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Toine Paulissen
Toine Paulissen is a Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) PhD Fellow for Fundamental Research based at the KU Leuven. His research, under supervisor prof. dr. Bart Maddens and co-supervisor prof. dr. Steven Van Hecke, focuses on party behavior in referendum campaigns, particularly from a political finance perspective. Other research interests include comparative and European politics, digital campaigning, and campaign messaging. He obtained a Master in Western Literature, as well as a Master in Comparative and International Politics, from the KU Leuven, and is an alumnus of the Europaeum Scholars Programme, a two-year multi-disciplinary, multi-university, and multi-locational policy and leadership course. At SPIRe, he will work with prof. dr. David Farrell and look to collaborate with other researchers from the Centre for Democracy Research as well as the Connected_Politics Lab.
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Laura Young
Laura Young (she/her) is an Evaluation Associate at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in Chicago, Illinois. She joined the Foundation in 2005, working in Population and Reproductive Health, Global Migration and Human Mobility, Girls’ Secondary Education in Developing Countries, and the Master’s in Development Practice initiative. As such, she managed all aspects of the Foundation’s internal proposal review and grant approval process.
In 2014 Laura transitioned to the Evaluation and Learning team where she develops and manages visual content and data visualizations working across all programmatic strategies. She supports the Foundation’s external evaluation and learning partners in data analysis as well as all programs teams’ internal strategy reviews with senior leadership and the Board of Directors.
Laura manages the Foundation’s private, internal website called TheLoop, a visually driven site used to depict theories of change and strategic pathways to change and progress toward impact. TheLoop is the primary vehicle for internal discussions of strategies within a program and is central to MacArthur’s continuous process of planning, execution, and reflection on the implementation of its work.
With a BA in both fine art and art history from Lake Forest College, Laura spent 15 years prior to joining MacArthur working in arts administration at several arts organizations including the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, San Francisco Opera, and Houston Grand Opera.
During her time at UCD, Laura plans to take courses in geographic information systems (GIS) and spatial analysis. Her goal is to learn to create custom, intricate, layered, and interactive maps using ArcGIS to better tell the Foundation’s stories. She aims to unlock new analytic capability so as to provide an important piece of knowledge for MacArthur’s Evaluation and Learning team and program teams to better understand patterns, relationships, reach, and impact on wide-ranging complex issues.
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Milena Petrovic
Melina is a PhD candidate from Tulane University.
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