As UML students, three young women worked together on U.S. Rep. Lori Trahan’s congressional campaign. Now that they’ve graduated, they’re working for her full time – alongside four other UMass Lowell alumni.

As a young woman in Burma, Ardeth Thawnghmung became a “pig broker,” helping neighbors get their pigs butchered in exchange for money and meat. Now the chairwoman of the Political Science Department, Prof. Thawnghmung studies how people in her native country cope with poverty.

Sixty-two percent of all millennials – Americans ages 18 to 37 – surveyed by the UMass Lowell Center for Public Opinion said they disapprove of Trump’s job performance and only 37 percent said they view the president favorably. The independent, nonpartisan poll of 1,000 adults, which has a margin of error of 3.4 percent, was conducted prior to the government shutdown.

Assistant Prof. Angélica Durán Martínez studies the politics of drug trafficking violence in Colombia and Mexico. She hopes her findings will inform public policy on illegal drugs.

Political science students looking for campaign experience have found plenty of opportunities this year in the open race for the 3rd Congressional District seat and other midterm contests. Many of them cross the border in presidential election years to work in New Hampshire, too.

Operation250, which began as a student project to combat terrorism, is the subject of a $1 million U.S. government grant to develop and evaluate its program for teaching children, teenagers, parents and educators about online safety, hate sites and terrorist recruitment tactics.

Asst. Prof. John Cluverius uses survey research to peer into the minds of voters and politicians. The political scientist and associate director of UML’s Center for Public Opinion shares his insights with students and the media.

Students got to experience democracy first hand at the 3rd Congressional District debates sponsored by UML and The Boston Globe.