I created this portfolio to collect some of my favorite work.
Researcher
I received my Ph.D. in political science in 2014. Writing a dissertation taught me the craft of research.
Dissertation: Zero hunger: the politics of anti-hunger policy in Brazil.
Related work:
- Reducing Poverty Intensity: What Alternative Poverty Measures Reveal about the Impact of Brazil’s Bolsa Família. Latin American Politics and Society , Volume 56 , Issue 4 , Winter 2014 , pp. 143 – 158.
- Mapping the Impact of Cash Transfers on Food Insecurity in Brazil (2004-2009). A conference poster for Shared Tables: A Triangle Symposium on Local and Global Food Studies. 2012.
- The Program With Many Components Rarely Succeeds”: Lessons From the First Year of Brazil’s Zero Hunger Program. Working paper. SSRN.
Elections Official
I served as Voter Engagement Advocate in the Elections Division at Oregon Secretary of State from 2014-2017.
- Report from the Task Force on Minority Language Voting Materials. I wrote most of this report and did the data analysis.
- Registering Military & Overseas in Oregon. A flow chart to help counties comply with state and federal election law. This was part of my work chairing a committee on how to better serve Oregon’s military and overseas voters.
- Homeless doesn’t mean voiceless: Vote. Street Roots. 2016.
I worked with the secretary’s communications team to help write this. It’s the work I’m most proud of from my time in the Elections Division.
Writing Coach
My last three semesters of graduate school, I worked as a tutor at the UNC Writing Center, which taught me how to teach writing one-on-one. After I moved to Oregon, I wrote occasional columns (“Writing With Russ”) for Engaging Local Government Leaders. I’ve worked at a writing coach for Willamette University’s MBA program and through the Chemeketa Center for Business and Industry
- Writing with Writing With Russ: Breaking It Down. Engaging Local Government Leaders. May 2017.
- Bad or good: How does your business writing rate? Enterprise Magazine. Spring 2019.