08 Nov What Brought Me Here: Sophia Peterson

Sophia Peterson joined Connect the Dots in February 2022 as a Project Assistant before becoming a full time Community Engagement Associate in June 2023. She graduated with a degree in Political Sociology from Swarthmore College in 2023. During her time at Swarthmore, she worked as a research assistant for the Politics and Equal Participation Lab. She leverages her experience in sociology research methods to provide data analysis and reporting expertise on projects. She prioritizes listening to communities and effectively communicating their experiences by translating data into actionable insights.

My path to joining Connect the Dots began in my junior year at Swarthmore College. I was a political science major, but had grown disenchanted with the way that political science decentralized the average person, and instead focused on the decision makers in politics or large scale theories about global superpowers. Increasingly, I found myself thinking about ordinary individuals in my political science classes — how did they react to or think about policy, particularly decisions that impact them?

Swarthmore College’s Clothier Tower in Fall

These kinds of questions led me to switch my major to political sociology and join the Politics and Equal Participation Lab as a research assistant. This Lab focused on how poor and working class people from around Pennsylvania related to and thought about electoral politics. It was an amazing experience that introduced me to the practicalities of collecting and analyzing data. The nuts and bolts work of research was something that I found deeply compelling and endlessly fascinating. Craving more data analysis experiences, I started looking for internships. This is how I discovered Connect the Dots!

I was drawn to Connect the Dots because my interest in the thoughts of everyday people on policy issues aligned with Connect the Dots’ mission — connecting diverse voices to decision-making. I was also excited about the prospect of being able to do data analysis in another real world setting, particularly on qualitative data, like the open-ended responses from comment cards, post-it notes, interviews, conversations, and creative engagement activities.

I thought I would graduate from Swarthmore and enter a Sociology PhD program, but my work doing data analysis and reporting on the Framing the Future of the Roundhouse project as an intern showed me that I can experience what I love about sociology research without having to enter a graduate program. The Framing the Future of the Roundhouse project was focused on having the community inform the future of the former Police Headquarters in Philadelphia, known as the Roundhouse. I had the opportunity to design the database where hundreds of pieces of data were stored (art, social media comments, drawings, voicemails, and more). I oversaw the coding of all of the data and assisted in writing the Framing the Future of the Roundhouse Report, which presented our findings.

Sophia in Jersey City in October 2023, installing a temporary curb bump out!

Analyzing the Framing the Future of the Roundhouse data felt the same as the work in the Politics and Equal Participation Lab. The data feels so precious – these are the stories and lived experiences, the hopes and dreams and thoughts of real people. It’s a position of trust to be the person who is taking all of those individuals’ responses and turning it into something digestible and actionable for a project team. Working on the Framing the Future of the Roundhouse project hit all the highs of what I love about research and data analysis.

Now, as a full time member of Connect the Dots, I’m excited to be able to participate in even more projects and see more parts of the engagement process. It’s been awe inspiring to read, hear, and see how deeply people care about and treasure their communities and their community spaces. Being able to help community members share their expertise and lived experiences and shape the communities they live in is a true privilege.