Eli Coustan
I'm a sophomore at Duke studying public policy and computer science interested in how data and technology impact people.
My interest in this work began during the pandemic, when my grandparents struggled to find COVID-19 vaccine appointments. In response, I built a site that aggregated vaccine appointment availability across Illinois.
More recently, at the Partnership for Public Service, I developed and evaluated employee engagement surveys, fact-checked public facing research products, and published analyses of civil service policy cited by the Senate Appropriations Committee, The New York Times, and TIME Magazine.
At Duke, I’ve spent the past three semesters conducting research in the Technology Policy Lab. My work includes a published book chapter tracing the evolution of digital divide research and an ongoing project analyzing news and social media discourse about the benefits and harms of data centers. I also serve as treasurer of the debate team and policy co-director of Duke Cyber, where my teammates and I won the Atlantic Council's Cyber 9/12 Strategy Challenge in March.