SIGNATURE WORK
CONFERENCE & EXHIBITION 2023

My Signature Work immersed me in a multi-faceted exploration of the foreign policy-election connection in the US-China context. For the experiential component, I volunteered with a progressive populist senate candidate in my home state of Missouri. I took courses that equipped me with developing frameworks to understand how voters make decisions: as emotional beings liable to narcissism and resentment, as utility-maximizing agents, and as economic actors acting on their interests and shaping global networks of engagement. With my Signature Work paper, I sought to answer the question of whether Nancy Pelosi’s 2022 visit to Taiwan could be viewed as an instance of diversionary diplomacy. I learned how to conduct academic surveys and conjoint experiments.