About

I am a dedicated researcher with rich, practical experience of international relations and migration . Currently, I am pursuing a fully-funded Doctoral degree in Public Policy with an emphasis in Political Economy at the Sanford School of Public Policy, Duke University in Durham North Carolina. Concurrently, I work as a doctoral researcher analyzing how food insecurity impacts the mental health of children. I am also a teaching assistant for statistical analysis and microeconomic courses, where I lead discussions on statistical concepts and teaching coding in R and Stata.

As a researcher, I have significant experience in data collection, survey design, cleaning, quantitative analysis, and statistical modelling for collaborative research projects in health, climate change, political economy, and public policy. I specialize in quantitative and qualitative data analytics, with a deep understanding of econometrics, causal inference, and modeling. I hold two Bachelors degrees in Political Science and Near Eastern Studies from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, with a semester spent studying at the Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies, Jerusalem, Israel. I was the valedictorian for Political Science when I graduated from BYU. As an undergraduate student, I was part of significant research projects which began my academic career. I gave a presentation at the MPSA Conference in Chicago on how religious diversity affects attitudes towards refugees. I also was teaching assistant for quantitative analysis and comparative politics classes. 

I have also had extensive research experiences outside of academia. I have worked with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), World Bank, and the Expert Group on Refugee, IDP, and Statelessness Statistics, where I conducted comprehensive reviews on data gaps concerning migrants. I also assisted in creating technical definitions of migrant groups. I worked with the US Department of State in Melbourne, Australia where I collected data on and analyzed policy related to Australia's "Stop the Boats" policy framework. Additionally, I conducted data analysis for a major political group in Washington, D.C. which involved analyzing voter data to advise candidates for office.

If you have any questions or would like to connect, please feel free to reach out to me by email at braydon.madson@duke.edu. You can also connect and reach out to me on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/braydon-madson-b7b37318a