Academic Background and Interests

Research Interests

  • Quantitative political methodology

  • Sustainable International development in Africa and Asia (Climate change policy with a focus on food security and disaster management)

  • International affairs (African and Asian Affairs)

  • Public opinion research

  • Comparative Politics

Education

  • Master of Arts (2023) in Political Science with a specialisation in Comparative Politics from Western University, Canada

  • Bachelor of Arts (2022) with an Honours Specialisation in International Relations from Western University, Canada

Graduate Course work

  • Quantitative Methodology (Regression & Causal inference, Maximum Likelihood Estimation, and Bayesian statistical methods)

  • Research Design

  • Comparative Politics

  • Qualitative Research Methods

  • Voting and Elections

Industry skills

  • Data Visualisation

  • Data analysis

  • Statistical modelling

  • geospatial analysis

  • Research

  • Presentations for a variety of audiences

  • Teaching

Research Experience

Research Assistant

Department of Geography at Western University/ May 2020 – September 2020

  • Supported satellite data collection, data entry, and GIS (Geographic Information System) data processing ongoing collaborative agricultural projects.

  • Remotely assisted in writing literature reviews and reports.

Graduate Teaching Assistant

Department of Political Science at Western University / September 2022 - April 2023

  • Completed the Teaching Assistant Training Program offered by Western University’s Center for Teaching and Learning,

  • Lead 15 tutorials for about 160 students throughout the academic year, graded over 200 assignments, organised writing workshops, and offered mentorship to interested students.

Teaching Experience

Research Analyst

Leadership and Democracy Lab / January 2022 - September 2022

  • Conducted research to investigate how fossil fuel divestment in two of Canada’s largest pension funds, the Canada Pension Plan Fund (CPP) and the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDQP) shapes and impacts public opinion and the long-term decision of two carbon-focused industry players, British Petroleum and TC Energy.

  • Analyzed the importance of the role of leadership in both companies, investigated whether or not the pension firms’ decisions to divest from fossil fuels have had a significant impact on the companies’ sustainability initiatives, and researched potential risks for energy companies that depend on or diverge from investments in fossil fuels.

  • Collaboratively compiled and published a group policy paper on our findings for the 2022 issue of the Leadership and Democracy Lab.

Research Asistant

Consortium on Electoral Democracy (C-DEM) at Western University – London, Ontario

  • Applied R programming and data analysis skills to manipulate datasets, create visualizations, and analyze provincial election survey data to compile five publicly available summary reports on the 2020 and 2021 provincial elections.

  • Received quantitative research methodology and survey design training at the MapleMeth, regional methodology conference to engage in current and upcoming quantitative research produced by North American Scholars.

Publications and Programming Projects

The AfCFTA: The Africa WE wantThe AfCFTA: The Africa WE want
bulb photographybulb photography

Who is Islamophobic, and why? Measuring and explaining negative ingroup attitudes towards Muslims in Canada.

Summary: This paper applies a Bayesian Multi-level model to examine the utility of the intergroup contact, threat perception, and neo-secularism conceptual frameworks in explaining negative attitudes toward Muslims in Canada.

Public Presentation: "Exploring Negative Attitudes Towards Muslims in the 2015 Canadian Federal Election Campaign." at the MapleMeth regional methodology conference at Western University

Past publications

Research

GIS Projects

Geospatial analysis projects

Here are a few projects I have created using QGIS!

Email:
isavani2@uwo.ca
inaara.savani@gmail.com