Welcome, I’m Nitheesha!

Hello! I am the Senior Research Specialist in the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance (NCGG) at Princeton University. At NCGG I serve as a data science consultant. Previously, I received my PhD in Political Science and Social Data Analytics at Pennsylvania State University. I also served as a Research Associate and Adjunct Researcher at the RAND Corporation. My broader research addresses key questions regarding model improvement and evaluation, inequality, and the risks and opportunities of AI/emergent technologies in modern American politics. I apply a variety of computational social science methods in my academic research. My methodological interests include machine learning, natural language processing, network analysis, causal inference and time series analysis.

I previously received a Bachelor of Arts with Honors in Economics with a minor in French at the University of Connecticut. My Economics Honors thesis investigates the evolution of human trafficking in the global South. I went on to receive a Master of Arts in Sociology at Stony Brook University. At SBU I developed an interest in media and political discourse which evolved into my Sociology Master’s thesis which examines the role of satire in political framing. I later received my Master of Arts in Political Science at Pennsylvania State University and for this thesis I used machine learning and text analysis to examine how state legislators’ identity mediates the abuse they receive online. The through line of all my academic pursuits is my commitment to evaluating systemic inequality using rigorous methods.

Please contact me at nitheesha.nakka@princeton.edu for any further questions and inquires, thank you for visiting!