Julia Yingling, Timothy Dwight '22

Redefining Research

By Lauren Chong

Research, in the eyes of many undergraduates, seems to involve a convoluted and complex process of finding an established lab, cold emailing professors, and finally receiving that coveted “yes” from an interested professor. However, Julia Yingling (TD ’22), demonstrates that research can start anywhere -- from a sparked interest in a class to an independent deeper dive into the topic. “There’s no right way to research: I kind of just fell into it. There’s not one right way or even a few right ways to go about doing it,” Yingling added. 

What started out as a class assignment within the Ethnicity, Race, and Migration department called Extreme and Radical Right Movements turned into a full-blown research project on the deradicalization of the extreme right for Yingling. Through the testimonies of three women who have escaped white supremacy organizations, Yingling identified underlying similarities between these women and analyzed their behavior and beliefs that ultimately guided their decision to leave.

“It was so frustrating to me that there was no real definition of the radical right,” Yingling told me. She added that the definition of what constitutes “the radical right” differs widely across groups and even countries, and a lot of these groups are male-centered groups. However, Yingling describes that, while doing research for a paper, she came across a book about how women played a big role in white supremacy groups. What intrigued her the most was the establishment of a “feminist white-supremacy group” because she wondered how they can have both progressive and regressive ideas.

After the COVID-19 pandemic hit Yale and sent many students home, Yingling decided to take this opportunity to apply for the Timothy Dwight Richter Fellowship, which is a grant awarded to students participating in independent research and study. “You have to apply to the Richter Fellowship, and they will award you money based on your proposed budget. I personally used the grant to fund the journals and online subscriptions I used for research,” Yingling said.

For Yingling, her research interest sparked from a personal experience with white supremacy. Having grown up in Ohio near Detroit, Michigan, she found that many people from her community believed in white supremacy. 

She describes that “they seem to be trapped in this narrow-minded way of thinking.” For example, in 2016 when conspiracy theories started to pop up, Yingling described that she saw an increase of people in her hometown subscribing to these theories, and this realization broke her heart. For her, this is why studying the deradicalizing process is especially important.

Yingling, who has hopes to pursue a Ph.D in Ethnicity, Race, and Migration, found this research opportunity especially insightful with hopes to become a research analyst in the public sector. In the future, she plans on specializing in the deradicalization process and its connection to gender and engender theory. 

“The deradicalization process is especially important, but it’s not really studied in an academic setting. It can be a solution to the problem in the first place. There are still queer people and people of color who are tied to the white-supremacy, which seems contradictory but it exists,” Yingling noted.  

Advice that she would give to incoming first-years is the importance of taking the time to explore. As someone who initially came into Yale as a neuroscience major, she fell in love with the ER&M major after its iconic introductory class Introduction to ER&M. Initially, it didn’t seem like there were as many research opportunities in this field compared to STEM, which seem to be more widely known, but she hopes other people can also become interested in undergraduate research in ER&M or the social sciences. 

She emphasizes that all students should “take the time to explore and don’t be afraid of writing long papers for classes, even though it might seem scary. This paper might even turn into an opportunity for further research!” She also encourages first-years not to be afraid to ask professors what they’re researching and to reach out to them. “There will be a topic that speaks to you and you will know it when it comes,” Yingling notes.