SURE students examine uncertainty, misinformation

Public trust in the government is near historic lows, with social media misinformation and a divided political system leading to feelings of uncertainty. So two different Summer Undergraduate Research Experience research projects — one from the College of Business and the other from the College of Arts, Sciences and Letters — sought out data to provide more insight on concerns regarding national air pollution levels and local government transparency, respectively.

COB researchers investigated toxic emissions output during election years and a CASL team spoke with local governments about their citizen-communication outreach and election education efforts.

These projects, highlighted below, and approximately 40 others across the university’s four colleges and Mardigian Library will be featured at the Summer Undergraduate Research Experience Showcase. The Showcase takes place from 4 to 6 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 10, in the Renick University Center.

Adam Zbib, Assistant Professor of Accounting Jing Kong, Lecturer of Accounting and Finance Ahmet Tuncez
Project: Do Industrial Plants Pollute More During Uncertain Time? Political Uncertainty and Toxic Emissions

Do corporations blow with the political wind when it comes to the amount of pollution they put into the air we breathe? Senior Adam Zbib, guided by faculty mentors Jing Kong and Ahmet Tuncez, looked at Environmental Protection Agency data to assess how uncertain times like presidential election years — and, more specifically, potential shifts in policies or ideologies — affect pollution levels.

Zbib, a finance and digital marketing double major, says he heard about the SURE project in Tuncez’s corporate finance course, which he took last fall. He found the research subject about political uncertainty and its potential effects on industrial plants’ toxic emissions intriguing. “How corporations interact with the environment affects us all,” Zbib says. “As a person going into finance, profits are important. But so are people and resources.”

Kong, who developed the project idea, researches the climate change impacts of companies in relation to corporate social responsibility. Kong says the SURE topic stemmed from seeing distinct political party approaches surrounding business regulations and climate change during the 2016, 2020 and 2024 elections. For example, in 2024, Republican nominee Donald Trump spoke about removing or reducing company toxic emissions limits, claiming it would boost the economy. Democratic nominees Joe Biden and Kamala Harris wanted companies to continue reducing greenhouse gas emissions in an effort to protect public health. “The policies changed drastically when there was a leadership transition,” Kong says. “Policy changes like that can create feelings of uncertainty.” Kong wondered if times of political uncertainty affected corporate social responsibility efforts, and looking at the EPA toxic emissions data was one way to measure it. 

Sorting through publicly available EPA emissions numbers from 2016 to 2023 (2024 isn’t out yet), Zbib and his team were curious to see if the election years had any noticeable emissions-related changes. Zbib says the data indicated there is no connection between the uncertainty of the elections and changes in toxic emissions. “When comparing the numbers of the election years to the nonelection years, toxic emissions did not show a noticeable increase or decrease. There was no significant effect,” he says.

The researchers were surprised by the findings. Since pollution abatement is costly, they expected to see higher emissions numbers during times of political uncertainty. The professors say this is just a first step into this research area. In the future, Tuncez and Kong want to go beyond the numbers and investigate the factors behind these results. They also want to examine the effects of political uncertainty on toxic emissions at the state level, as well as the effects of other types of uncertainties.

The SURE project was an important step for Zbib, too. He plans to attend a business-focused graduate program and he’s confident his research experience will help him stand out. In addition to data collection and interpretation, his professors made a point to incorporate the responsible use of AI tools, such as ChatGPT, which Zbib used to efficiently summarize and compare information from lengthy articles. He wants other students to know that the College of Business offers research opportunities — and he encourages them to get involved. “We have great professors and mentors on campus and I 100% recommend getting involved with SURE,” he says. “I’m proud of the work we did and I know it better prepared me for what’s next.”

Amany Alhashidi and Associate Professor of Political Science Vadym Pyrozhenko
Project: What is the government hiding? Examining the challenges of communicating practical administrative knowledge to citizens

When voters feed their ballots into the scanner, they expect the paper to go in and have their vote counted. But sometimes unexpected things happen. For example, in 2024, some Michigan polling places experienced scanner errors — and the culprit was something in the air. Literally.

The ballot paper, sitting out in humid conditions, made the paper too thick for the scanners’ calibrated systems. “It was an unexpected, uncommon situation. Government workers and volunteers were doing their best while dealing with an unforeseen challenge. But from the outside — especially with the rise of skepticism in our election process — it could look a certain way if you didn’t have knowledge about the situation,” says Associate Professor of Political Science Vadym Pyrozhenko.

Pyrozhenko and junior Amany Alhashidi are looking into “uncommon situations” and what local governments are doing to educate their citizens when those arise. “The contribution of this research is that we look at the importance of communicating to the citizens and sharing knowledge about election administration processes,” Pyrozhenko says. “Since I teach people going into public administration, I wanted to understand how administrators — in particular, city clerks — handle the elections process and articulate their knowledge to others.” City clerks are a vital liaison between city government and the public, Pyrozhenko points out. They manage elections, facilitate communication, ensure transparency through access to public records, and connect citizens with their elected officials and municipal services.

As a general framework, public administration is grounded in regulations and rules, but those aren’t able to capture all the situations that the employees encounter, says Alhashidi, a biological sciences major. The researchers wanted to know: What happens when something falls outside of standard routine procedures?

For the SURE project, Alhashidi conducted interviews with several city clerks throughout southeast Michigan to learn more about how they handle elections. She developed three main interview prompts. She asked the clerks to tell her about uncommon situations they’ve encountered, whether they reached out to other city clerks to discuss uncommon situations in an effort to streamline knowledge, and how they communicated that knowledge to the general public.

From the interviews, the research duo is compiling a list of uncommon situations — like the ballot paper swelling — and the ways city clerks navigated them. They plan to publish their findings in an effort to help bridge knowledge gaps regarding elections. “Elections are complex. There will always be somewhat of a knowledge gap because election policies and technology change, but we can try to lessen it through sharing knowledge. It’s important to talk to our city clerks to learn what they are seeing and experiencing,” Pyrozhenko says. “They have an expertise that most people don’t.” 

When Alhashidi interviewed the clerks —  most interviews took place in person — she gained insight into the different communication styles of each city clerk’s office depending on staff resources and the communication preferences of their residents. For example, cities with a younger-aged population placed more focus on online outreach. Many city clerks utilized a combination of outreach efforts to get information out to residents. They hosted community question-and-answer sessions at public libraries, responded to posts on social media and sent out newsletters and postcards. The cities with minimal resources had the city clerk handling all of the citizen communication efforts by themselves. Alhashidi also discovered that city clerks often pool their knowledge and ask each other about uncommon situations through digital tools like private online platforms and specialized software, by reaching out to professional association contacts or through contracting neighboring city clerk offices. Even though the SURE program has concluded for the year, Alhashidi and Pyrozhenko will continue with their research by conducting additional interviews to gather more information.

Alhashidi, who plans to be a dentist, discovered the research opportunity by looking through a list of available SURE projects. She currently works as a dental assistant and sees connections between this project and the work she does. “All fields have uncommon situations,” she says. “The medical field is very formalized, like working in a government office. There are medical protocols to follow and we learn those in the classroom and in books, but every patient is different, so uncommon situations come up. When they do, this research is giving me insight on how to communicate clearly with my coworkers and patients.”

Alhashidi, like many people, has heard concerns about election tampering and saw social media posts about government conspiracies. But after working on the research, she feels confident in answering the question in the project title, “What is the government hiding?”

“There was no evidence of hidden information. Our research shows the government employees in southeastern Michigan are working very hard to get information out to educate the public while also combating misinformation. They are doing a lot with very little resources because they are mindful of taxpayer dollars,” she says. “If you have questions for them, reach out to ask. If you are concerned about the election process, volunteer to help work at the polls. That way you can see the process yourself while also helping your community.”

Check out a few more articles about projects focused on treatments for renal cancer (CASL), the impacts of the Affordable Care Act on health care disparities (College of Education, Health and Human Services) and solutions to AI programming challenges (College of Engineering and Computer Science).

Story by Sarah Tuxbury