Week 2

Hey all! I’ve had a great first week at EPI, met some very smart people and started on some interesting projects.

I will be assisting both Monique Morrissey and Elaine Weiss over the course of the summer, although this week I have been primarily been working with Elaine. In order to understand the broader context of the work I will be doing over the rest of the summer, I started off the week doing some background reading on community school projects (particularly as they relate to community supports). Elaine gave me a great guide that has given me a good background understanding and will help me throughout the summer. I also did some background research on a new case study that Elaine is working on, hopefully helping to contextualize some of the other work we will be doing in the coming weeks.

Over the rest of the summer, I will be working on a couple of other projects. I’ll be working on a project helping provide local communities/advocacy groups better access to research supporting the idea behind of community schools. Similarly, I will also be working on a primer for statistical software that will help those groups better use data. Additionally, I’ll be attending events around DC and providing feedback to Monique and Elaine. Based on all of this work, I will also hopefully publish an article by the end of the summer.

I’ve greatly enjoyed meeting all of the staff at EPI – they have been friendly, welcoming, and helpful. It is also obvious that they are very knowledgeable in their individual areas of expertise, and passionate about their work.

Outside of work, I’ve greatly enjoyed DC. I spent the weekend exploring the city and surrounding area with friends and had a great time.

I’m really looking forward to the rest of the summer!

Also, these posts will be more timely in the future. I’ve been pretty busy but will not delay publishing these posts anymore.