SISRM Workshops
Workshop Dates Summer 2024: June 10 – July 12
The Practice of Social Science Research Workshop provides students with supplemental professional skills development for students to use in and outside of the academy. Workshops include talks from UChicago faculty about their early-stage research projects, hands-on projects in academic writing, research, and research programs, and field visits to view research in practice within the Chicago area.
Workshops are open to all participants of the Summer Institute. Workshops are mandatory for students who are participating in the SISRM RA program.
SISRM has helped me come up with ideas about how I can more specifically approach my interests.This program has demonstrated how interdisciplinary the social sciences can be, in research and in the real world.
These images show SISRM fellows in the Summer 2022 workshop series. Images detail faculty chalk talks and excursions to the Art Institute of Chicago, the Chicago History Museum, the Argonne National Laboratory, and Mindworks: The Science of thinking
2023 Workshops
The following workshop descriptions from Summer 2023 reflect the general content of workshop programming.
Faculty Chalk Talks
Faculty chalk talks feature social scientists from throughout the University. In these talks, faculty discuss what social sciences research looks like in their research.
- Esteban Rossi-Hansberg, Department of Economics
- Chris Campos, Booth School of Business
- Paul Poast, Department of Political Science
- Eugene Raikhel, Department of Comparative Human Development
- Ada Palmer, Department of History
Exploring the Social Sciences
These workshops provide perspectives of what it means to engage in social scientific research, and how that engagement looks at the University of Chicago.
- Panel: What do we mean when we say ‘Social Science Research?’ with Benjamin Lessing, Associate Professor of Political Science and CLAS, and Jenny Trinitapoli, Professor of Sociology and CISSR. Professors discuss their journeys to the social sciences, how they view their respective fields within the context of the social sciences, and the advantages and disadvantages of interdisciplinary work. Professors also provide students with important points to think about when it comes to understanding research questions.
- Social Science for Humanity: We Can’t ‘Tech’ Our Way Out of It with Paul Poast, Associate Professor, Political Science and Director, Summer Institute in Social Research Methods. What is the value of social science research? Why bother majoring in social science? This workshop explores the importance of the concept economy in solving Big Problems.
- An Introduction to the IRB and the Ethics of Research with Cheryl Danton, IRB Managing Director. This workshop provides students with an overview of the Social and Behavioral Sciences IRB office—what it is, how it came to be, how it functions, and why ethics and procedures matter in social science research.
- Civic Inquiry: Ethical Research and Community Engagement. In this workshop, students learned about discursive framework for ethically and productively engaging in community-based research.
Library Skills and Research Tools
- Get to know the Library with Rebecca Starkey, Head of Research and Instruction Services. During this session, students learn about the multitude of resources offered by the library and elsewhere to help with their research.
- Starting Your Research: Best Practices for Finding and Using Library Resources with Rebecca Starkey, Head of Research and Instruction Services. During this session, students got an introduction to research practices and resources available through the library.
- Digital Scholarship with Cecilia Smith, Director of Digital Scholarship. This workshop discusses digital scholarship initiatives in the Library and introduces ways to start and execute research. It also touches on important considerations to make when collecting data.
- An Introduction to GIS with Crystal Bae Part I, Center for Spatial Data Science. This workshop introduced students to GIS and spatial tools that can help them analyze different types of data.
- Spatial Data Science Workshop with Dylan Halpern, Center for Spatial Data Science. Dylan Halpern gave a demonstration of web visualization as a tool for geospatial analysis using Kepler.GL’s mapping technology.
Professional Skills
Now that you have all of these skills, what do you do with them? This week we’ll talk about how to put your talents to pragmatic use, including thinking about them as they apply to future job applications.
- Graduate School 101 with Lindsey Weglarz, Assistant Dean of Students for Admission
This workshop introduces students to the topic of graduate school: what it is, why students should consider going or not going, and how to prepare.
- Career Advancement: Transferring Your Skills with Daniel Clark, Program Director of Careers in Behavioral Sciences
This workshop addresses the process of translating professional and extra-curricular experiences into cross-functional skills applicable to a variety of roles.
