Undergrads join Institute research projects as part of Susan Heck Internship

The Clayman Institute for Gender Research offers a dynamic and life-changing summer internship to Stanford University undergraduates. This summer, students had the option to sign on as student research assistants for ongoing Clayman Institute projects related to #MeToo and gender-based violence, under the mentorship of Research Director Bethany Nichols. In addition to research, the students participated in Gender 101, an education and discussion forum led by Postdoctoral Fellow Genevieve Smith. They capped their summer experience with presentations to the Clayman Institute community. Here, in their own words, the 2026 Susan Heck Interns reflect on their work and experiences.

Zaina

My name is Zaina, and I’m a rising senior majoring in International Relations. This summer, I was brought on to work on a letter archives project at Stanford's Clayman Institute, focused on letters sent to Christine Blasey Ford after her testimony at Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing. The project asks how technology and media fundamentally shaped what the #MeToo movement could be.

I dove headfirst into the research, analyzing letters, finding themes, categorizing responses. But I realized that to do justice to this work, I needed to understand the people behind it, starting with Dr. Ford herself. So I read her book. It gave me insight I hadn't expected: I could never fully do justice to her story, or anyone's. Ford wrote about the complexities of letting someone else tell your story for you. Being a central figure in the movement didn't make her a transcendent symbol, untouched by being human, but it also didn't make the accusations against her true. That tension taught me the empathy my work demanded. I wanted to protect the letter writers' anonymity, honor their privacy and their concerns, while still ensuring their words were preserved. Because these stories deserve to be maintained, they deserve to be heard. 

The letters also taught me something about what #MeToo actually accomplished. The movement amplified voices, but that didn't mean the women writing to us were suddenly being believed. Some of the letters came from women in their sixties and seventies, describing experiences they had never told anyone in their entire lives. Reading them, I understood that what had changed for these women wasn't belief but the permission to talk about it. For the first time, they had the freedom to say what happened to them and have someone listen.

I came into the Clayman Institute with genuine curiosity, not entirely sure what I would find. What stayed with me most were the smaller moments, like sitting on the patio with my coworkers, a mentor pulling up a chair to join us, conversations drifting from research into everything else. Slowly, I realized how personally invested everyone around me was in the work they were doing; being surrounded by that kind of investment made me think differently about what it might mean to do this kind of work myself.

I am immensely grateful to have had the opportunity to dedicate my time to researching something I was so passionate about. It made me think about what it might mean to be an academic, or to get more involved in spaces I had always been curious about but never explored. I cherish these past few months, and it has been an honor to have so much support along the way.

Bianca

My name is Bianca Maria Ivan (she/her), and I’m a rising sophomore at Stanford University from Romania, planning to major in economics with minors in sociology and human rights. My journey with the Clayman Institute for Gender Research started during spring quarter of my freshman year when I joined as a research assistant. I had never done formal research under a supervisor before, and I wanted to challenge myself and explore new ways of tackling social issues. I continued my work over the summer as part of the Susan Heck Internship cohort, an experience that strengthened my passion and curiosity for gender-related research. 

This summer, I worked primarily on a research project examining how legal mechanisms in the United States, such as non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) and arbitration agreements, silence survivors and, in some cases, embolden perpetrators in cases of workplace harassment. I worked under the supervision of Dr. Bethany Nichols. I contributed to creating a database containing lawyer contacts from California, New York, and Texas, and conducted outreach to them in order to arrange qualitative interviews. By the end of the summer, we successfully interviewed 10 lawyers from these states. We are now in the process of analyzing the data and findings in order to understand the legal processes that survivors of workplace harassment must navigate. Furthermore, to enrich our understanding of this issue, I read The Price of Justice: Money and the Limits of Sexual Violence Lawsuits by Benjamin R. Weiss, assistant professor of sociology at Occidental College. 

As part of the program, myself and two other interns had the opportunity to take a class taught by Dr. Genevieve Smith, postdoctoral research fellow at the Institute. The class, Gender 101, was one of my favorite moments of the internship. We were able to tackle important issues and build a foundation in feminist theory: from the difference between sex and gender, intersectionality to technofeminism. Some of my favorite reads were “Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center” by bell hooks, “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics” by Kimberlé Crenshaw and "Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses" by Chandra Talpade Mohanty. The best sign that something is changing your perspective and understanding of the world is when you leave the classroom with more questions than answers, with a heightened ambition to challenge feminist paradigms and feeling inspired by the discussion. This is exactly what Gender 101 did for me.

Overall, Clayman created a sense of community and support that extended beyond the physical office (the beautiful house and the beloved patio where we interns gathered) into our lives outside of work. I grew closer to my fellow cohort members and learned something new every day, often without even seeking it out. I want to especially thank Dr. Alison Dahl Crossley, Dr. Bethany Nichols, and Jessica Lopez for supporting us during these 10 weeks and ensuring that our experience was meaningful and transformative.

Now, at the end of this internship program, I feel more confident in myself and am convinced that feminist work must continue every day. The Clayman Institute is the oldest gender research institute in the country, and we have a responsibility to honor the work of the feminist scholars who came before us.

Rosario

My name is Rosario Chávez (she/ her) and I am a rising junior majoring in sociology. The Susan Heck internship was my first role as a research assistant. It has been an amazing experience in helping me to explore my academic interests as well. I am interested in learning about gender based violence, particularly in Latin America. My interests also include the study of the family and how partnerships and their dynamics have evolved over time. 

My research this summer involved supporting the Clayman Institute's current study, which explores Covid-19's impact on domestic violence survivors' experiences and help-seeking practices. I assisted with revisions to the study’s manuscript, which discusses the experiences of survivors and providers with domestic violence during Covid-19, ensuring that the manuscript accurately represented their words. Support toward the manuscript also included the revision and organization of citations throughout the paper. I am also supporting this project’s creation of a white paper by analyzing this study’s interview transcripts for themes relating to intersectionality. 

Additionally, with the guidance of my mentor, Bethany Nichols, I performed a review of two books that have made valuable contributions to the understanding of survivorship: The Politics of Surviving: How Women Navigate Domestic Violence and Its Aftermath (Paige L. Sweet) and Enduring Violence: Ladina Women’s Lives in Guatemala (Cecilia Menjívar). These books describe survivors’ experiences with domestic violence and the structural barriers that survivors face when seeking or receiving help from providers or those in their personal network. 

Throughout the internship I, along with my intern cohort, have also supported redaction of social media comments as part of a developing project on the #MeToo movement. 

This internship has taught me so many valuable lessons and best practices when conducting research. Through my weekly meetings with Dr. Nichols and everyday conversations with my wonderful co-interns, I’ve learned so much about their experiences and perspectives on gender research. I am grateful to my mentor Bethany Nichols, our internship coordinator Jessica Lopez, our Gender 101 instructor Genevieve Smith, and everyone at the Clayman Institute for their support this summer. They have positively shaped my internship in so many ways and infinitely deepened my interest in gender studies.