SOCKS GRA - Social – Driving Change with Climate Stories

Position ID: GRA6 (14)

Review of applications will begin 02-15-2025 and continue until the position is filled.

Supervisor: Trisha Shrum, Ph.D.

Topic: Social - Driving Change with Climate Stories

Start date:  August 2025 (Fall admission)

Primary Program of Study:   Applicants are likely to enroll in the Complex Systems & Data Science or the Sustainable Development, Policy, Economics, and Governance PhD programs. Students interested in another degree program are also encouraged. All students will be required to complete the 5-course graduate certificate in Complex Systems.

Description of position:

The GRA will assist in quantitative data analysis of climate change narratives in the form of letters to the future addressed to loved ones, a powerful intervention that has been found to effectively motivate support for climate policy. The GRA will also assist in developing, carrying out, and analyzing randomized control experiments and field experiments in the form of workshops and exhibits run by a community partner. The current team members are multi-disciplinary and transdisciplinary and draw from the fields of social psychology, communication, economics, and sustainability science.

The Climate Stories Project is part of a larger transdisciplinary research group called the Science of Online Corpora, Knowledge, and Stories (SOCKS) Project, a transdisciplinary research project funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) that aims to advance initiatives grounded in principled methods through the quantitative measurement of sentiment and stories across a diverse portfolio of corpora. We hope to provide new insights into the power and use of stories and narratives across a broad array of social, economic, and health domains through integrated data and teams.

GRAs will be provided an annual stipend, professional development and training, and support to attend relevant academic conferences.

THERE IS A 2-STEP APPLICATION PROCESS FOR SOCKS GRA APPLICANTS:

• GRA Applicants not already enrolled in a PhD program at UVM must also apply directly to the UVM Graduate College for admission into the UVM Graduate College in addition to the SOCKS GRA application below. 
• Admission into the SOCKS program is contingent upon acceptance into the UVM Graduate College. The UVM Graduate College website may be found HERE.

• The usual deadline for Complex Systems and Data Science at UVM is February 15, 2025, while the Sustainable Development, Policy, Economics, and Governance program usually has a January 15, 2025 deadline for funding consideration.
  However, there is flexibility in these deadlines if the right candidate has been identified for SOCKS funding through our internal application below after that date. Other program deadlines may be found HERE.

Contact Information