JSIS Students Get Hands-On Experience through Summer 2024 Global Research Group
The University of Washington’s Global Research Group (GRG) provides a unique opportunity for Jackson School students to work directly with private and public sector clients on a research project, often related to technology. The GRG student consultants participating in the program collaborate with their undergraduate peers under the guidance of JSIS faculty to provide in-depth data analysis, reports, presentations and other research for the client’s projects. Since 2009, GRG teams have worked for Microsoft, Starbucks, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), and many others.
JSIS students who participated in the Summer 2024 GRG worked alongside Jessica L. Beyer, an Assistant Teaching Professor in the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies and the lead of the Jackson School’s Cybersecurity Initiative. Dr. Beyer teaches cybersecurity politics courses in the Jackson School and supervises student research through the Cybersecurity Initiative and Global Research Groups. The GRG is open to undergraduate and graduate students from a variety of departments and program offerings and clients vary annually.
In Summer Quarter 2024, a team of eight JSIS students worked under the guidance of Dr. Beyer on a consulting project researching emerging technologies to support Building Markets, a non-profit organization that supports small businesses globally. “[Building Markets] wants us to identify generative AI tools and evaluate them both in terms of how good they were and potential risks for use by women-run refugee businesses, particularly in Turkey and the Middle East.” The summer project culminated in a 40-page report based on student research presented to the organization’s leadership team.
“In the social sciences, students don’t have a lot of opportunities to apply what they’re learning in class to real-world experiences, and the Jackson School GRG is unique in that respect,” Dr. Beyer told the Center for Global Studies in an interview. “In general, students are looking for more opportunities to take what they’ve learned in class and use it in scenarios that are more like what they are going to experience once they graduate.”
Dr. Beyer also shared that “[GRG] students go on to do whatever they’re interested in from the field they’re in. In terms of the students who are interested in technology, I have students who end up working with consulting firms, students who end up working for non-profits and civil society organizations, non-governmental organizations in DC, the State Department, and private companies, so they end up in a lot of places. Some go off to law school, or graduate programs in more technical areas.”