Student Profile: Pedro Luis Graterol, Data and Policy Summer Scholar '23

Born in Venezuela in 2000—right at the beginning of the country’s current administration, Pedro Luis Graterol, DPSS’23, said, “I cannot remember a time in my life when I wasn't interested in politics. I am fascinated by the idea of people coming together to form something greater than the sum of its parts."

This fascination fueled Graterol’s academic pursuits, and he earned his BA in political science and music from Linfield University in Oregon. “I would say my undergraduate thesis, ‘Democratic Demise: Democratic backsliding in Venezuela’s Puntofijo democracy (1958–94),’ was a clear indicator of my academic and professional interests.”

Graterol said the preservation of democracy and electoral integrity is critical. “When people start doubting valid electoral results, that can lead to democratic decay. And although a broader interest in electoral integrity usually spikes when there’s an election, every day there are people striving to upkeep electoral integrity." 

Now, as a political scientist working in media, Graterol views his role in the everyday maintenance of democracy as that of a communicator. "Although public policy involves a lot of data intake, it's just as important that political scientists are out there communicating—and communicating clearly—about the impacts of policy and democracy."

To this end, Graterol has written a number of articles analyzing the democracy of Venezuela for Caracas Chronicles, an independent news organization analyzing Venezuelan politics. He also has worked as a project manager for a number of organizations, including Tu Voz Importa Alaska, where he coordinated the organization’s push to spread information about Alaska’s change to ranked-choice voting. 

However, it was Graterol’s current job that impelled him to enroll in the Data and Policy Summer Scholar (DPSS) program. 

“I work for Pueblo People, a Spanish current events podcast that processes U.S. news for a Latin-American audience, and I came to realize I needed to improve my data analysis skills. For example, understanding programming languages such as R is becoming increasingly important to communicate outcomes. DPSS, with its focus on R and emphasis on applicable skills, seemed perfect.” 

Graterol said one of the unexpected skills he gained from the program was communicating political information. "One of the key things I learned during DPSS was that data does not speak on its own. We learned how to process and ethically clean data to help present them with meaningful context, which is critical for my work with Pueblo People. I take academic data and turn it into scripts and news briefings, frequently using R to make graphs or applying data analytic skills to clearly distill key information. The skills I gained through DPSS make that possible.”

Summarizing the importance of what he gained from DPSS, Graterol said, “Political scientists have the tools to analyze the complex ways in which politics moves, but this knowledge won’t do anything if it stays on paper. We need to make sure we are presenting information clearly to the broadest audiences possible.”