Kayla Giordano Presents Political Research on Capitol Hill

2017 May 5

Each spring, the Council on Undergraduate Research hosts Posters on the Hill (POH), a highly competitive academic conference in which select undergraduate students present their research to members of Congress in Washington D.C. Only 60 students from across the country are admitted to the conference annually-an acceptance rate of approximately 10 percent.

Eastern student Kayla Giordano '17 of Salem was among this year's POH presenters. On April 26, she presented her poster titled "Going Negative: The Effects of Direct Mail Programs on Political Campaigns." Giordano majors in Political Science and Economics.

Mentored by William Salka, political science professor at Eastern, Giordano said, "My project was a research study I conducted for my senior Honors Thesis. I surveyed voters from a Connecticut Senate race to understand their attitudes and behaviors toward negative advertising by political candidates."

Speaking to the honor of being the only student from Connecticut to present at the 2017 POH conference, Giordano said: "Being able to represent Eastern was definitely rewarding. My research was on negative advertising in political campaigns, so being able to present in our nation's capital was such a great ending to a project I've been working on for two years."

Eastern has represented Connecticut six out of the 11 times it has appeared in the annual Posters on the Hill conference.