Postdoctoral scholar Soumya Mishra shares her desires and goals for her next stop in academia.

You’ve been a postdoctoral scholar/researcher at the Pullias Center since 2022, working on the Leveraging Technology and Engaging Students (LTES) Project with Dr. Tatiana Melguizo and the Center for Education Policy Research at Harvard.  Please share what your experience has been like for you, and how your previous education and experiences informed this position.
LTES is designed to understand multiple aspects of the pandemic-induced shift to online instruction in community colleges using both qualitative and quantitative research methods. The comprehensive design of the project and the ability to use multiple methods makes it a particularly exciting opportunity for me. Prior experience with quantitative methods at the Community College Research Center at Columbia University and qualitative research for my doctoral thesis on higher education policy implementation in India provided me with the requisite skills to understand the complexities of this project.

How do you believe that your professional skills and research abilities have evolved since beginning work on the project? Is this what you expected when you first joined the Center?
Working on the LTES project and other National Science Foundation-funded projects has provided me rich exposure to core research skills as well as project management and grant writing skills for federally funded grants. While I expected the former as a part of the postdoctoral training, the latter are relatively new to me and I am looking forward to developing these abilities further.

What aspect(s) of the project have you enjoyed the most? And how will this affect what type of position you’re looking for now?
Working closely with community college partners and administrators to identify and answer practice-relevant questions has been one of the most rewarding aspects of this project. At the same time, I have come to appreciate the logistical and administrative challenges in conducting methodological rigorous research with institutions that have many other competing priorities. The experience has cemented my interest in leveraging research methods to investigate questions that add value to policy making and practice in institutions.

Please describe your dream position in academia:
As a policy researcher, I draw inspiration from the possibility of using mixed methods research to make sense of thorny policy questions. To continue doing this work, I am interested in institutions and positions that already have or are interested in building deep and meaningful working relationships with users of policy research such as practitioners, administrators, and government agencies.

Contact Soumya Mishra here.