Welcome! I’m Jessica Persano, a Predoctoral Research Fellow at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. I work with Professor Andrew Hall on projects that use large-scale datasets to study American politics and political economy.

Before coming to Stanford, I graduated summa cum laude from UCLA with a B.A. in Political Science (Honors) and a B.A. in Geography/Environmental Studies. My honors thesis, The Determinants of Policy Representation: Evaluating the Role of Policy Type in the U.S. States, examined how policy type and political salience shape democratic responsiveness. I also worked as a research assistant for Professor Daniel Thompson, contributing to projects on local election administration. Alongside my research in political science, I collaborated on projects in public health at UCLA’s Fielding School of Public Health, where I investigated barriers to post-assault care and accessibility of resources for students with disabilities.

My broader research interests include election administration, political representation, public policy, and data science. I am especially interested in how institutions shape democratic responsiveness and in applying rigorous quantitative methods to questions of representation and policy outcomes. I hope to pursue a Ph.D. in political science and build a career in academia, dedicating my life to teaching and research.

Education

• Stanford University Graduate School of Business — Non-Matriculated Graduate Student as a Pre-doctoral Research Fellow (2025-Present)
• University of California, Los Angeles — B.A. in Political Science (Honors), B.A. in Geography/Environmental Studies (2021–2025)