My name is Sarah Beech, and I am a Kenan Sahin Presidential Fellow and PhD student in the Department of Political Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). My research interests include American politics, political psychology, and race/ ethnicity in politics.

Before joining the MIT community, I studied public opinion of the anti-human trafficking movement (see my undergrad thesis). I graduated with honors from the University of Texas at Austin (UT) with a B.A. in psychology and a B.A. in government in May 2020. After graduating, I worked as a Research Associate for an Austin-based public affairs firm, Public Blueprint, until July 2021.

As a polysci PhD student, I hope to study the intersection of social psychology and political behavior in the context of inequality and domestic social movements. I plan on using the case study of human trafficking to answer the following questions: What drives Americans to care about human rights issues? How do racism, ethnocentrism, and other group-based implicit biases shape public support for these policy issues?

You may view my grad student webpage here.