{"id":1183,"date":"2026-05-07T14:18:59","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T19:18:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/after-macalester\/?page_id=1183"},"modified":"2026-05-08T12:48:44","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T17:48:44","slug":"ava-bindas-17","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/after-macalester\/alumni-pathways\/ava-bindas-17\/","title":{"rendered":"Ava Bindas \u201917"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n \"Ava\n <\/div>\n
\n \"Ava\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n
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You can\u2019t become a better writer unless you write. Mac asked to write all the time in all the ways and showed me the value of getting comfortable with the discomfort of writing.<\/blockquote>\n Ava Bindas \u201917<\/cite>\n \"\"\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n\n\n

English and Political Science Majors<\/strong>
\nCommunications Analyst at Center for Economic and Social Research, USC
\nWriting \u2022 Humanities & STEM \u2022 Mentors \u2022 First-Gen<\/p><\/span>\n\n\n\n

I work for an interdisciplinary social science research group at USC called the Program on Global Aging, Health, and Policy, which serves as research-sharing and access hub. I wear three related hats. I do technical writing, making science accessible for a general audience. I\u2019m a collaborative editor, offering writing assistance to the team, including brainstorming, refining grant proposals and white papers, and proofreading. And I do the communications work for the Center, managing newsletters and social media, facilitating webinars, and otherwise getting this research out to a wider audience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My Honors project in the English department at Mac was a critical turning point for me. It lit the spark that became my desire to go to grad school, and it taught me so much about project management: how to get organized, meet goals over time, adapt when the timeline changes. How to ask good questions to get support. How to know what I don\u2019t know. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the first in my family to go to college, I thought graduate school was somehow unreasonable, far-fetched. Undergrad was enough of a wilderness; getting a PhD in English felt like going to the moon. I talked to so many mentors\u2014Mac professors, librarians, recent grads\u2014trying to dissuade myself. But it only made me want to go to grad school more. In 2024, I got my PhD in nineteenth-century British literature from UC Davis. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because my current role didn\u2019t exist before, I\u2019ve been able to shape the job in meaningful ways. I realize that I thrive where I have the freedom to see a problem and propose a solution. I created the first style guide for all the publications the Center produces, for example. And I have filled my office with Victorian novels. When Economists who come to talk about policy reports puzzle over non-economic books in an office, I tell them George Eliot, one of my favorite Victorian writers, prepared me for this job more than I knew. Sometimes I read them \u201cI grant you ample leave,\u201d because that poem inquisitively explores scientific ways of knowing the human soul. I love having a job where I can have valuable relationships with colleagues and also be uniquely independent and even a force for good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last updated: October 2025<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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