cv | Michelle Bueno Vásquez

Expected Jun 2025
Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science

Northwestern University
- {"Field of Study"=>"American Politics and Methodology"}
- Dissertation: Transnational Racial Formation and Charting a Space for Afro-Latinos
- Committee: Dr. Reuel Rogers (Chair), Dr. Alvin B. Tillery II, Dr. Chloe Thurston, Dr. James Mahoney, Dr. Danielle Clealand
Expected Sep 2024
Master's Candidate in Applied Statistics

Northwestern University
- {"Field of Study"=>"Quantitative Methodologies"}
Jun 2021
Master's in Political Science

Northwestern University
- Master's Thesis: Transnational Racial Ideologies: Raising Black Consciousness through Social Media from the U.S. to the Dominican Republic
Jun 2017
B.A. with Honors in Political Science

University of Chicago
- B.A. Thesis: The Effects of Race and Socioeconomic Status on Student Self-Perceptions, Views on Political Agency, and Future Success
- Faculty Advisor: Dr. Michael Dawson

Primary Focus
- Measure of race, ethnicity, and intersectional identity
- Political implications of racial and ethnic identity
- Qualitative and quantitative social science methodologies
- Diasporic and transnational focus on Afro-Latino communities in the U.S. and the Caribbean

2024
- APSA Dissertation Development Research Improvement Grant ($15,000)
2023
- The Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship ($28,000)
2022
- Northwestern University Council for Race and Ethnic Studies Pre-Doctoral Fellowship
2021
- Research Grant, Center for American Women in Politics ($10,000)
2020
- Research Grant, Center for the Study of Diversity and Democracy
- NatDDP Scholarship Recipient, National Dominican Day Parade
- LACS Summer Research Funding, Northwestern University
- American Political Science Association Predoctoral Diversity Fellowship
2019
- Northwestern University Graduate Fellowship

Journal Articles and Op-Eds
- Bueno Vásquez, Michelle, Yalidy Matos, and Domingo Morel. 2022. "Analysis | Afro-Latino Politicians Could Bridge the African American-Latino Divide." Washington Post.
- Bueno Vásquez, Michelle. 2022. "How the U.S. Census Ignores Afro-Latinos." Washington Post.
Books and Book Chapters
- Matos, Yalidy, Domingo Morel, and Michelle Bueno Vásquez. 2026. "Politics in Our Veins: The Rise of Dominican American Political Power in the United States." NYU Press.
- Bueno Vásquez, Michelle. "Unseen and Unheard: Highlighting the Invisible Struggles of Afro-Latinos in the United States." In Challenges and Issues Facing Marginalized Groups in the United States, edited by Maruice Mangum. Book in manuscript.

Sep 2021 - Dec 2021

Teaching Assistant, Statistical Research Methods

Northwestern University
Sep 2021 - Dec 2021

Teaching Assistant, Graduate Level Introduction to Probability and Statistics

Northwestern University
Sep 2021

Teaching Assistant, Political Science Department Math Bootcamp

Northwestern University
Jan 2021 - Mar 2021

Teaching Assistant, Race, Inequality and the Political Analysis of Public Policy

Northwestern University
Sep 2020 - Dec 2020

Teaching Assistant, African American Politics

Northwestern University
Jan 2019 - Present

Private Spanish Teacher (adult and K-12)

Spanish Evanston, Evanston, IL

Programming and Data
- R: tidyverse, ggplot2, quanteda, stm, modelsummary, broom, readxl, openxlsx, patchwork, scales.
- Python: pandas, numpy, matplotlib, plotnine, pdfplumber, pdf2image, pytesseract, PIL, pathlib, argparse, urllib.
- Data formats and outputs: CSV, Excel, RDS, PDF text extraction, OCR text, DOCX, PDF, HTML, and publication-ready figures.
Methods
- Survey analysis, statistical modeling, multinomial logistic regression, ordered logit, binary logit, OLS, and AIC model comparison.
- Text-as-data analysis, structural topic modeling, KWIC/concordance analysis, sentiment and emotion analysis, and automated qualitative coding.
- Computer vision and color measurement workflows, including face-region measurement, CIE L*a*b* color analysis, and CIEDE2000 perceptual distance.
Research Engineering
- End-to-end reproducible pipelines from raw PDFs and survey exports to cleaned datasets, model outputs, diagnostics, tables, and visualizations.
- Archival corpus construction, mixed native-text/OCR processing, automated tagging and metadata workflows, and codebook generation.