Awarded first place in the Rice Data to Knowledge Lab’s ‘COVID19 Houston Response Projects’ competition. My team’s project was a rigorous statistical analysis of how COVID19 impacted community movement, mobility, and social distancing. I was responsible for creating the interactive data visualizations in D3.js, which can be found here, here, and here.
Awarded the Marian Fox Martel Scholar Award for the 2019-2020 academic year.
The award is in recognition of a junior who ‘demonstrates extraordinary citizenship in various area of College life, focusing on academic excellence and who has a GPA greater than 3.5.’
Awarded first place (out of 13 teams) at Rice University’s 2020 Houston Policy Challenge. Judged by Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez, Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg, U.S. Magistrate Judge Andrew Edison, Southern District of Texas, and Judge Franklin Bynum, Harris County Criminal Court at Law No. 8
Proposed a pre-trial diversion program for pregnant women and mothers of young children. Awarded prize money and seed money for implementation.
Awarded first place in our submission track for my team’s project “Mapping Houston Homicides.” The project, which is an interactive “scrollytelling” presentation, was completed in 16 hours.
Recognized as a winner for my submission to Northeastern’s annual ‘C+J’ conference. The winning visualization was “Automation and Its Impact on Jobs.”
In recognition of “¡Vota! Testing the Impact of Spanish-Language Ballots on Election Results and Preferences.” My team’s paper explores the impact of Spanish-language ballots on election results; we find moderate effects wherein voting on a Spanish-language may make a voter slightly more conservative.
Awarded second place at Rice University’s 2019 Houston Centered Policy Design Competition. Judged by Dwight Boykins, Houston city council member; Tory Gunsolley, president and CEO of the Houston Housing Authority; Amanda Timm, executive director of Local Initiatives Support Corporation; Tom McCasland, director of the City of Houston’s Housing and Community Development department and Stephan Fairfield, founder and CEO of Covenant Community Capital.
Proposed a program which incentivizes homeowners in high-opportunity neighborhoods to construct ADUs & house voucher recipients. Our proposal prevents “NIMBYism” and community backlash to high-concentration public housing projects, and decentralizes low-income voucher recipients to high-opportunity neighborhoods.
Awarded first place in the Baker Institute Student Forum’s fifth annual undergraduate public policy competition. Judged by Dr. Luis Duno-Gottberg, Dr. Francisco J. Monaldi, H. Richard Sindelar, and Oscar Arredondo.
The award was in recognition of a 6000-word research paper and a 20 minute presentation on U.S. foreign policy toward the Western Hemisphere; my partner and I’s paper critiqued current mechanisms for distributing food aid to Haiti. Awarded prize money and publication in the Rice Journal of Public Policy (Fall 2018 issue), which can be found here.
Awarded first place at Rice University’s inaugural Houston Centered Policy Design Competition. Judged by Houston Mayor Pro Tem Ellen Cohen; former president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Houston, Lee Wunsch; City Council at-large 2 representative, David Robinson; director of Rice’s Kinder Institute for Urban Research, Bill Fulton; and “flood czar” Stephen Costello.
Proposed an innovative, multi-home buyout system for the Meyerland community in the wake of Hurricane Harvey. We recommended multi-home buyouts in order to address the “checkerboard effect” of home buyouts and also increase community solidarity. Awarded prize money and seed money for implementation.
National Champion in International Extemporaneous Speaking with the National Speech and Debate Association.
Competed against hundreds of high schoolers throughout 13 rounds.
Awarded prize money and a scholarship from the esteemed Council on Foreign Relations. A video of the final round can be found here.