Alissa Ji

Alissa Ji is a recent graduate from Yale University, where she received a BA in Statistics & Data Science and Economics.

Hailing from the suburbs of Atlanta, she is interested in technology policy, data journalism, and affordable housing. Alissa has interned for the National Center for Health Statistics, a federal statistical agency, and Bain & Company, a management consulting firm. She has also conducted independent research on federal housing programs for AAPI Data, an organization that publishes policy research and demographic data on AAPI communities. In her free time, Alissa enjoys playing Ultimate Frisbee, doing miniature crosswords, and re-watching Studio Ghibli movies.

Alissa and Samantha have teamed up. Their research as JURIST Digital Scholars will seek to understand the public's perception of the US Supreme Court. The news media play a critical role in shaping the public's knowledge of the court, but studies demonstrate that press coverage is oftentimes limited in scope and quality. Because JURIST serves as a unique non-mass media source of legal news, Samantha and Alissa hope to use the past two decades of its Supreme Court coverage to gauge trends in reporting and reader interest in and engagement with articles related to the court. Using natural language processing methods, they will investigate changes in Supreme Court coverage in the following areas: case salience, coverage language in reference to partisanship and ‘game-frame,’ and reader engagement. The final product will be a digital visual essay that relies on a combination of data visualizations and written analysis to inform legal scholars, professionals, and members of the public of their findings.