Student Opportunities
Thank you for your interest in working with CDDRL!
The following tabs list our current job and research opportunities for Stanford students. If there are no current opportunities, please check back soon for new postings.
CDDRL is pleased to invite applications for its 2025 summer undergraduate research program through funding provided by Stanford’s Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education and CDDRL.
CDDRL is offering a 10-week full-time (40 hours per week) summer research assistantship from June 23 - August 29, 2025. This opportunity is ideal for undergraduates interested in the politics and economics of developing countries. They will have the opportunity to interact with global leaders and democracy activists, as well as CDDRL/FSI faculty, scholars, and the larger research community.
The CDDRL summer intern will work on a faculty-designed research project and will intern in our Summer Fellows Program, a three-week training program hosted at Stanford for mid-career practitioners from transitioning countries who are working to advance democratic practices and economic and legal reform in contexts where freedom, human development, and good governance are fragile or at risk.
Research Project:
The RA will also help compile short research papers on each of the countries represented by Fellows in the program; they may also be asked to assist in some of the writing and slide presentations that faculty at CDDRL will prepare for the program; doing some research for ongoing projects on Russia’s authoritarianism with Professor Stoner.
The Summer Fellows Program intern will conduct research on faculty-designed research project with faculty mentor, Kathryn Stoner, Mosbacher Director of CDDRL.
The research award will be based on a competitive application process. We encourage students from all areas of study to apply. Interested students should submit their application, resume, and statement of interest, following the guidelines below, before Friday, March 14, 2025, at 5:00 pm. Decisions regarding awards will be announced by April 4, 2025, via email.
What you will do:
- Work in-person from designated office space in Encina Hall at CDDRL through the summer.
- Engage and interact with international fellows.
- Attend sessions of the Summer Fellows Program on a daily basis, including some weekends and evenings during the duration of the three-week program.
- Collect, process, and analyze weekly program evaluations and final program evaluations to monitor and track program progress and completion.
- Assist in the production of program-related content for the Center, including news stories/blogs, interviews, social media, photography, etc.
Eligibility and Requirements:
The Center's research assistant positions are partially funded by the office of the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education (VPUE). Please see the student eligibility requirements.
Stipend Amount: Selected undergraduate RA will receive a stipend. Full-time stipends will be $8,000 + up to $1,500 need-based supplement (if student qualifies).
The Stanford Poverty, Violence, and Governance Lab (PovGov) is looking for a full-time undergraduate Research Assistant for the summer quarter (’25). You will be working with a team of dedicated scholars whose mission is to create innovative methodologies and data streams to generate scientific understanding about the causes, consequences, and dynamics of violence. We aim with our research to contribute to restoring peace and security and protecting human rights.
About the position:
- You will support our team of researchers on one to two ongoing projects that may include a survey experiment on the relationship between corruption, rule of law, and populism, as well as support analyzing interviews for a project on the relationship between organized crime presence and gendered violence.
- You will be assigned a mentor who will coordinate your tasks.
- You can be asked to help the lab with a range of ad-hoc tasks and projects from our project portfolio.
- Tasks include but are not limited to cleaning data, helping compile data sets, helping write literature reviews, support with survey design, and helping with data analysis.
What we are looking for:
- Committed and reliable RAs with a demonstrated passion for questions pertaining to poverty alleviation, violence, and governance.
- Fluency in Spanish.
- Demonstrated skills and experience with data analysis in STATA.
- We encourage students with a background in Computer Science, Economics, or Political Science to apply.
Stipend Amount: $8,000
Contact: Kim Juarez Jensen kimaje@stanford.edu
Francis Fukuyama is seeking to hire 2 research assistants for his project "Reform for Results Working Group," which will provide alternative ideas for reform of the US bureaucracy from those being put forward by the current administration.
Current Stanford law students or undergraduates planning to pursue a law degree are invited to apply, though we will consider any qualified candidate.
Work will include gathering data on the current administration's Executive Orders, changes in agency structures and mandates, personnel actions, and the like. RAs will be expected to work with faculty both inside Stanford and at other universities.
Interested candidates should submit a cover letter and resume to Dr. Julieta Casas at jcasas2@stanford.edu.