My name is Mattias Brohl, and I am a rising third year undergraduate Psychology student at the University of Kansas. I interned at the LRF Institute for the Public Understanding of Risk (IPUR) for two months, between July and August 2024. Whilst I was there, I had an amazing experience, not only exploring my research interests and honing my skills, but also exploring a different culture and getting to form part of a very talented team.
After graduation, I plan on pursuing a PhD in Psychology. Therefore, it was of utmost importance to me that I received a research position during my internship abroad. I am highly interested in identity and how the sense of self develops, and communication is a big part of that process. So, when IPUR came onto my radar, I jumped at the opportunity to gain experience researching risk communication.
The first project I worked on surrounded gaining insight on how risk communication is evaluated. An important factor in risk communication is whether the communication was successful in the first place. This is a difficult metric to measure, as there are many factors at play and many evaluations tend to be surface level. To solve this, IPUR decided to develop new ways to measure risk communication. In order to begin, we first have to understand how risk communication is evaluated. To aid in this research, I conducted a literature on food and natural hazard risk, evaluating what techniques researchers used to measure the success of their risk communication as well as how effective these techniques were.
The second project I worked on was my case study. I decided to research immigration, specifically in Spain. As of recently, there has been a rise in anti-immigration sentiment around all of Europe, with many fears surrounding immigrants taking jobs. Yet, experts show that immigration is often extremely beneficial for a country’s economy and many of the public’s fears are misplaced. I chose Spain to explore this topic as the country has kept an ambivalent opinion on immigration both through times of great economic success and failure. My case study focused on why anti-immigration sentiment did not rise in Spain between 1985-2018, and whether these findings can be applicable to other countries. I believe my case study perfectly encapsulates how universal risk communication is. Oftentimes when I thought about risk, I tended towards being very limited in my scope, focusing more so on imminent life or death risk, not realising how broad the field is. This experience gave me a new appreciation for the importance of risk communication.
Throughout my time at IPUR, I had an amazing time not only exploring interesting research topics, but getting to know the team as well. Dr Olivia Jensen was incredibly supportive, helping me find my research topic and supporting me with materials such as books and articles. Beyond that, she demonstrated first-hand what it meant to be a leader, not only with me but with the rest of the team. She was always incredibly receptive to ideas and always made sure everyone felt comfortable and included in the work environment. My favorite part of the day was always the team lunches, as we would sit down and discuss a myriad of topics. These lunches were incredibly fruitful – not only for giving me many research ideas, but also by giving me experiences which deepened my exploration of Singapore.
I was able to visit the Esplanade theater and experience a live orchestra, I was able to attend a concert before National Day, and I was given so many new viewpoints that gave me a whole new perspective on Singapore. While interning, do your best to get to know the team, as they are all incredibly kind and generous and gave me opportunities I would have never experienced otherwise.
IPUR has been an incredible place to conduct my internship. I was given creative freedom to explore my research interests, given tools to hone and improve my research skills, and was introduced to an amazing research team. I am incredibly thankful for my experience and excited for the opportunities that arose from my internship.