Michelle Sawwan, MA

Michelle Sawwan serves as a Research Associate for the Center for Civic Innovation. Drawing on her background in the social sciences and community engagement work, she facilitates ongoing partnerships with local stakeholders, and helps the CCI team collect and analyze data for two interdisciplinary research projects on the topics of food access and effective education in STEM. Michelle obtained her Master of Arts in Sociology with a minor in Peace Studies from the University of Notre Dame before going on to conduct applied research and data analysis as an Innovation Fellow at enFocus, Inc. As a graduate student, she examined how prior education and job status affects the political behavior of working professionals in Lebanon. She also studied the network structure of public, private, and civil stakeholders in regional and global scenario planning around issues like climate change, security, and economic development.