Max Kurzweil

Mobilized a coalition of over 100 stakeholders through grassroots outreach campaigns to advance legislative support for foreign aid.

Developed and executed three multi-channel fundraising initiatives, securing over $500.

Designed and implemented community perception surveys using qualitative research methodologies

Analyzed complex datasets and put findings into clear written reports for community stakeholders

Collected and analyzed 500+ voter exit polls to assess policy preferences and electoral trends.

Supervised a 15+ person team in a high-volume hospitality and recreation environment.

Coordinated schedules and and staff coverage for high-volume events, developing logistical planning skills transferable to special event support

Managed public-facing operations in fast-paced and constantly changing environments

Designed process improvement program focused on rotational scheduling and employee touchpoint engagement that led to a 5% increase in overall customer satisfaction measured by exit surveys.

Shadowed wealth management advisors in client meetings, consultative sales, investment
products, and portfolio management strategies.

Assisted in preparing client-facing materials and investment performance reports.

Developed insights into market trends, mutual funds, and retirement products

Monitored and enforced water safety protocols in college aquatic environment, utilizing situational awareness to ensure student safety.

Supported team workflow and prioritized tasks under high-volume conditions to ensure smooth service flow and a positive guest experience.

Monitored and enforced water safety protocols in high-traffic aquatic environments, utilizing situational awareness to ensure guest safety.

his project was completed for my Marketing Management course, involving a comprehensive mystery shopping assessment comparing customer experiences at Starbucks and Tully's Coffee. I developed a structured evaluation framework using a 1–5 rating scale across four key categories. I then conducted on-site visits to both locations, documenting observations on brand promise delivery, product quality, atmosphere, customer service, technology integration, sustainability practices, and personalization options. I produced a detailed analytical report including customer journey mapping, comparative SWOT analyses for both brands, and strategic recommendations.

A comprehensive digital toolkit developed for TurnUp following an 8-week video campaign in collaboration with Mobilize Green, designed to optimize Gen Z voter mobilization for climate action. The toolkit synthesizes A/B testing results from TikTok, YouTube, and Google Ads to provide actionable messaging frameworks, platform-specific content strategies, and sample scripts. It includes data-driven insights on hook techniques, emotional resonance patterns, and organic engagement tactics, equipping TurnUp with a repeatable system to build funnel audiences, drive registration conversions, and sustain visibility for future climate advocacy campaigns.

A comprehensive research presentation documenting an 8-week digital campaign conducted in collaboration with Mobilize Green and TurnUp Activism to increase Gen Z voter turnout for climate action in New Jersey. The study employed A/B testing across TikTok, YouTube, and Google Ads to identify which platforms, messaging styles, and narrative techniques best overcome digital repression and drive engagement. Key deliverables include survey analysis, statistical findings on platform performance, and strategic recommendations for emotion-driven storytelling, providing data-backed insights to help civic organizations build effective voter mobilization funnels. NOTE: This document is formatted for you can zoom in and out.

A sample playlist of short-form video advertisements designed to drive community and target audience engagement across three distinct advocacy organizations, demonstrating versatility in issue-based storytelling and platform-optimized content strategy. The Borgen Project: Connected personal experience in South Africa to global food insecurity and poverty reduction, translating localized observations into emotionally resonant narrative arcs that advance international development advocacy. Mobilize Green: Documented urban sprawl encroaching on natural landscapes, using visual contrast between pristine ecosystems and development creep to galvanize environmental protection action. TurnUp Activism: Drew through-lines between daily micro-decisions and civic participation, reminding viewers that voting is an extension of choices they already make, then mobilizing that awareness toward electoral engagement. Each piece required rapid-hook storytelling, platform-native formatting for various platforms (Instagram, TikTok, etc.), and audience-calibrated messaging that converts passive viewers into active supporters.

A policy analysis conducted during a youth activism internship with TurnUp Activism, examining the stakeholder landscape and local implications of New Jersey legislation removing basic skills testing requirements for teacher certification. The report maps the education policy ecosystem, categorizes state and local stakeholders, and analyzes community concerns alongside equity benefits for West Orange Public Schools. Deliverables include a stakeholder assessment matrix, ecosystem flowchart, and strategic recommendations for district-level engagement to address parent concerns while supporting diverse teacher recruitment aligned with the district's project-based assessment philosophy.

This project was completed during my internship at TurnUp Activism, where I developed a comprehensive mock Congressional hearing simulation focused on electoral integrity issues in New Jersey for the House Administration Committee Subcommittee on Elections. I researched and structured three critical policy areas: felony disenfranchisement's disproportionate impact on Black communities, documented gerrymandering in NJ's 7th and 11th districts, and the New Jersey Voting Rights Act, then curated a six-person expert witness panel spanning civil rights attorneys, academic researchers, redistricting officials, legislators, and state administrators. I established concrete advocacy goals including accountability commitments for gerrymandering and Voting Rights Act passage timelines, and drafted targeted examination questions designed to elicit substantive testimony on quantitative gerrymandering detection, judicial oversight, and preclearance requirements.

This project was completed during my internship at Mobilize Green, where I designed, deployed, and analyzed a survey examining youth exposure to political and climate-related advertising across major social media platforms. I developed the questionnaire to assess ad frequency, perceived partisan leaning, and user attitudes toward verified nonpartisan political content and climate science updates. I collected and analyzed responses from participants regarding their weekly platform usage, ad exposure levels, and preferences for factual political messaging, producing data insights on how young voters encounter and evaluate political and environmental advocacy content in digital spaces.

I served as lead content strategist and channel manager for VoteGreenNJ, a YouTube hub developed as the centerpiece of a multi-organizational social media campaign bridging environmental advocacy and civic engagement. The channel housed video content connecting urban development's impact on New Jersey green spaces with the electoral mechanisms that determine environmental policy outcomes. I designed and produced platform-native short-form content optimized for YouTube's algorithm and cross-platform distribution, collaborated with Mobilize Green to document local environmental degradation through visual storytelling, and partnered with TurnUp Activism to convert ecological awareness into voter mobilization messaging. Over the 8-week sprint, I managed the content calendar, tracked engagement metrics, created content, and adjusted creative strategy in real time. Key deliverables included channel branding, video production, SEO optimization, audience retention analytics, and integrated messaging that positioned environmental protection as a ballot-box priority.

A field research project conducted in Las Juntas, Costa Rica with two other students analyzing the ecological health of the Abangares River through water chemistry testing and macroinvertebrate biodiversity surveys. The study compared urban and rural sites, benchmarked findings against 2008 and 2013 data, and incorporated community surveys (created, deployed, and analyzed by me) to examine the correlation between local perception and actual water quality. Key findings revealed that despite visible pollution concerns, the watershed maintains healthy biological indicators, highlighting a significant perception gap that informs recommendations for community-driven conservation and education initiatives.

This blog served as my professional portfolio during my tenure as a Political Affairs Intern at The Borgen Project, where I produced original policy-focused content analyzing the intersection of global poverty, conflict, and American strategic interests. I wrote articles covering protection challenges for aid workers in active war zones (Gaza, Sudan, Myanmar), structural economic barriers facing low-income Americans, regional instability threats to global supply chains like Sudan's gum Arabic exports, Myanmar earthquake response coordination, and the nexus between poverty alleviation and counterterrorism efforts—translating complex geopolitical developments into accessible, policy-relevant commentary that connected distant crises to U.S. domestic interests.

This lab applied one-way ANOVA to evaluate whether four paper airplane designs, produced significantly different flight distances. I conducted exploratory data analysis with boxplots and summary statistics, tested the equal variance assumption, and fit an ANOVA model. Post-hoc Tukey HSD tests revealed that all plane pairs except Red-Blue showed statistically significant differences, with the Orange Dart significantly outperforming all others. Key skills included ANOVA implementation in R, assumption checking, effect size interpretation, and multiple comparisons analysis using mosaic and base R functions.

This documented tracks a completed 12-week intensive advocacy internship focused on U.S. foreign policy and global poverty reduction, and includes a breakdown of weekly tasks and responsibilities. I engaged in direct lobbying efforts including two Congressional meetings, mobilized 50+ constituents to contact legislators, and executed a comprehensive fundraising campaign exceeding $500 through personalized outreach and a "$1 Challenge" social media initiative. I developed strategic communications including op-eds published in local media, coordinated a "swarm" event training participants in congressional advocacy, and implemented a campus-based 1-Mile marketing campaign. Additional accomplishments include delivering two campus presentations on volunteer opportunities, conducting "bird-dog" questioning at political events, and maintaining detailed legislator profiles tracking committee assignments and voting records. The role required mastery of legislative tracking tools, rapid-response advocacy on USAID funding crises, and cross-platform social media engagement to amplify organizational messaging.

This project was completed during my Political Affairs Internship with The Borgen Project, where I designed and produced a comprehensive suite of digital advocacy materials to support grassroots mobilization and public education on global poverty reduction. I created a multi-platform social media campaign including an interactive "Borgen Bingo" engagement tool (encouraging constituent calls, social follows, and micro-donations), an Instagram Story series highlighting the International Affairs Budget's economic and national security benefits, and narrative-driven content. I also developed data visualization graphics addressing gender equality funding and gender-based violence prevention programs. This helped translate complex appropriations policy into accessible, shareable content designed to drive constituent engagement and legislative advocacy.

This lab applied simple linear regression to examine the relationship between text messages sent and received using R Studio. I analyzed a dataset of 50 students, creating scatterplots with regression lines and calculating correlation coefficients. I developed a predictive model, interpreted slope and intercept parameters, and evaluated the risks of extrapolation when making predictions outside the observed data range. Key skills included data visualization with ggformula, running regression analysis in R, and assessing model fit through correlation and coefficient of determination.

This lab covered fundamental data import techniques in R Studio. I loaded built-in datasets from the mosaic package and imported external CSV files using the readr package. I explored data structure through head() and spec() functions, examined variable types (character vs. numeric), and interpreted dataset documentation. The lab provided foundational skills in data inspection, understanding delimiter-separated files, and working with real-world datasets containing mixed data types.

An academic research article analyzing the systemic obstacles preventing effective humanitarian assistance delivery during Sudan's ongoing civil conflict. The study examines domestic-level barriers, including political fragmentation, access constraints, and local governance challenges, that have contributed to international aid paralysis. Completed as part of a Comparative Politics and International Relations course and published on ResearchGate, the work contributes to scholarship on humanitarian intervention, conflict studies, and the geopolitics of aid distribution in fragile states.

This final research project for Political Science Inquiry, a research intensive course, examined why voters develop deep, lasting loyalty to populist candidates. I proposed Brand Identity Fusion, adapting a marketing concept to political behavior, as a stronger framework than traditional theories, designing a three-survey quantitative study to measure how voters fuse their personal identity with a leader's "brand." The project involved creating original survey instruments, operationalizing abstract psychological constructs, and applying correlation analysis to test whether brand-driven attachment better explains sustained populist support than conventional group-identity models.

A sample exercise completed as part of a financial accounting course, demonstrating proficiency in cash reconciliation and adjusting journal entries. The project involves reconciling Harrison Co.'s book balance with bank statement data, identifying deposits in transit, outstanding checks, bank fees, collection items, and recording errors. Deliverables include a complete bank reconciliation statement determining the adjusted cash balance, alongside corresponding adjusting journal entries for notes receivable collection, interest income, bank fees, and accounts payable corrections.

A collection of completed financial accounting exercises demonstrating proficiency in preparing comprehensive financial statements for multiple entities. Projects include constructing classified balance sheets, income statements, and retained earnings statements for Green Valley Consulting, Silver Oak Enterprise, Pine Ridge Construction, and Blue Horizon Marketing. Each set of statements is accompanied by profitability ratio calculations including profit margin and gross profit rate, showcasing analytical skills in translating raw account data into standardized financial reporting formats. All statements were done in Excel using formula and cell referencing.

A series of accounting exercises demonstrating proficiency in recording inventory transactions under the perpetual inventory system. Projects include preparing complete journal entries for multiple business scenarios, covering inventory purchases, sales revenue, cost of goods sold, accounts receivable/payable, and cash discounts. The work showcases accurate application of trade terms, purchase discounts, sales discounts, and proper timing of revenue and expense recognition in inventory-based businesses.

A personal essay published in the Lehigh Valley's major daily newspaper reflecting on a transformative sports-focused service trip to South Africa. The piece explores how athletic engagement served as a vehicle for cross-cultural connection and community impact, examining the reciprocal nature of volunteer work and the lasting effects on both the student and the South African communities served. Written for the "Your View" opinion section to share insights on international service learning and the power of sports as a universal language.

An academic article examining the life and teachings of Shabkar Tsogdruk Rangdrol, a 19th-century Tibetan Buddhist yogi, as a framework for understanding resilience and healing among trauma survivors. The research explores how Shabkar's spiritual journey, poetic compositions, and emphasis on compassion provide contemporary therapeutic insights for individuals processing adversity. Published on ResearchGate, the work contributes to interdisciplinary conversations at the intersection of religious studies, trauma psychology, and Tibetan Buddhist hagiography.

This compilation demonstrates applied microeconomic analysis through quantitative problem sets covering market equilibrium, consumer and producer surplus, price controls, and international trade theory. I calculated equilibrium prices and quantities in perfectly competitive markets, measured economic surplus and deadweight loss from price ceilings and floors, and analyzed comparative advantage through production possibilities curves. The work required algebraic manipulation of supply and demand functions, geometric calculation of triangular and rectangular surplus areas, and graphical interpretation of market interventions.

A comprehensive project charter developed using PMI methodologies to launch an annual campus tournament as Co-Founder and Secretary of the Muhlenberg College Badminton Club. The document establishes project scope, stakeholder mapping, milestone scheduling, and risk mitigation strategies to deliver a multi-team competitive event requiring cross-departmental coordination with Athletics, Student Government, and Campus Activities. The tournament (now an annual tradition) successfully secured venue allocation, funding, and participation through structured project management, demonstrating end-to-end event execution from approval through post-event evaluation.