Our student highlights showcase the journeys of IDEA students, from first-year learners with big questions to researchers making meaningful contributions. Through paid positions, guided mentorship, and real democratic projects, IDEA students learn, publish, and lead.

At IDEA, our unique strength is our ability to bring the diverse skill sets of students, particularly graduate students, to bear on real-world political problems. Just as democracy thrives when it includes more than "the usual suspects," so does political science. Whether you see yourself as a comparativist or an Americanist, a computer scientist or a methods scholar, there's a place for you here. If you're curious about graduate study, IDEA is a place to get hands-on experience doing research that matters.

This summer, three Ohio State students are bringing their work to the heart of American democracy. Elise Britton, Maxwell Kiernan, and Ryan Mahoney have been selected as the 2026 IDEA Summer Democracy Fellows. From June through August, they will be embedded in congressional offices in Washington, DC, where they will help shape the day-to-day work of federal lawmaking while bringing IDEA's research and democratic innovation tools to Capitol Hill.