{"id":5311,"date":"2026-05-13T15:00:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T19:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oge.mit.edu\/msrp\/?post_type=profiles&#038;p=5311"},"modified":"2026-08-13T14:39:27","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T18:39:27","slug":"nnamdi-mbajekwe","status":"publish","type":"profiles","link":"https:\/\/oge.mit.edu\/msrp\/profiles\/nnamdi-mbajekwe\/","title":{"rendered":"Nnamdi Mbajekwe"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignleft size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"400\" height=\"599\" src=\"https:\/\/oge.mit.edu\/msrp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/05\/Mbajekwi-Nnamdi.jpg\" alt=\"by Corban Swain\" class=\"wp-image-5612\" style=\"aspect-ratio:1;object-fit:cover;width:200px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/oge.mit.edu\/msrp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/05\/Mbajekwi-Nnamdi.jpg 400w, https:\/\/oge.mit.edu\/msrp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/05\/Mbajekwi-Nnamdi-200x300.jpg 200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>James Madison University<\/strong><br>Faculty Advisor: Prof. Noah Nathan<br>Research Supervisor: Maakwe Cumanzala<br>Department: Political Science<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:0px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Biography<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Nnamdi Mbajekwe is a rising senior Political Science student at James Madison<br>University. He is working as an intern at MIT\u2019s Political Science department as part of the<br>2026 MIT Summer Research Program (MSRP). Nnamdi is working on two projects this<br>summer, one on data from Afrobarometer, a public survey organization that does fieldwork in<br>Africa, and an independent project on how political attitudes inform the financial aid system<br>for college in the United States. Nnamdi has had a lifelong interest in history, politics, and<br>economics. While MSRP is his first research experience, he\u2019s also held leadership positions<br>in two of his home institution\u2019s clubs, studied abroad, and participated in several universitysponsored<br>events related to foreign service &amp; law. After finishing his undergraduate studies,<br>he plans to either pursue a PhD in Political Science or a law degree to accommodate his wide<br>range of interests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><br><strong>Comparing Methodological Similarities Between Afrobarometer and<br>Arab Barometer<\/strong><br>Nnamdi Mbajekwe1, Ezra Mendel2, Maakwe Cumanzala3, Noah Nathan4<br>1Department of Political Science, James Madison University<br>2Department of International Relations, University of the Witwatersrand<br>3Afrobarometer<br>4Department of Political Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><br>Afrobarometer and Arab Barometer are two public survey organizations that conduct extensive<br>fieldwork in Africa and the Arab world, respectively. The two organizations are important to<br>the field of political science, because they help capture the lived experiences of people in places<br>that policies are being developed for and research is being conducted. The Afrobarometer,<br>however, was founded earlier, and often features more rounds of questioning and funding. It is<br>also considered a \u201cgold standard\u201d for mass-scale survey conducting of its kind, and its concept<br>has been applied to other regions of the world. So, while the Arab Barometer might have<br>different interests than the Afrobarometer, it can be important to see if the methodologies are<br>similar, such that a high-quality, standardized process can be applied all around the world. To<br>do this, we analyze the four countries that overlap between the Afrobarometer\u2019s latest publicly<br>available round and Arab Barometer\u2019s corresponding wave, and pair similar questions of shared<br>question categories together. From there, we see if the results for these paired questions are<br>similar enough, or if there are statistically significant discrepancies, which if exist, may suggest<br>differences in methodologies that might need resolving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":5612,"template":"","profile_category":[25],"class_list":["post-5311","profiles","type-profiles","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","profile_category-2026-interns"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oge.mit.edu\/msrp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profiles\/5311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oge.mit.edu\/msrp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profiles"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oge.mit.edu\/msrp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/profiles"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/oge.mit.edu\/msrp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profiles\/5311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5825,"href":"https:\/\/oge.mit.edu\/msrp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profiles\/5311\/revisions\/5825"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oge.mit.edu\/msrp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oge.mit.edu\/msrp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"profile_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oge.mit.edu\/msrp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profile_category?post=5311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}