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Three spring grads win outstanding awards

May 8, 2025

PLS_Awards-3707.jpgThree students won awards from the Department of Political Science during the 2025 spring reception, including Lucas Gravatt for Community Service, Sean Oehrlein for Undergraduate Learning Assistant and Jeannette Dompreh for Undergraduate Research.  

Sean Oehrlein – Outstanding Undergraduate Assistance Award 

MSU PLS Undergraduate Program Director Erica Frantz has worked with Oehrlein since he was an Undergraduate Learning Assistant for her Fall 2022 Introduction to Political Science course.   

“Even though the course is huge, Sean was in my in-person section of about 20 students, and I was able to get a chance to get to know him.  I could tell early on that Sean was going to be a great asset to PLS and was pleased to nominate him for the PLS Scholars program in Spring 2023. Not surprisingly, Sean got in and has been part of the PLS Scholars program these last two years,” Frantz said.  

Since then, Oehrlein has paired up with faculty needing assistance in their law-related courses, serving as an ULA for Introduction to Law, Constitutional Law, and Judicial Politics.   

“Sean has been an outstanding ULA. He attends class, grades timely, grades thoroughly and is wonderful assisting students with questions or directing them to the proper location. He is also very encouraging with students when they are confused or have questions and don't want to approach the professor. He is an asset to any professor or course,” said Dr. Melissa O’Shea who nominated Oehrlein. 

Lucas Gravatt - PLS Public Service Award 

Gravatt is the recipient of the PLS Public Service Award due his work as President of the MSU Student PIRG (or Public Interest Research Group).  In this position, Gravatt was in charge of coordinating and running all of MSU’s voting-based events throughout the last election season. 

  

“In Fall 2024, as President of PIRGIM MSU, Lucas led the club’s efforts addressing low youth voter participation, a persistent political problem that greatly affects the country and the world. Through his leadership Lucas helped students make their votes count with national impact, at a time when many don’t feel their voices are being heard,” wrote Eric Heilmann, who nominated Gravatt for this award and who is the Campus Organizer for Students PIRGs in Michigan 

  

As president and head of PIRGIM MSU’s New Voters Project, Gravatt led the club to register more than 250 students to vote at MSU and Lansing Community College. He also led the club’s efforts making more than 1,000 contacts to voters at MSU to help students make plans to vote and answer questions about the voting process.  

 

“In his leadership of PIRGIM MSU, Lucas demonstrated unrelenting commitment to addressing the nationwide problem of low youth civic participation, making a meaningful impact on those who would not have voted otherwise – helping students make their voices heard and creating a lasting community of volunteers and friends within PIRGIM MSU,” Frantz said. 

  

Jeanette Dompreh – Outstanding Undergraduate Research Award 

Dompreh is the recipient of the Outstanding Undergraduate Research Award for her paper, “Power, Institutions, and the Commons: Transboundary Water Governance in the Mekong River Basin.”  The paper looks at the challenges of transboundary water governance in the Mekong River Basin, focusing on how institutional weakness and power imbalances make cooperation difficult.   

 “During her time at MSU, Jeanette has garnered the type of research skills we are hoping to cultivate in our students. Her educational pursuits align seamlessly with her career aspirations to become a data scientist, showcasing a profound interest in utilizing data-driven approaches to address social, political, and economic issues. For her class assignments, she has explored racial disparities in maternal healthcare, the connection between homelessness and our economic institutions, and protest participation post-George Floyd’s murder and among the pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli camps. For all these projects, Jeanette showcased her adeptness in utilizing coding programs like Python and R to extract, manipulate, and visualize complex data sets,” wrote Dr. Marty Jordan who nominated Dompreh. 

Currently serving as a research assistant for the Mekong WELL Project at MSU, Dompreh exemplifies interdisciplinary collaboration in addressing environmental justice issues. Two summers ago, she interned at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy’s Inclusive Economy Lab. She helped research how race intersects with inequality in Chicago and built a database to better understand the effect of COVID-19 on rural and urban communities in Illinois. Last summer, Jeanette landed a coveted University of Michigan’s Summer Institute in Survey Research Techniques Summer Institute Diversity Fellowship, Jordan wrote. 

  

Dompreh is a member of the Honors College and a PLS Scholar. As Vice President of the Academic Scholars Program and Secretary of the First-Generation Honors Association, she has played integral roles in developing and implementing initiatives to support first-generation college students and promote academic success.