Here She Comes

A self-proclaimed “intellectual omnivore,” Hillary L. Levey’s influence in the intellectual community has potential to remain strong for decades. Since her sophomore year, Levey has carried out an extremely unique and completely independent research project on child beauty pageants. The daughter of a former Miss America, Levey understood that pageants contain more than the superficial negative images attributed to them by the media.

“I never used to tell people about my mom because I didn’t want people to think I was a snob,” Levey says. “It was like that was her thing, and academics was my thing, but now I’m able to somehow combine the two.”

Levey’s research first arose for a project in Sociology 128: Paradigms of Social Inquiry. Thirsty for more opportunities to research, she consulted her professor who directed her to the Harvard College Research Program for grants and the American Sociological Association (ASA) for opportunities to present her research.

Since the spring of 2000, Levey received five prestigious research grants, traveled to 13 pageants in eight states, gathered 210 surveys, conducted 39 interviews, and has had her research selected for presentation seven times to various organizations, including the International Sociological Association Convention on Childhood Sociology. Levey’s involvement with the ASA also won her a seat as the youngest member of the ASA’s Student Forum, a professional organization that oversees significant research on sociology and holds annual national conventions.

“Being exposed to a professional organization gave me a jump start for my research and showed me that there are other people out there who are interested in [child beauty pageants],” Levey says.

Between traveling to and from ASA meetings and setting up interviews for her research, Levey has somehow found time to extend her outstanding observational and data analysis skills to other endeavors as well. She conducted research on family balance with young men at the Radcliffe Public Policy Center, interned at the United States Bureau of International Affairs and worked at ABC News on the show “This Week with Sam Donaldson and Cokie Roberts.”

Even though she has so many different professional projects under her belt, Levey claims one of her greatest learning experiences has been the process of finding an off-campus apartment for her senior year. “I had to think about all those things that my parents usually think about, like how old the electrical system is,” Levey confesses. “On campus, sometimes you get wrapped up with life at Harvard and lose sight of the bigger picture. Now I can walk home, unwind, see children playing outside, and remember that my whole life is not school. If I don’t do well on a paper, I’m reminded that someday I’ll have kids too, and life will go on,” she continues.

Levey, who earlier this year was “sad that this could be my last first day of school,” plans on teaching at a university so she can continue to learn. Her interest in fashion and decorating manifest themselves in her apartment rooms, which are cleverly themed to characters on “Sex in the City.” Levey hopes this will lead to a study on the relationship between fashion and national identity in England. “It’s a seemingly mundane topic that has incredible ramifications on culture,” Levey says. “I’d love to study the fashion world and the process of creating fashion, and hopefully score some free clothes on the side.”