Meet Our Operations Team

Junior, University of Oregon 

Program: Public Relations ​​

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McKinley Coontz is a public relations student at the University of Oregon specializing in political science, sustainable business, and science communication. Her work focuses on effective communication as a tool for public engagement and democratic participation. She has experience in community outreach and engagement, media relations, event coordination, strategic communications, and multimedia content creation. Her background supports an interdisciplinary approach to nonprofit, policy, and advocacy-related communications.

 

Through her work at RRI and other student-led organizations, McKinley has contributed to press and media writing, public-facing communications initiatives, and organizational outreach efforts. She is particularly interested in how communication builds trust, strengthens civic participation, and connects communities to policy and social issues.

Graduate Student, Georgetown's  Walsh School

Program: Master of Arts in Security Studies

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Molly Williams received her B.S. in Neuroscience with a minor in American Studies from Boston College (2026). She served as a research assistant at the Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Lab, where she studied memory and aging. Williams senior thesis, The Role of Explicit Elaboration Instructions in Supporting Objective and Subjective Memory in Older Adults, focused on how an additional elaboration instruction affects accurate and vivid memory recall among younger and older adults.

 

She contributed to the Institute's Community of Democracies Rewriting Democracy project examining democratic narratives. As Program Operations Associate, Williams supports the Institute’s research and educational programs by coordinating internal operations, assisting with project development, supporting interns and associates, and helping advance special initiatives across the Institute.