Jack Duncan Email and Phone Number

Over the summer I was a research intern with TACIR. As an intern, I worked on several projects that will be directly presented to the Tennesse General Assembly. The main project that I worked on was doing the preliminary research for a report that looks at the public policy considerations that go into building solar farms in Tennesee. I also worked on projects relating to tangible personal property tax and methods for implementing a more efficient statewide grant-management system. From this experience, I regularly interviewed and communicated with a variety of government officials and business leaders. I also was able to develop my public policy and legal research skills by conducting 50 state reviews and writing literature reviews for the reports I worked on.

As a research assistant for Dr. Chien-Fei Chen, I help in the process of writing and editing literature reviews and policy implications for issues related to sustainability and energy justice. I also assisted with finding sources, writing drafts, and managing citations with Mendeley for an extensive research proposal that was presented to the Environmental Protection Agency.

As a research assistant to Dr. Clea McNeely where I investigated how school absentee and truancy policies create educational discrepancies among minority and low-income students. I utilized NVivio software to conduct qualitative research on 40 school policy documents, where I identified and coded reoccurring themes among the documents.

As an intern I attended court on a weekly basis where I assisted attorneys with paperwork, negotiations, and interviewing clients. All of our clients lacked the means to hire a private attorney. As a result, I was able to see firsthand how public policy and our legal system impact those with a lower socioeconomic status.