Katie Doran is a high school student currently in her eleventh year at Menlo-Atherton High School. United States. Her passion for advocacy and current affairs has been fueled by her involvement in debates, which has also sharpened her research skills. As the captain of Menlo-Atherton’s award-winning speech and debate team, she has led the team to national prominence, winning championships at several tournaments, including at UC Berkeley, and attending debate training at both UC Berkeley and Stanford University. She is also the Chair of the subcommittee on Climate Justice at the Congressional Representative Anna Eshoo Student Advisory Board.
Furthermore, Katie is the President of Menlo-Atherton High School’s Genders and Sexualities Alliance, where she has worked to educate students about LGBTQ+ history, issues, and rights, and advocate for inclusivity on campus. She has successfully expanded the organisation from fewer than 15 active members to over 50. In addition, she is currently interning at TechSoup Global, a global non-profit organisation that provides technology, services, and training to other non-profits around the world.
At CCIR Academy, she conducted a research project titled “This Is Our War…With Banners Instead of Guns: The Impact of World War I on the National Woman’s Party’s Suffrage Rhetoric”. Her research analysed the impact of World War I on the rhetoric of the National Woman’s Party by examining NWP speeches, publications, and picket signs. Her analysis found that the NWP used three major strategies influenced by WWI on their advocacy: (i) focusing on democratic values and America’s hypocrisy in extolling democracy abroad while women lacked the vote at home; (ii) comparing women’s suffrage progress in other nations involved in the war; and (iii) using war-related imagery and metaphors, like calling suffragists an “army” battling in the “first trenches” of the White House, to equate the movement to a war.
Recently, Katie shared her insights on her research project and highlighted her overall research journey in the CCIR Academy on an episode of CCIR Academy Student Spotlights.
