1st Annual Policy Research Shop Open House: Recap with Organizer Mariel Wallace '16

This week, the Rockefeller Center’s Policy Research Shop (PRS) held its first annual open house. Organized by 2013 First-Year Fellow Mariel Wallace ’16, the open house sought to showcase the work that the Policy Research Shop conducts both for public policy in the surrounding community and for the education of Dartmouth students. In an interview, Wallace described her inspiration to organize this event and involvement with the PRS.

Sarah Ogren '16, left, and Organizer Mariel Wallace '16, right, discuss their research at the 1st Annual PRS Open House

"I was inspired to organize this open house because I felt like not enough members of the Dartmouth community knew about the interesting and important work that the Policy Research Shop performs for the New Hampshire and Vermont state governments. More specifically, many students know vaguely that the PRS performs policy research, but they don't know anything about our specific projects or our research findings. To meet this need, I organized the open house to give PRS members the opportunity to share their research findings.

I originally became involved with the Policy Research Shop when I took Professor Shaiko's Public Policy 45 course my sophomore fall, which offers an introduction to public policy research. This translates perfectly to working with the PRS. In this class, we developed research designs for projects that we ultimately completed through the PRS.

Austin Boral '16, left, and Katie Schultz '16, center, talk with attendees at the 1st Annual PRS Open House

Regarding my personal research projects, though I have yet to see the concrete impact they will have on the state of New Hampshire, I'm excited that my research may change how New Hampshire evaluates child abuse reports and how it determines wetlands buffer sizes. This year, one group completed a project on fossil fuel divestment for Vermont. Their research findings and policy recommendations actually caused the committee to change the language of the bill.”
--Mariel Wallace '16