Shelveen Ratnam

Communications & Public Affairs Coordinator at the California Student Aid Commission

Sacramento, California, United States

About

I have a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from the University of California, San Diego. I am experienced in working on, as well as managing, voter engagement and legislative advocacy campaigns, and have a qualitative and quantitative research background. I am currently the External Relations Associate for the California Student Aid Commission.

Experience

  • California Student Aid Commission (Full-time · 5 yrs 5 mos)
    • Communications & Public Affairs Coordinator
      Mar 2023 - Present · 3 yrs 5 mos

    • Public Affairs Associate
      Mar 2021 - Mar 2023 · 2 yrs 1 mo

  • Undergraduate Research Fellow at U.S. Immigration Policy Center at UC San Diego
    Jul 2019 - Jan 2021 · 1 yr 7 mos

    As an Undergraduate Research Fellow, I support research across four main pillars of U.S. immigration policy: admissions, border security, interior immigration enforcement, and immigrant integration. My duties have included survey conceptualization, survey research design, and utilizing statistical software (STATA) to clean data, prepare data, and analyze data using descriptive statistics. In addition to research assistance, I have been given leadership roles, most notably as a project manager on a large-scale voter engagement project. • Project co-manager, RISE Together Fund (RTF) voter engagement program. The USIPC provides data analytics, technical assistance, and support to two dozen non-profit grantees that run voter engagement programs across the country. Coming off a successful Florida Primary Campaign, in which I worked as a phone banker for a get-out-the-vote (GOTV) field program in collaboration with the Florida Immigrant Coalition (FLIC), I was chosen to co-lead USIPC’s work with RISE Together Fund grantees. My responsibilities include, but are not limited to, helping many non-profits conceptualize, design, and implement their first voter engagement programs. • Project manager, survey of Asian American and Pacific Islander voters in North Carolina. In partnership with the North Carolina Asian Americans Together (NCAAT), I managed a first-of-its-kind survey of AAPI voters in North Carolina. This included training a large team of phone bankers and successfully calling a universe of nearly 10,000 voters. Publication is here. • Project manager, survey of Sikh voters. In collaboration with the Sikh Coalition, I managed another first-of-its-kind survey of Sikh voters across 8 crucial swing states for the 2020 General Election: Michigan, Pennsylvania, Florida, Georgia, Ohio, Arizona, North Carolina, and Nevada. This project allowed me to enhance my managerial experience, as it included rigorous cultural competency training and oversight.

  • ERC Provost Office Project Assistant at University of California San Diego
    Feb 2018 - Jun 2020 · 2 yrs 5 mos

    In my role as a Project Assistant for the Eleanor Roosevelt College (ERC), I represented the Provost Office on a day-to-day basis. I collaborated on several projects that helped illuminate numerous issue areas (activism, humanitarianism, international refugee crisis, American legal system, etc.). • Assisted in planning and marketing ERC events containing social, civil, and international discourse hosted by the Provost Office. One such event was the ERC 30th Anniversary celebration with Emmanuel Jal, a former child soldier turned activist and hip-hop musician. Another was the Defamation Experience, an interactive play that examines how the U.S. legal system interacts with issues of race, class, religion, and gender. • Trusted with and responsible for administrative work involving confidential information. Maintained our website and managed day-to-day operations. • Acted as a liaison between several departments across the university (Residence Life, Student Affairs, Academic Advising Office, International House, College Business Office, Office of Undergraduate Education, and Provost Offices).

  • Research Apprentice at Department of Political Science - UC San Diego
    Jan 2019 - Jun 2019 · 6 mos

    As a Research Apprentice, I collaborated with a doctoral candidate to conduct research on his project on the morality within politics. My duties consisted of writing grant applications, analyzing relevant literature on the topic, drafting surveys, and analyzing gathered data using R (statistical software). • Researched and analyzed dozens of scholarly literature on political ideology, political and social psychology, sociology, and morality. • Collaborated on survey design. Cleaned, prepared, and analyzed the data using descriptive statistics and statistical modeling (regression analysis) on R.

  • Tutor at Florin High School
    Jun 2015 - Jul 2015 · 2 mos

    • Tutored a class of geometry, worked one-on-one with students to provide extra support.