Independent research consulting for institutions that take evidence seriously, and adversaries even more so.
Shea Swauger. Policy research, data governance & quantitative methodology.
Knife Fight is the independent practice of Shea Swauger, a research and policy consultant working at the seam where data, regulation, and method meet. The clients are universities, research institutions, and policy organizations that need the work done right the first time, by the person actually doing the thinking.
No account managers. No hand-offs. You get privacy law, human-subjects frameworks, secure data, and the quantitative methods underneath all of it. Delivered precise, fast, and willing to tell you when the answer is the uncomfortable one.
Six adjacent disciplines, one operator. Engaged together or à la carte.
Privacy regulation, disclosure risk, and governance frameworks that hold up under scrutiny, and audit.
Human-subjects review, Common Rule navigation, and SMART IRB reliance agreements without the theater.
Quantitative design, measurement, and analysis built to survive peer review and hard questions.
Architecture for sensitive and restricted data: access control, enclaves, and defensible custody chains.
Reproducible pipelines from messy source to analysis-ready. Versioned, documented, and yours to keep.
Voter file, turnout, and political data analysis with a clear eye on what the numbers can and can't say.
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The work below reflects what you're hiring when you hire me: engagements led across my career and the practice built from them. Details on request.
A national secure data enclave needed a defensible regulatory basis to onboard external researchers for secondary analysis without triggering human-subjects requirements.
Designed the IRB and regulatory compliance framework, establishing the not-human-subjects determination, the Common Rule exemption pathway, and researcher eligibility criteria.
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R1 research universities, federally funded research networks, and federal science and technology offices.
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Bring a hard problem. Privacy, IRB, methodology, or data that refuses to behave.
Replies come from a human, usually within a day.