In a continued celebration of Thanksgiving, NCSER would like to express its gratitude to all the student volunteer interns that are giving their time and talents to help us understand and communicate about education research. In our fourth blog about these interns, we are highlighting the NCSER interns who come to us through the Student Volunteer Trainee Program. The interns are working on a variety of different tasks, including writing blogs, helping to revise and update our online abstracts, coding listening sessions, and assisting with various other writing and data analysis projects as needed. Their mentor, Amy Sussman, is proud to introduce the team.
Alysa Conway
I am currently a second-year master’s student in education policy and leadership at the University of Maryland, College Park. I’m interested in the development of college identity for diverse students and research relevant to race, disability, and the law. These interests led to a special interest in assisting with college identity development for students with disabilities, especially students with mental and neurodevelopmental disabilities. I’m committed to education advocacy, including waiving standardized testing, increasing minority enrollment, and altering the diversity education requirements for all undergraduates at the University of Maryland. I have collaborated with educators and community leaders in Washington, DC. for equity-centered professional development strategies. My goals for the future, after receiving my master’s degree, include working at the U.S. Department of Education on postsecondary education issues and pursuing a PhD in student affairs so that I can dedicate myself to developing legal or academic supports for Black students and students with disabilities at institutions of higher education. Through this NCSER internship, I plan to strengthen my professional pursuits by building technical writing skills, gaining a stronger understanding of research, supporting analysis of information through qualitative data coding, and learning more about strategies to improve equity and excellence in education.
Fun Fact: I love cooking! Food is a part of my love language and I love to cook Italian, Asian, and Southern cuisine. I am also a music fanatic with a very expansive palette—I love alternative indie, hip-hop, rap, neo-soul, pop, electric dance, and rock music. My favorite way to enjoy music is with the windows down with a crisp breeze and the sight of the leaves changing.
Isabelle Saillard
I am a fourth-year undergraduate at the University of Virginia. My majors in public policy and econometric statistics have contributed greatly to my interest in K-12 education policy, landing me amazing experiences that have prepared me well for this internship at IES. My internships at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Education Office and at the U.S. Department of Education Impact Aid Office have taught me a lot about how federal agencies interact with other organizations. My goals include attending graduate school and working to build stronger cross-agency collaboration to support evidence-based education reform. This internship serves my goals well as I learn about different projects and gain new research skills geared toward studying special education practices. Paired with the mentorship and support of IES staff, I am excited to see where this internship takes me!
Fun Fact: I love the outdoors so much that one morning, I walked 26.2 miles on a whim (from northern VA to DC and back), making me a marathoner.