By Margaret Wilson
Assistant professor of government and law Andrew Clarke always starts the yearly Gov Lab research project with the same question: “What do you care about?”
Video by Olivia Giralico
Gov Lab, co-directed by assistant professors of government and law Dylan Groves and Stephanie Chan, starts each summer and runs one research project throughout the academic year. The team is made up of over 30 students, led by a group of four designated student team leads. The students choose a question, rooted in the American political landscape, that they want to investigate. This summer, students looked at the volatility of the political climate and, not surprisingly, chose to study political engagement and how college campuses across the country compare.
This year’s Gov Lab team leads, Bergh Fellows Samantha Natividad ’25 and Liliana Roginski ’25, and EXCEL Scholars Emma Li ’27 and Kate SantaMaria ’27, worked with student volunteers to contact every college campus in swing states like Pennsylvania and Arizona, collecting data on what drives students to partake in politics.
Gov Lab managers (center, at podium) Emma Li ’27, Samantha Natividad ’25, Liliana Roginski ’25 and Kate SantaMaria ’27 speak to Gov Lab volunteers. | Photo by Adam Atkinson
While many studies of political engagement focus on the widely available voter turnout data, Gov Lab’s efforts have expanded to less considered, but just as impactful, metrics. While team members still logged voter turnout data, they also gathered numbers on voter registration, student government participation, protest data, alumni connections on Capitol Hill, and more.
“Many of our studies of political engagement focus on voting,” Clarke says. “But there are so many important forms of engagement beyond the ballot box. How do we recruit poll workers to make sure elections are running smoothly? What motivates someone to write a letter to the editor or join a political organization? There’s a lot of exciting work to be done here.”
Samantha Natividad ’25 is one of four Gov Lab managers working on identifying how college students engage with the political process. | Photo by Adam Atkinson
“We’ve been able to collect vast amounts of data on a topic that has been largely unexplored in the context of a contentious election,” Natividad says. “The goal has been to collect enough data to create rankings and political engagement scores. We’ve been able to learn data analysis to visualize and explain our findings.”
The data collected during the summer will be used to inform a controlled experiment, focusing on political engagement, on Lafayette’s campus this fall.
For Natividad, the impact of this research goes beyond the project’s eventual findings. “One of the most exciting things about my work this summer is being able to acquire useful skills that could help me in the future,” she says. “It’s a research project that helps you gain so much more than just another resume entry.”
Started during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Gov Lab was founded as a way to offer research opportunities during lockdown, when in-person research positions were unavailable. Clarke encouraged his team leads to take ownership of the project, not only choosing their research topic but managing student volunteers, collecting data, and other managerial tasks.
Gov Lab co-director Prof. Dylan Groves speaks to the assembled Gov Lab team as they plan the next phase of their experiment. | Photo by Adam Atkinson
After each year, the students co-author a research paper to submit to a peer-reviewed journal, an opportunity that many undergraduate students don’t have access to.
The Gov Lab team will continue its project throughout the rest of the academic year, with the next phase being an active experiment running prior to the presidential election on Nov. 5. After analyzing those results, the team aims to expand the experiment to other Pennsylvania or Patriot League campuses.
“We’re looking forward to seeing where this will go,” Natividad says. “Being able to lead such an amazing project and work with our peers has been an incredible experience.”
