Research

My research focuses on how college students, as emerging adults and pre-professionals, navigate various aspects of the world of work and their transition into working adulthood. My work also examines social and technological influences on this college-work transition processes. Below are current projects I am working on or involved in. For information about my previous research experiences, please refer to my CV.

From Erving Goffman’s (1956) book, *The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life.*

Dissertation: Presentation of Self during Job Search

This study looks at how college students learn to present themselves on their online professional profiles (e.g., LinkedIn profiles) when applying for jobs. It recognizes that writing of these profiles is not simply about listing skills and experience; it is also about understanding what employers value and deciding how to present one’s background so they stand out in the applicant pool. Therefore, the study focuses on uncovering the challenges and strategies involved in presenting oneself as a competent job candidate, with particular attention to computer science and engineering students.

Using surveys, interviews, and text analysis of actual LinkedIn profiles, this study explores how students decide which competencies to highlight, when and how to describe unrelated experiences, whether they feel pressured to hide or change parts of their life experiences and backgrounds to appeal to employers. It also examines the advice and guidance students receive from various sources including friends, family, educators, the internet, and artificial intelligence (AI) tools. The goal is to find better ways for colleges to support all students in navigating this initial phase of job application and hiring process.

The Networks and Cultural Assets Project

PI: Dr. Nidia Bañuelos | Co-PI: Dr. Ross Benbow

The Networks and Cultural Assets Project (NCA) administers survey and interview instruments to measure students’ Community Cultural Wealth (Yosso, 2005) and social networks, then provides results to local educators for academic and career development purposes. Historically, research and programming involving undergraduates of color focused on what these students lack – an approach that not only demotivates students, but also misses opportunities to support them as they build upon their existing strengths. Community Cultural Wealth (CCW) is a framework focusing on students’ assets, including skills and dispositions from their families, communities of origin, cultures, and personal experiences. For example, familial capital refers to cultural knowledge nurtured within families or fictive kin, and resistant capital is knowledge created through challenging inequality and resisting subordination.

Our survey, recently tested with students at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the University of Texas System, combines measures of different forms of CCW with personal network analysis adapted from previous work (Burt, 1984; Sablan, 2019). This instrument shows how students’ CCW is nurtured in their relationships both on and off campus and reveals connections between students’ CCW and measures of interest to career development professionals (e.g., work volition, work values). Our study team also conducted semi-structured interviews with a subset of survey participants to better understand those relationships and experiences that have the greatest impact on their CCW, career trajectories, aspirations, and resilience.