As a research assistant in the Sustainability and Social Change Lab, at Northeastern University, my role has been to assist in various aspects of research, including experimental design, data analysis, content analysis, literature reviews, and running studies using Python, R, and Qualtrics. One of the most interesting aspects of this project has been the opportunity to work with labor union Twitter and speech data related to climate change. This data is complex and difficult to analyze without the use of advanced data analysis techniques and programming tools.
To begin the project, Python was used to scrape Twitter and speech data from various sources related to labor unions and climate change. This involved writing custom code to extract specific pieces of information from each source and store it in a database for analysis. Once the data was aggregated, summary statistics were run and Topic Modeling was introduced to identify key themes and patterns within the data. Sentiment analysis and natural language processing was applied to the speech and Twitter data to gain a deeper understanding of the tone and content of the tweets and speeches.
Overall, this project has been incredibly rewarding and has helped me to develop my skills in data analysis, programming, and research. It’s also given me a deeper appreciation for the ways in which data can be used to shed light on important social and environmental issues.
To take a quick look at our research, check out this link.
Skills: Python and Excel