Tracy Weener '26 wins North American Taiwan Studies Association award

Tracy Weener '26 is the winner of the North American Taiwan Studies Association 2024 undergraduate paper competition.  Tracy is majoring in Quantitative Social Science (QSS) and began work on her paper, "Conjoint Analysis of the 2024 Taiwanese Presidential Election," in November 2023, spending the winter in Taiwan.  Tracy's advisors on her research project were QSS Assistant Professor Herbert Chang and Mitsui Professor of Government Yusaku Horiuchi, who taught Tracy in QSS 17/GOVT 16: Data Visualization during Spring 2023.

In her research, Tracy sought to understand policy trade-offs held by Taiwanese voters, over issues such as housing inequality, cross-strait affairs, energy, education reform, and long-term medical care. She finds attitudes toward cross-strait affairs and nuclear energy as the most divisive in Taiwan, which also predicts susceptibility to US-skeptical misinformation. Tracy also finds shifting attitudes toward foreign governments amongst the youngest voters in Taiwan.

Tracy, who is originally from Boxford, Massachusetts, will be presenting her paper on the 2024 Taiwanese Presidential Election this coming June at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice of the City University of New York.

QSS congratulates Tracy on her achievement!