Reflection on 2023 Student Research Summit

As Spring semester comes to an end, we reflect on a GGCI tradition of hosting the annual student research summit every winter. This year, the 2023 Fifth Global Cities Annual Student Research Summit took place on Friday, February 24, 2023. As this is the only explicitly urban-related research summit in Georgetown University, GGCI takes responsibility in leading interdisciplinary conversations around cities, on local, national, and global levels. 

In total, 14 outstanding students presented their research, with four of them presenting in posters. Both graduate and undergraduate students presented, representing schools from School of Foreign Service, College of Arts and Sciences, McCourt School of Public Policy, School of Continuing Studies, and Georgetown University in Qatar.

The themes during this year’s summit were 1) Evolution of Cities, 2) Metropolitan Development Studies, 3) Living with Climate Change, 4) Researching our Local Communities, and (5) Local Systems and Data. There were two presentations for each thematic panel and professors from relevant fields provided feedback for each panel. 

Josephine Ann Kim, a recent graduate of the MA in Global, International, and Comparative History (M.A.G.I.C.) program was one of the first presenters during the summit. She introduced the audience to the city of Rovaniemi in Finland based on her archival work she collected through in-person encounters with Rovaniemi residents, librarians, archivists, tour guides, and public history exhibits. 

After her research trip, she formulated her research questions: ”How did this city become an international tourist attraction? What are the key events, decisions, and urban environmental transformations that propelled Rovaniemi to become the “official” hometown of Santa Claus in the 1980s?” She showed the fluctuating character of the city by juxtaposing various maps of Lapland over time and emphasizing that borders and social constructs, such as the Arctic Circle, the Arctic, Lapland, and Finland, can obscure one’s view of the past and peoples’ relationships to the land.

(Pictured above) Josephine and Lucas presenting at 2023 Student Research Summit

Lucas Kreuzer, a Master’s student in German and European Studies, also presented his research on a European region. More specifically, his research compared how the Pittsburgh region and Germany’s Ruhr transformed their economies following the collapse of their coal and steel industries in the late twentieth century. 

Lucas shared that attempting to present a complicated comparative research in ten minutes was an intellectually stimulating exercise. “It’s easy to get caught up with minutiae or travel down rabbit holes when conducting research, so it’s valuable to take two steps back and to present the big picture to other young researchers. I made several new contacts at the summit with similar research interests and received valuable feedback from professors,” said Lucas. 

Joshua Rosen, a recent graduate of the McCourt School of Public Policy’s Data Science program, came back to the GGCI Research Summit for the second time after his successful presentation on traffic injuries last year. Josh believes that the GGCI research summit is a “great opportunity to break out of my comfort zone and get some practice with presentations.” This year, he presented on the impact that bikeshare programs have on a city’s traffic injuries. Despite the rise of micro mobility systems in many American cities, the impacts of these programs are actually not as well understood. Josh utilized rigorous statistical analysis to track the impact. 

His methodology is the outcome of his quantitative training he received at Georgetown as Josh mentioned, “The Data Science program here in the McCourt school has been a great crash course on a lot of super useful applied econometrics tools. Some of the tools I used in my presentation were things I took directly from my coursework.” Taking his education to the next level, Josh will be attending a PhD program in data science and hopes to apply his statistical knowledge to analyzing cities. “There are really only two things I know in my heart: cities are great and stats are rad. Statistics and cities… It’s like deciding between your two favorite children,” shared Josh. 

(Pictured above) Jess and Josh presenting at 2023 Student Research Summit

Every year, GGCI Research Summit hosts students of all Georgetown programs. This year, however, there was a sizable representation of the Master’s program in Urban and Regional Planning. Among the professionally trained urban planners, Jess Eliot Myhre’s research was an output from her coursework in the program. Jess’ presentation scrutinized the popular idea of relying on electrification, whether through electric vehicles (EVs) or green buildings, to achieve a low-carbon future. Jess questioned why the U.S. has been slow in transitioning to renewable energy and whether electrical vehicles are sufficient alternatives to vehicles with internal combustion engines. “I’ve been skeptical about the hype around electric vehicles for a long time,” said Jess. “I’m not anti-EV’s by any stretch of the imagination. Batteries come with an enormous embodied carbon price tag. It’s important to bring other solutions to the table that drive energy use overall down, not simply switching where it’s generated.”

Jess’ passion for a low-carbon future does not stop at the GGCI Research Summit. She hopes to be a practitioner in the area of Resiliency Planning. “I want to help communities appropriately assess their risk and take action to mitigate the impacts of these disasters,” said Jess. 

The Fifth GGCI Research Summit was another successful celebration of student research at Georgetown dedicated to studying cities. Professor Christopher Zimmerman, who participated as a faculty respondent of this year’s summit, shared that he was surprised by “the uniformly high quality of the work.” He also shared that the research summit presented a valuable opportunity for young scholars and professors entering any profession. “To really appreciate what’s involved, to really absorb the lessons of research, you have to try doing it yourself. And that includes everything from study design to execution, from generating results to presenting them. This is tremendous skill development for almost any career path a student may follow on completing the program,” said Professor Zimmerman. 

(Pictured above) Professor Christopher Zimmerman and Professor Robin King engaging with student research at the summit.

GGCI Research Summit takes place every year, and students of any discipline at Georgetown University can apply to present their ongoing or finished research work around cities. To find out more about the GGCI Research Summit, subscribe to our mailing list or contact us at globalcities@georgetown.edu. Find the recording of the 2023 Fifth GGCI Research Summit here: 

Watch Panel 1: Evolution of Cities

Watch Panel 2: Metropolitan Development Studies

Watch Panel 3: Living with Climate Change

Watch Panel 4: Researching Our Local Communities

Watch Panel 5: Local Systems and Data