planned social justice events. Lastly, I assist in the execution of all center-run social justice events, including voter registration drives, our annual Women's Leadership Award ceremony, and research presentations and panel discussion such as our Meliora Weekend event Fostering Resilience in Refugee Children.

Writers in the Schools (WITS) is a literary arts nonprofit that works to create programming accessible to all members of the Houston community. As an intern, I worked as a teaching assistant at the WITS creative writing summer camp. While working as a teacher's assistant, I developed and executed my own lesson plans in creative writing for Kindergarten, 1st grade, 4th grade, 5th grade, 8th grade, 9th grade, 10th grade, 11th grade, and 12th grade students. After this hands-on work, I returned to the WITS office and assisted in developing a pilot Impact Evaluation program, a data analysis system to numerically quantify student growth from before and after participating in WITS programming.

As a research intern at the University of Houston, under the supervision of Dr. Fiza Mairaj, I researched nonprofit programming for refugee youth in Houston, highlighting their educational and economic outcomes. I learned the critical thinking and writing skills required to write a literature review, as well as organizational skills to assist in the digital documentation of research.

As an intern for the Partnership for the Advancement and Immersion of Refugees (PAIR Houston), I worked to coordinate volunteering, mentor at summer camps, and conduct home visits to the families of refugees in the greater Houston area. I also got the opportunity to participate in research discussions on social emotional learning practices and how to best implement them in PAIR's programs. I gained experience with the organization required for administrative and office work, community networking, and communication within an office setting.