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Frederick S. Pardee
Institute for International Futures
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The Student Experience at Pardee

At the Pardee Institute, students support the research, data, modeling, analysis, and communications work that helps sustain the Institute’s broader mission.
Student roles vary by team, project needs, funding, and experience level. Some students work primarily on internal research infrastructure, such as datasets, model inputs, documentation, and quality control. Others may contribute to partner-facing analysis, publications, communications, events, or public-facing materials when their skills align with active projects.

Use this page to learn how students contribute to Pardee’s work, what skills they build, and how their experience shapes their academic and professional paths.

Learning by contributing

Student work at Pardee is applied, but it is also shaped by the practical needs of each team and project. Some students help maintain the internal infrastructure behind Pardee’s work by collecting, coding, cleaning, and vetting data; updating documentation; organizing model inputs; or supporting quality control. Others may support scenario analysis, reports, publications, events, or communications when their skills and availability align with active work.

This means the student experience is not the same for everyone. Some roles are highly technical. Some are writing- or communications-focused. Some involve regular work with datasets and spreadsheets. Some offer exposure to International Futures (IFs), Pardee’s open-source, integrated forecasting platform. Together, these roles give students a practical view of how research, data, modeling, and communication support long-term global analysis.

Explore student-supported datasets

Explore student-supported data tools

Skills students build

Students describe their Pardee experience as a place to build both technical and professional skills. Depending on their role, students may gain experience in:

  • Data collection, coding, cleaning, and vetting
  • Open-source intelligence collection and source evaluation
  • Excel, Python, SQL, R, and other data tools
  • Literature reviews and policy-relevant research
  • Scenario analysis and IFs-based forecasting
  • Analytical writing, technical writing, and public-facing communications
  • Website management, newsletters, article writing, photography, and digital content
  • Project management, deadlines, feedback, and team collaboration
  • Leadership, mentoring, and quality assurance

These skills are transferable across many career paths. Students have connected their Pardee experience to interests in international development, policy analysis, data analytics, intelligence, consulting, communications, research, humanitarian work, corporate social responsibility, and graduate study.

Student snapshots

Research, data, and modeling experience
Many student roles focus on building and maintaining data resources used in Pardee’s research. Students working on Diplometrics and related projects gather information from public sources, code international interactions, review data quality, and learn how datasets are built over time.

This work helps students understand how international relationships can be studied systematically. It also gives them practice with careful documentation, source evaluation, attention to detail, and collaborative quality control.

Some students support IFs-based work, including data comparison, model documentation, scenario testing, forecast interpretation, and applied analysis. The specific work depends on active projects and training needs, but these roles give students exposure to how assumptions, model structure, and system relationships shape scenario results. 
Communications and public engagement
Pardee’s student experience also includes communications work. Students on the Marketing and Communications team help make Pardee’s research accessible to broader audiences, including policymakers, researchers, students, partners, and the public.

Their work may include writing articles, editing newsletters, managing web content, supporting events, creating social media content, building visual assets, and translating technical research into clear public language. This work requires students to think carefully about audience, accuracy, tone, and the limits of what research can claim.

For students interested in communications, public affairs, journalism, international relations, or research translation, these roles offer a chance to practice writing about complex global issues with clarity and care.

Student voices

“Working at Pardee has given me the opportunity to work in a research-driven environment that has allowed me to strengthen my analytical and attention-to-detail skills.”
--Awa Sanneh, Int'l Studies graduate 2026, COLT RA
“I have been able to work on real-world datasets, contribute to research projects, and deepen my understanding of the data analysis process.”
--Maya Rai, Research Methods and Statistics, Core Diplo RA
“Learning how qualitative information can be codified into a dataset is remarkably important.”
--Hamzah Clark, Int'l Business graduate 2026, COLT RA
“Creating marketing materials for an institute with such a complex platform pushed me to think carefully about everything we were writing and promoting.”
--Brittany Porte, Int'l Comms grad 2026, MarCom Team Lead
"[This] has given me great connections and a better understanding of what modeling is and how it can be used in international development situations."
--Julia Frangul, Int'l Dev grad 2026, Pardee Fellow

Preparing for many possible careers

Pardee student roles can help students build experience relevant to many possible career paths, though each student’s experience depends on their role, team, project assignments, and length of time at the Institute. Students use their experience to prepare for work in research, policy, analytics, data science, international affairs, communications, intelligence, consulting, development, nonprofit work, and other fields.

For some students, Pardee confirms an existing interest. For others, it opens a new path. Students have described discovering interests in integrated assessment modeling, data analytics, foreign policy research, due diligence, humanitarian analysis, public-sector consulting, communications, and long-term development research.

What connects these paths is the ability to work carefully with evidence, communicate clearly, and understand how decisions and assumptions can shape outcomes across systems.

Help support a global community working toward a more knowable future

Pardee’s open tools, research, and training resources support students, researchers, policymakers, and practitioners around the world. Your gift helps keep that work accessible and strengthens the public research infrastructure behind it.

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