Schedule
Thursday, March 24
Individual meetings with faculty throughout the day. Please check your personal schedule for meeting times and locations.
All times listed are in Central Standard Time. For those of you who are joining us virtually, you can find the Zoom link and password for meetings below.
4:15pm | Welcome and overview of the Ph.D. program, 422 North Hall
- Zoom link
- Meeting ID: 944 3947 8833
- Passcode: 585396
5:00-6:00pm | Intellectual Life in the Department and at the University, 422 North Hall
- Zoom link
- Meeting ID: 944 3947 8833
- Passcode: 585396
6:15pm | Dinner with faculty, Union South
Friday, March 25
Individual meetings with faculty throughout the day. Please check your personal schedule for meeting times and locations.
All times listed are in Central Standard Time. For those of you who are joining us virtually, you can find the Zoom link and password for meetings below.
9-9:30am | Drop by Zoom meeting for informal conversation on the experience of international students at UW, Online
- Zoom link
- Meeting ID: 995 6674 7182
- Passcode: 047399
9-9:30am | Coffee, juice, and food available, Grad Lounge (first floor North Hall)
9:30-10:30am | Roundtable on Methods Training, 422 North Hall
- Zoom Link
- Meeting ID: 968 9158 9222
- Passcode: 150332
11:45am-12:45pm | Lunch with faculty, Grad Lounge (first floor North Hall)
1:00-1:30pm | Drop by for informal conversation on the experience of women at UW and in academia, 211North Hall
3:00-3:30pm | Drop by for informal conversation on the experience of students of color at UW and in academia, 211 North Hall
4:30-5:30pm | Roundtable on Life in Madison as a Graduate Student, 422 North Hall
- Zoom Link
- Meeting ID: 996 9347 0762
- Passcode: 061418
6:00pm | Dinner with current grad students, Memorial Union
Other Activities of Interest
Thursday, March 24
10am-7pm | Intercambios: Art, Stories, & Comunidad (a fully bilingual exhibition), Ruth Davis Design Gallery, Nancy Nicholas Hall
12-1pm | Chican@ & Latin@ Studies Community Gathering, 366 Ingraham Hall
12-1:15pm | Comparative Politics Colloquium (Co-sponsored with the Political Economy Colloquium): Mai Hassan (University of Michigan), 422 North Hall and on Zoom: https://uwmadison.zoom.us/j/91640274234?pwd=N0hxTUxKMjUyUHZXZzV5YTh2LzN0dz09
1:20-3:15pm | PS 854-Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict, Professor Nadav Shelef, 422 North Hall
1:20-3:15pm | PS 931-Rousseau on Education, Professor Michelle Schwarze, 7121 Helen C. White Hall
3:30-5:25pm | PS 828-The Contemporary Presidency: Issues and Approaches, Professor Ken Mayer, 211 North Hall
4-5:15pm | CREECA (Center for Russia, East Europe, and Central Asia) Spring 2022 Weekly Lecture Series: James Joyce’s Russia and the Nightmare of Paternity with José Vergara, 206 Ingraham Hall
5-6pm | Daniel Carpenter Book Lecture: “Democracy by Petition”, H.F. DeLuca Forum Room, The Discovery Building
7-8:30pm | “How the Great Books Changed My Life and How They Can Change Yours” a talk with Dr. Roosevelt Montás, Wisconsin Historical Society, main auditorium
Friday, March 25
8am-5pm | The Futures of Education 2022 Education Policy Studies Conference, 159 Education
9:30am-4:30pm | MESP (Middle East Studies Program) Conference: Who is Afraid of Democracy? New Wave of Transformations in the Middle East and North Africa, Pyle Center
10-11:30am | Teaching at UW: Designing Effective Discussions, (online, registration required)
12-1:15pm | Political Theory Workshop: Presentation and Defense of Preliminary Exam paper (Hamni Park), 422 North Hall and on Zoom (passcode: 598162): https://uwmadison.zoom.us/j/99401173771?pwd=MWhsZk5sY2tqelJSVWxZbEtWdGVJZz09
1:30-2:45pm | MEAD – Models, Experiments, and Data Workshop: Experimental Politics Workshop Grant Proposals, 422 North Hall and on Zoom: https://uwmadison.zoom.us/j/91725126906?pwd=WURKK2c2TDAwdUw1Sm52cGJvMWR6Zz09
Recent Student & Faculty Collaboration
PhD Candidate Chagai Weiss and Professor Jonathan Renshon's article forthcoming in The American Journal of Political Science
Chagai Weiss co-authored "Abstraction and Detail in Experimental Design" with Ryan Brutger (UC-Berkley), Joshua D. Kertzer (Harvard), Jonathan Renshon (UW-Madison), and Dustin Tingley (Harvard).

PhD Candidate Rochelle Snyder Publishes Paper with Professor Barry Burden in the American Politics Research Journal
Rochelle Snyder co-authored “Explaining Uncontested Seats in Congress and State" with Professor Barry Burden.

Recent Publications from our Current Graduate Students
2022 & Forthcoming
Aili Mari Tripp and Thomas S. Worth. 2022. “War, Peace, and Security.” The Routledge Global History of Feminism. Eds. Bonnie G. Smith and Nova Robinson.
Bassan-Nygate, Lotem & Gadi Heimann. “Dealing with Guilt and Shame in International Politics” (International Relations, Forthcoming).
Brutger, Ryan, Joshua D. Kertzer, Jonathan Renshon, & Chagai M. Weiss. “Abstraction and Concreteness in Experimental Designs.” Accepted for Publication with Cambridge University Press, Elements in Experimental Political Science series (edited by James Druckman).
Brutger, Ryan, Joshua D. Kertzer, Jonathan Renshon, Dustin Tingley and Chagai M. Weiss. “Abstraction and Detail in Experimental Design.” Forthcoming at The American Journal of Political Science.
Philip D. Bunn (forthcoming 2022) “Silicon Valley Stoics?: Life-Hacking, Transhumanism, and Stoic Therapy”, Political Science Reviewer.
Hyo Won Lee, Yena Kim, and Whasun Jho, “Domestic Politics and Requests for UNESCO’s International Assistance Program”, Forthcoming, International Interactions.
Jensen, Katherine and Lisa M. Sousa Dias. “Varied Racialization and Legal Inclusion: Haitian, Syrian, and Venezuelan Forced Migrants in Brazil.” American Behavioral Scientist (Forthcoming).
Lorimer, Marta & Ethan vanderWilden. (forthcoming) “France: Balancing respectability and radicalization in a pandemic.” In Populists and the Pandemic: How Populists Around the World Respond to COVID-19, eds. N. Ringe and L. Renno. London: Routledge.
Peter Erikson, Marko Kljajic, and Nadav Shelef. Forthcoming. “Domestic military deployments in response to COVID-19.” Armed Forces & Society.
Qian, Juan. “Historical Ethnic Conflicts and the Rise of Islamophobia in Modern China.” 2021. Forthcoming in Ethnopolitics.
Shirikov, Anton. “The Oligarch Vanishes: Defensive Ownership, Property Rights, and Political Connections.” Forthcoming at Quarterly Journal of Political Science. (With John Earle, Scott Gehlbach, and Solomiya Shpak.)
Shirikov, Anton. “Russia: Muddling Through Populism and the Pandemic.” Forthcoming in: Renno, Lucio, and Nils Ringe (eds.). Populists and the Pandemic: How Populists Around the World Respond to COVID-19. Routledge. With Yoshiko M. Herrera and Valeriia Umanets.
Tennyson, Timothy T. 2022. “Cicero’s Romulus and the Crafting of Historical Exempla.” History of Political Thought, Vol. 43, No.1. (Forthcoming).
Weiss, Chagai M., Alexandra Siegel, and David Romney “How Threats of Exclusion Mobilize Palestinian Political Participation.” Forthcoming at The American Journal of Political Science.
Xinzhi Zhao, “Ideological Context and the Study of Political Theory,” Hobbes Studies, Vol. 35, Issue 1, 2022, forthcoming.
2021
Bassan-Nygate, Lotem & Chagai M. Weiss. “Party Competition and Cooperation Shape Affective Polarization: Evidence from Natural and Survey Experiments in Israel“. Comparative Political Studies. July 2021. doi:10.1177/00104140211024283
Bassan-Nygate, Lotem. “My Heart is in the West: Formation of Western Identity in Israel around the Korean War“. Politika, 30 (2021): 40-61.
Philip D. Bunn (2021) “Transcendent Rebellion: The Influence of Simone Weil on Albert Camus’ Esthetics”, Perspectives on Political Science, DOI: 10.1080/10457097.2021.1997529
Burden, Barry C. and Rochelle Snyder. 2021. “Explaining Uncontested Seats in Congress and State Legislatures.” American Politics Research.
2021, continued
Carter, Kate M. “Internet Access and Control in Uganda”. In Examining Internet and Technology around the World, ed. Laura M. Steckman (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2021).
Frederick R. Chen. 2021. “Extended Dependence: Trade, Alliances, and Peace.” Journal of Politics 83(1): 246–259.
Haftel, Yoram Z., Soo Yeon Kim, & Lotem Bassan-Nygate. “High-Income Developing Countries, FDI Outflows and the International Investment Agreement Regime“, World Trade Review, August 2021, 1-17. doi:10.1017/S1474745621000434
Kustov, Alexander, Dillon Laaker, and Cassidy Reller. 2021. “The Stability of Immigration Attitudes: Evidence and Implications.” Journal of Politics. 83 (4): 1478-1494.
Levi Bankston & Barry C. Burden (2021) “Voter mobilization efforts can depress turnout”, Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties.
Lu, Jiaqi. “The Politics of Coal in the United States.” Book chapter, Political Determinants of Energy and Climate Policy, Routledge Press, forthcoming 2021, with Gregory Nemet.
Lu, Jiaqi. “Investigation of a coupling coordination degree model between low-carbon development and air quality in China.” Advances in Climate Change Research (2021) (with T. Liu and Q. Song, and Y. Qi).
Omar O. Dumdum & Levi Bankston (2021) “The Interplay of Actors in Political Communication: The State of the Subfield“, Political Communication, DOI: 10.1080/10584609.2021.1966597.
Shirikov, Anton. “Who Gets Ahead in Authoritarian Parliaments? The Case of the Russian State Duma.” (2021). The Journal of Legislative Studies.
Weiss, Chagai M. “Diversity in Israeli Healthcare Institutions Reduces Prejudice towards Arabs.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118.14 (2021).
Zhao, Xinzhi. “A Ciceronian Defense of Democratic Participation.” Política & Sociedade, vol. 20, no. 47, 2021, pp. 103–129., doi:10.5007/2175-7984.2021.e78929.
2020
Angulo Amaya, M.C., Anthony Bertelli, and Eleanor Woodhouse. 2020. “The Political Cost of Public-Private Partnerships: Theory and Evidence from Colombian Infrastructure Development.” Governance, 1-18.
Jessica H. Darrow & Jess Howsam Scholl (2020) “Chaos and Confusion: Impacts of the Trump Administration Executive Orders on the US Refugee Resettlement System”, Human Service Organizations: Management, Leadership & Governance, 44:4, 362-380, DOI: 1080.23303131.2020.1767745.
Judge-Lord, Devin. “Data and Methods for Analyzing Interest Group Influence in Rulemaking” with Daniel Carpenter, Brian Libgober, Steven Rashin. Interest Groups & Advocacy (2020).
Judge-Lord, Devin. “Do Private Regulations Ratchet Up? How to Distinguish Types of Regulatory Stringency and Patterns of Change” with Benjamin Cashore and Constance McDermott in Organization & Environment 33:1 (2020).
Lu, Jiaqi. “Evidence Map: Policy Implications of the Energy Transitions Literature.” Environmental Research Letters (2020). (with Gregory Nemet).
Lu, Jiaqi. “Knowledge spillovers between PV installers can reduce the cost of installing solar PV.” Energy Policy 144 (2020): 111600. (with G. Nemet, V. Rai, and R. Rao).
Lu, Jiaqi. “The Policy-Driven Peak and Reduction of China’s Carbon Emissions.” Advances in Climate Change Research (2020). (with Qi, Y., N. Stern, D. King, T. Wu, & T. Liu).
Meier, Anna. “The Idea of Terror: Institutional Reproduction in Government Responses to Political Violence”. International Studies Quarterly 64 (3): 499–509 (2020).
Shirikov, Anton. “Eurasia and Post-Communism: Weasel Words?” (2020). East European Politics and Societies, Vol.34, No.2. With Yoshiko M. Herrera and Dmitrii Kofanov.
Where our Grads are Now (since 2010-11)
Graduates from our program primarily pursue academic careers with the goal of a tenure-track position at a college or university. In recent years, our students have been offered tenure track positions at leading research universities such as Princeton University, Georgetown, the University of Minnesota, Northwestern University, Florida State University, University of Pittsburgh, Boston University, Texas A+M, SUNY-Buffalo, Australian National University, London School of Economics, and George Washington University, among others. Our students also do well in obtaining positions at selective liberal arts colleges, such as Amherst, Grinnell, Wesleyan, Macalester College, and the University of San Francisco. Consistent with trends in the discipline, many students now receive a one or two-year post-doctoral fellowship after receiving their PhDs from our department, and in recent years our students have been awarded many of these, including at Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Brown, Northwestern, University of Pennsylvania, and USC. Some of our students will also choose to enter the private sector, the non-profit world, or government. In recent years our students have pursued careers such as Data Scientists, Consultants, Researchers, and Directors.
- 2020-2021
- 2019-2020
- 2018-2019
- 2017-2018
- 2016-2017
- 2015-2016
- 2014-2015
- 2013-2014
- 2012-2013
- 2011-2012
- 2010-2011
Name |
Subfield |
Position |
Institution |
Anne Jamison | International Relations | Post-Doc
Post-Doc Assistant Professor |
Princeton University (2020)
Stellenbosch University(2020) Copenhagen Business School (2021) |
Camila Angulo | Comparative Politics | Assistant Professor | CIDE |
Devin Judge-Lord | American Politics | Post-Doc | Harvard University |
Dmitrii Kofanov | Comparative Politics | Post-Doc | University of Barcelona |
Anna Meier | International Relations | Assistant Professor | University of Nottingham |
Kaden Paulson-Smith | Comparative Politics | Assistant Professor | University of Wisconsin-Green Bay |
Sujeong Shim | International Relations | Post-Doc | University of Zurich |
Micah Dillard | International Relations | Data Analyst
Data Scientist |
Achievement First (2020)
Morning Consult (2021) |
Michael DeCrescenzo | American Politics | Quantitative Researcher | DRW |
Ben Power | International Relations | Associate | Oliver Wyman |
Delgerjargal Uvsh | Comparative Politics | Post-Doc
Post-Doc |
New York University (2020)
University of Southern California (2021) |
Evan Morier | Comparative Politics | Data Analytics Developer | Mathematica |
Name |
Subfield |
Position |
Institution |
Nick Barnes | Comparative Politics | Assistant Professor | University of Saint Andrew’s – Scotland |
Michael Masterson | International Relations | Assistant Professor | Missouri State University |
Maayan Mor | Comparative Politics | Post-Doc | University of Barcelona |
Anna Oltman | International Relations | Assistant Professor | University College-London |
Michael Promisel | Political Theory | Assistant Professor | Coastal Carolina University |
Katie Robiadek | Political Theory | Assistant Professor | Hood College |
Zach Warner | Comparative Politics | Assistant Professor | Purdue University |
Danielle Delaney | Political Theory | Assistant Professor | Queen’s University |
Name |
Subfield |
Position |
Institution |
Desiree Desierto | Comparative Politics | Post-Doc
Post-Doc |
University of Rochester (2019)
University of Pittsburgh (2021) |
Rachel Jacobs | Comparative Politics | Assistant Professor | Dickinson College |
Kyle Marquardt | Comparative Politics | Assistant Professor | Higher School of Economics |
Susanne Mueller-Redwood | International Relations | Lecturer | Mount Holyoke College |
Camilla Rueterswaerd | Comparative Politics | Post-Doc
Research Fellow |
Freie Universitat Berlin (2019)
University of Sussex (2021) |
Rachel Schwartz | Comparative Politics | Post-Doc
Assistant Professor |
Tulane University (2019)
Otterbein University (2020) |
Dan Walters | American Politics | Assistant Professor | Penn State |
David Lassen | American Politics | Community-Engaged Learning Program Director | University of Notre Dame |
Clarence Moore | Comparative Politics | Private Sector |
Name |
Subfield |
Position |
Institution |
Zachary Barnett-Howell | International Relations | Post-Doc | Yale University |
Hannah Chapman | Comparative Politics | Assistant Professor | Miami University |
Evan Crawford | American Politics | Assistant Professor | University of San Diego |
Katelyn Jones | Political Theory | Term Assistant Professor
Women, Peace, & Security Fellow | ACLS/Mellon Public Fellow Independent Consultant Non-Resident Fellow Director of Quality and Research Vice President of Policy, Research, and Evaluation |
Barnard College (2017)
The Chicago Council on Global Affairs (2018) DynamicAlly, LLC The Chicago Council on Global Affairs YWCA Metropolitan Chicago (2021) YWCA Metropolitan Chicago (2021) |
Kathleen Klaus | Comparative Politics | Assistant Professor | University of San Francisco |
Christopher Krewson | American Politics | Assistant Professor | Claremont University |
Ning Leng | Comparative Politics | Post-Doc
Assistant Professor |
Harvard University (2018)
Georgetown University (2019) |
Ryan Powers | International Relations | Assistant Professor | University of Georgia |
Mark Toukan | International Relations | Post-Doc
Associate Political Scientist |
University of Pennsylvania
RAND |
Regina Wagner | American Politics | Assistant Professor | University of Alabama |
Jennifer Brookhart | American Politics | Fellow
Data Scientist Lead Data Scientist – Cyber and Intelligence |
Insight Data Science (2017-2019)
Jungle Scout (2018) Mastercard (2020) |
Matt Scharf | Comparative Politics | African Regional Operations Advisor
Senior Advisor, Public & Government Affairs (Guyana) Deputy Public & Govt Affairs Manager (Guyana) |
ExxonMobile (2017)
ExxonMobile (2019) ExxonMobile (2021) |
Name |
Subfield |
Position |
Institution |
Sirus Bouchat | Comparative Politics | Assistant Professor | Northwestern University |
Thomas Bunting | Political Theory | Assistant Professor | Shawnee State University |
Kathleen Klaus | Comparative Politics | Visiting Assistant Professor | Wesleyan University |
Kyle Marquardt | Comparative Politics | Post-Doc
Assistant Professor |
University of Gothenburg (2015)
Higher School of Economics (2019) |
Ryan Powers | International Relations | Post-Doc | Yale University |
Charles Taylor | Comparative Politics | Research Consultant
Research Consultant Instructor and Course Director |
American Friends Service Committee (2017)
Navanti Group (2018) Foreign Service Institute (2019) |
Samantha Vortherms | Comparative Politics | Post-Doc
Assistant Professor |
Stanford University (2017)
UC-Irvine (2017) |
Brianne Wolf | Political Theory | Assistant Professor | Ashland University |
Name |
Subfield |
Position |
Institution |
Ethan Alexander-Davey | Political Theory | Post-Doc
Assistant Professor |
University of Richmond (2016)
Campbell University (2017) |
Sanja Badanjak | Comparative Politics | Post-Doc | University of Edinburgh |
Jessica Clayton | International Relations | Institutional Planner | UW-Whitewater |
Simon Haeder | American Politics | Assistant Professor | West Virginia University |
Bradley Jones | American Politics | Senior Researcher | Pew Research Center |
Dalton Lin | International Relations | Post-Doc
Assistant Professor |
Academia Sinica-Taiwan (2016)
Georgia Institute of Technology (2017) |
James Sieja | American Politics | Assistant Professor | St. Lawrence University |
Benjamin Toff | American Politics | Post-Doc
Assistant Professor |
Oxford University
University of Minnesota |
Steven Wilson | Comparative Politics | Post-Doc
Assistant Professor |
University of Gothenburg (2016)
University of Nevado-Reno (2017) |
Dominic Desapio | Comparative Politics | Private Sector/Government | |
Casey Erhlich-Rollow | Comparative Politics |
Manager of Research Review and Support Senior Manager, Research Review and Support |
The Pew Charitable Trusts
The Pew Charitable Trusts |
Lynn Fredrikkson | Comparative Politics |
Advocacy Director for Africa |
Amnesty International USA |
Leah Larson-Rabin | Comparative Politics | Private Sector/Government | |
Shahirah Mahmood |
Comparative Politics | Country Analyst
Evaluation Consultant Easterseals Easterseals Easterseals |
Freedom House (2016)
Spark Policy Institute (2017) Grants Writer (Grants, Innovation and Program Development) (2018) Senior Project Manager, Measurement and Evaluation (2020) Director, Data Management, Measurement and Outcomes (2021) |
Taylor Price | Comparative Politics | Private Sector/Government |
Name |
Subfield |
Position |
Institution |
Barry Driscoll | Comparative Politics | Assistant Professor | Grinnell |
Kyle Hanniman | Comparative Politics | Assistant Professor | Queen’s University at Kingston, Ontario |
Brett Kyle | Comparative Politics | Assistant Professor | University of Nebraska, Omaha |
Ruoxi Li | American Politics | Assistant Professor | California State University-San Marcos |
Jeff Paller | Comparative Politics | Assistant Professor | University of San Francisco |
Emily Sellars | Comparative Politics | Assistant Professor | Texas A&M |
Bill Egar | American Politics | Social Science Analyst
Data Scientist Social Science Analyst Senior Director, Data Science |
US Government Accountability Office (2015)
The Lab @ DC (2017) Congressional Research Service (2018) Morning Consult (2020) |
Name |
Subfield |
Position |
Institution |
Adam Auerbach | Comparative Politics | Assistant Professor | American University |
Galina Belokurova | Comparative Politics | Assistant Director of Institutional Research
Senior Data Analyst Assistant Director of Operations, Institutional Research |
West Coast University (2016)
UC San Diego (2017) UC San Diego (2020) |
Inken von Borzykowski | International Relations | Assistant Professor | Florida State University |
Guangxin Fan | Political Theory | Visiting assistant professor | Hong Kong Baptist University |
Mert Kartal | International Relations | Assistant Professor | University of Wisconsin-Steven Point |
Rebecca LeMoine | Political Theory | Assistant Professor | Florida Atlantic University |
Roseanne McManus | International Relations | Assistant Professor | Baruch College |
Jacob Neiheisel | American Politics | Assistant Professor | SUNY-Buffalo |
Kristen Vekasi | Comparative Politics | Assistant Professor | University of Maine-Orono |
Se-Hyoung Yi | Political Theory | Assistant Professor | Trinity Christian College |
Vera Zuo | Comparative Politics | Visiting Assistant professor | Hong Kong University of Science and Technology |
Ryan Biava | Comparative Politics | Affiliate Assistant Professor
Management Consultant, City-wide Strategic Initiatives |
University of Washington Information School
City of Toronto |
Nick Judge | American Politics | Programmer
Founder Co-founder |
Microsoft Advanced Analytics (2014)
RootProject (2017) Judge Research (2018) |
Yujin Kim | American Politics | Private sector/Government |
Name |
Subfield |
Position |
Institution |
Meina Cai | Comparative Politics | Assistant Professor | University of Connecticut |
Jason Engle | American Politics | Consultant-Data and Statistics
Dean for Organizational Learning |
Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (2013)
Columbia Basin College (2016) |
Rob Gingerich | Political Theory | Private sector/Government | |
Dimitri Kelly | American Politics | Assistant Professor | Linfield College |
Sarah Niebler | American Politics | Assistant Professor | Dickinson College |
Saemyi Park | American Politics | Assistant Professor | Carson-Newman University |
Mark Ratkovic | American Politics | Assistant Professor | Princeton University |
Kerry Ratigan | Comparative Politics | Assistant Professor | Amherst College |
Name |
Subfield |
Position |
Institution |
Leticia Bode | American Politics | Assistant Professor | Georgetown University |
Deven Carlson | American Politics | Assistant Professor | University of Oklahoma |
Meghan Condon | American Politics | Lecturer | Loyola University Chicago |
Sara Dahill-Brown | American Politics | Assistant Professor | Wake Forest University |
Evgeny Finkel | Comparative Politics | Assistant Professor | George Washington University |
Tim Hildebrandt | Comparative Politics | Assistant Professor | King’s College London |
Lesley Lavery | American Politics | Assistant Professor | Macalester College |
Jeremy Menchick | Comparative Politics | Post-Doc
Post-Doc Assistant Professor |
Stanford University (2011)
American University of Beirut (2012) Boston University (2013) |
David Nelson | American Politics |
Director of Alumni Professional Networks Managing Director of Alumni Engagement The Wisconsin Institute for Healthy Aging |
UW Madison and the Wisconsin Alumni Association (2014) Wisconsin Foundation and Alumni Association (2014) Executive Director (2020) |
Michael Pisapia | American Politics | Assistant Professor | Wake Forest University |
Ladan Affi | Comparative Politics | Assistant Professor | Zayed University |
Matt Holleque | American Politics | Deputy Statistical Modeling Director
Co-founder Quantitative Researcher Research Science Manager Research Director |
Obama for America Campaign (2012)
BlueLabs: Analytics, Data, and Technology (2013) Facebook (2015) Facebook (2108) Facebook (2021) |
Mark Ratkovic | American Politics | Lecturer | Princeton University |
Name |
Subfield |
Position |
Institution |
Amnon Cavari | American Politics | Assistant Professor | IDC-Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy, and Strategy |
Yousun Chung | Comparative Politics | Assistant Professor | Institute of Political Science, Academia Sinica |
Valerie Hennings | American Politics | Post-Doc
Assistant Professor |
Iowa State University
Morningside University |
Dong Wook Kim | International Relations | Assistant Professor | Marquette University |
Lauren McCarthy | Comparative Politics | Post-Doc
Assistant Professor |
Woodrow Wilson Center/Kennan Institute
University of Massachusetts-Amherst |
Tricia Olsen | Comparative Politics | Assistant Professor | University of Denver |
Kimiko Osawa | Comparative Politics | Assistant Professor | Yonsei University |
Andrew Reiter | International Relations | Assistant Professor | Mount Holyoke College |
Life in Madison
Campus & City Life

Housing & Transportation

Housing in Madison
Madison Neighborhoods Nearby Campus
Information gathered from UW–Madison’s Campus Area Housing Listing Service, the Graduate School’s Housing and Transportation website, and “A Newcomers Guide to Madison”.
For more information on housing and transportation in Madison, you can visit UW–Madison’s Campus Area Housing Listing Service , which maintains up-to-date listings of private housing vacancies, including apartments, houses, roommate options, and cooperative living arrangements. You can also find additional helpful information on Madison neighborhoods on the Graduate School’s Housing and Transportation website.
Near West (Regent, Dudgeon-Monroe, Vilas, Greenbush neighborhoods)
- The Vilas neighborhood is a quiet residential area near the UW Arboretum and Henry Vilas Zoo. This neighborhood is home to a good mix of UW undergrads, graduate students, staff, and faculty, and attracts more families with small children than some of the areas closer to downtown. The Regent neighborhood also has a similar feel.
- Nearby Monroe Street and the Dudgeon-Monroe neighborhood is home to several eclectic shops with a number of coffee shops and restaurants.
- The Greenbush neighborhood tends to have more undergraduate than graduate students in the area.
Isthmus/Near East (Tenney-Lapham, Marquette, Schenk-Atwood-Starkweather-Yahara neighborhoods)
- Lots of older rental properties and a healthy number of small parks, bike paths, and coffee shops make this area attractive to many grad students.
- Though both sides of the isthmus are well-served by public transportation, the Mendota side (Johnson and Gorham Streets and the Tenney-Lapham neighborhood) is on several particularly high-traffic bus routes, making for easy travel to campus and around Madison. Closer to Lake Monona, the Williamson and Jenifer Street areas (Marquette neighborhood) are within easy reach of two Madison food co-ops and numerous restaurants and coffee houses. The Atwood area, which is a little beyond Willy Street and somewhat quieter, is another popular area with shops, entertainment, and restaurants.
Downtown (State/Langdon and Capitol neighborhoods)
- Rentals closer to State Street tend to attract more undergraduates, but there are still plenty of graduate students who enjoy being centrally located.
- Langdon street is where many of the undergraduate fraternities and sororities are located. Many find the area just south of the Capitol near Bassett Street convenient – it feels residential, but is still a short walk from the university.
- Closer to the Capitol building and just east of the capitol has more of a mix of graduate and undergraduate students.
Near South (Park Street)
- Just south of the Greenbush neighborhood, you can find lots of affordable housing along the various offshoots of Park Street as you head south. This area has ethnic supermarkets, Mexican eateries, and some coffee shops.
- It’s popular among grad students, young professionals, retirees, and young families who want to live close to downtown, in a quiet neighborhood, and on a budget. It is also close to the UW Arboretum and Monona Bay, which make for great running or biking routes.
Tips on finding housing in Madison from current Political Science first-year grad students
- Facebook groups, Facebook Marketplace, Zillow, Abodo, and Apartments.com are all good resources to browse housing options.
- Communicate directly with the property management companies or landlords when possible.
- If you aren’t able to visit Madison, many landlords are willing to Facetime/Skype/Zoom to see a virtual tour of an apartment or house.
- Talking with (or read Facebook reviews, posts, etc.) from current tenants as opposed to just communication with the landlord. This can give you a better sense of the positives and negatives of a place.
- Parking at the University and on campus can be hard to find and expensive. It’s helpful to see if your apartment will be on a bus line. Many students do not drive to campus, even if they have a car.
- Google Maps is a really useful tool to look at different areas and how close to different amenities they are. You might consider how important it is to be near coffee shops, laundromats, etc.
- Generally downtown apartments right next to campus have lots of undergraduates.
- Talk with other students in your cohort!
Tips for International Students
- If you don’t have any credit history in the U.S., apartments and landlords may ask for a co-signer.
- A co-signer is someone who adds their name to the primary person’s apartment application, agreeing to be legally responsible for the rent, and any additional fees, should the primary person be unable to pay.
- If you aren’t able to find a co-signer, apartments may ask you to send the full amount of the rent of a year instead of making monthly payments.
- Sometimes international students may start by living in University Apartments to build credit history.
- Apartments don’t always include utilities such as heating and electricity in the rent. If they don’t, you’ll need to pay for them separately in addition to your rent.
- Some apartments allow credit cards or transfer to their account, while others only receive checks or direct transfers from checking accounts.
Important questions to consider when looking for housing
- What is most important to you in selecting an apartment?
- Things to consider: price range, whether or not utilities are included, location, laundry facilities, parking options, etc.
- Do you want to live with roommates or on your own?
- Facebook housing groups can be useful to find roommates
- You might also find roommates among your grad cohort
- Do you want to be able to walk or bike to campus and/or bars and restaurants? Will you take the bus? If you drive, do you have parking on campus and are you willing to pay for parking?
Madison Rankings & Accolades
#4 Greenest Cities in the U.S. (zippia.com, August 2020)
#3 Best State Capitals to Live In (wallethub.com February 2020)
#8 Best Places to Live (money.com September 2019)
#3 Top 100 Best Places to Live (livability.com, October 2020)
#2 Best Places for Outdoor Enthusiasts to Live and Work (smartasset.com, October 2020)
#2 Best Cities for Millennials (rent.com, September 2020)
One of the Best Small Cities in America (National Geographic, January 2018)
#1 Nicest Cities in America (Cheatsheet.com, June 2018)
#2 Most Walkable Cities (Expedia.com, May 2018)
#2 Best Cities for Bikes (peopleforbikes.org, June 2020)
#1 Best College Football Town in America (si.com, August 2019)
#2 Best Cities for Farmers’ Markets (Better Homes & Gardens, June 2019)
#4 Best Beer Destination in the World (VinePair.com, January 2018)
#1 Best Places in the U.S. for Raising Children (diversitydatakids.com, January 2020)
#1 Cities with Best Work-Life Balance (smartasset.com, January 2020)
Intellectual Life in the Department of Political Science
Department of Political Science Ph.D. students are encouraged to participate in our weekly workshops and colloquia. The workshops and colloquia offered in the Department are the American Politics Workshop, Comparative Politics Colloquium, International Relations Colloquium, Political Economy Colloquium, MEAD – Models, Experiments, and Data Workshop, and the Political Theory Workshop.
Workshops are one of the most important intellectual spaces in the department, providing an opportunity to become exposed to cutting-edge research and a chance to meet with scholars from other universities. In addition to featuring faculty papers and outside speakers, the workshops are an integral part of graduate training, serving as a place for students to present papers as well as dissertation prospectuses, grant proposals, dissertation chapters, and practice job talks.
The following are a few examples of recent presentations by outside speakers at our workshops:
- Chris Karpowitz (BYU), “Race in the Jury: Does Racial Representation Matter?”
- Mary McGrath (Northwestern), “Voter bias and the partisan gender-gap in office”
- Manny Teodoro (UW-Madison – LaFollette), “Centripetal Force: bureaucratic ideology and the mainstays of American democracy”
- Robert Braun (UC Berkeley), “Bloodlines: National Border Crossings and Antisemitism in Weimar Germany”
- Ken Opalo (Georgetown), “The Cyclical Electoral Effects of Programmatic Policies: Evidence from Tanzania”
- Ellen Lust (University of Gothenburg), “Gender Composition and Procedural Legitimacy: Insights from a Multi-Country Survey Experiment”
- Lizhi Liu (Georgetown University), “A China Shock or a Multinational Shock? A Reappraisal of the China Shock in Trade”
- Carly Wayne (Washington University St. Louis), “Risk or Retribution: How Citizens Respond to Terrorism”
- Molly Melin (Loyola University-Chicago), “The Building and Breaking of Peace: Understanding Corporate Effects on Conflict Prevention and Resolution”
- Arthur Spirling (NYU), “Embedding Regression: Models for Context-Specific Description and Inference”
- Eddy Malesky (Duke), “Facilitating Development: Evidence from a National-Level Experiment on Improving Bureaucratic Performance in Myanmar”
- Kaiping Chen (UW-Madison – Life Sciences Communication), “Believing and Sharing Misinformation and Accurate Information about Outgroups: An Experiment to Study the Role of Intergroup Message Framing and Source Cues in the Context of Sino-US Vaccine Development”
- Soledad Artiz Prillaman (Stanford University), “Strength in Numbers: Breaking the Patriarchal Household through Collective Action”
- Alan Kahan (Université de Versailles/St. Quentin), “Liberalism – An Incomplete History”
- Denise Walsh (University of Virginia), “When Culture Versus Women’s Rights is Imperialist“
- Torrey Shanks (University of Toronto Scarborough), “Giving Voice to the Objects and Relations of Property”
Methods Training & Preparation
As a department, we are committed to providing you with the training you need to both carry out your dissertation project and to provide you with a strong foundation to take future projects in any direction they could go. Graduate school will require an adjustment period as you grow your research skills quickly. Our expectations are high, and we are sure you can meet them. We also want to set all of you up for success! In that vein, we have developed this guide with some ideas of things you can do in advance of formally starting in the program.
Familiarity with the items below will make taking quantitative methodology courses at the graduate level easier and will ease the transition to conducting your own statistical research. If you have had less exposure to the below topics, we encourage you to spend time between now and your arrival in Madison engaging with these topics.
If you can do two things over the summer, start with our Intro to math for political science (UW Summer Program) as well as thinking about Research Design.
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Intro to math for political science (UW Summer Program)
All of us are primarily interested in politics not math, per se. Yet, the more math you have under your belt, the easier it is to develop a thorough understanding of statistical methods. The more exposure you have before starting in the fall, the easier the quantitative methods sequence will be.
Our Summer Intro to math for Political Science program is intended to provide appropriate scaffolding and is divided into modules so that you can focus on the areas that are most appropriate given your prior training. Our summer program is intended to be completed remotely, with support from faculty, graduate teaching assistants, and an instructional team. Students will read course material, watch video lectures, and complete weekly problems on topics in calculus, probability theory, and linear algebra. (Stay tuned for details!)
Some of this material will also be reviewed in our “Math camp” the week before classes start. However, again, the more comfortable you are with these background concepts and tools, the easier your first year will be.
Start thinking about Research Design
Start thinking about Research Design and the logic of inference (using books that will be required in your first-year courses):
- Kellstadt & Whitten’s The Fundamentals of Political Science Research 3rd Edition, Chapters 1-5.
- Bueno de Mesquita & Fowler’s Thinking Clearly with Data: A Guide to Quantitative Reasoning , Chapters 1-4.
Familiarity with R
Familiarity with R will make your first year easier! R is a free software environment for statistical computing and graphics that has come to be the standard in the field. If you will be doing any quantitative work, you are likely to use it! It has a relatively more user-friendly interface (RStudio). We will have an introduction to R and how to use it as part of our “Math Camp” the week before the semester starts, but, as above, the more familiarity you have with it, the faster you feel comfortable using it.
- Our Social Science Computing Cooperative offers on-line training modules for both R and Python.
- Consider walking through Kosuke Imai’s Introduction to Quantitative Social Sciences text, which is an excellent introduction to both statistical and causal inference that includes paired exercises in R that accompanies the textbook modules. See this guide for installing R/RStudio developed to go along with the Imai text.
- Other resources include Wickham & Grolemund “R for Data Science” and Matloff’s “The Art of R Programming”.
Familiarity with Typesetting Programs
Typesetting programs (Markdown, RMarkdown, LaTX): If you are planning to do quantitative work, it is likely you will encounter or need to write in Markdown, LaTeX, or a related typesetting program at some point in your grad career. So early familiarity with these typesetting systems can help.
- To familiarize yourself with Markdown and R Markdown, including LaTeX-style equation writing, see:
- Ashkan Mirzaee’s Markdown and LaTeX introduction
- RStudio’s introduction to R Markdown
- Kieran Healy’s The Plain Person’s Guide to Plain Text Social Science
- Online introductions to LaTex abound, but some to start with include:
- Overleaf, an online LaTeX editor
- Lyx, a graphical document processor based on the LaTeX typesetting system
- The Indian TeX User Group’s LaTeX Tutorials: A Primer
Recent Graduate Student Awards
UW-Madison Department of Political Science 2022 TA Award
APSA Dissertation Improvement Grant
APSA Summer Centennial Grant
Mary Washburn Willetts Award
University of Wisconsin-Madison Capstone Teaching Award
University of Wisconsin-Madison Early Excellence in Teaching Award
University of Wisconsin-Madison Continuity of Instruction Award
UW-Madison Department of Political Science 2021 TA Award
Humane Studies Fellowship
- Hamni Park (2021 & 2022)
Jordan Prize, African Studies Program
Genevieve Gorst Herfurth Award for Outstanding Research in the Social Sciences
- Anna Meier
- Chagai Weiss (honorable mention)
Mildred Potter Hovland Journal Article Prize
Leon Esptein Prize in American and British Politics
Adam Smith Fellowship, Mercatus Center
Research Group Funding Award (Survey of attitudes toward GMOs in Mexico), University of Wisconsin-Madison
Hsueh International Fellowship Fund, American Political Science Association
Oskar Morgenstern Fellowship, George Mason University
CREECA FLAS Fellow (Kazakh language and Central Asian area studies)
Charles and Gayle Mazursky Student Support Fund, University of Wisconsin-Madison
George L. Mosse Graduate Exchange Fellowship
Bourse and Bazaar Foundation Visiting Fellowship
Ronald Rapoport Summer Research Collaborative Program
George and Sylvia Laikin Prize, Center for Jewish Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Teaching Fellow Award, UW-Madison College of Letters & Sciences
Teaching Assistant Award, Integrated Liberal Studies Program
UW-Madison Department of Political Science TA Award
Don Lavoie Fellowship, Mercatus Center
Genevieve Gorst Herfurth Award, University of Wisconsin-Madison
David A. Lake Award, International Political Economy Society
Holtz Center Travel Award, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Future Faculty Partner, University of Wisconsin-Madison Teaching Academy
Graduate student research award from the Center for Russia, East Europe, and Central Asia at the University of Wisconsin-Madison
NSF GRFP Award (2019-2022)
Hawai’i/Wisconsin LUCE Faculty-Student Collaborative Research Fellowship
University of Wisconsin-Madison Early Excellence in Teaching Award
IHS Fellowship
Mildred Potter Hovland Award, Department of Political Science
IRIS Graduate Student Summer Fieldwork Award
The Morris Abrams Award in International Relations
Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad (DDRA) Award
Fulbright Research Award
Bradley Fellowship UW-Madison
International Relations Research Group Award
Devorah Manekin and Dr. Noga Ofek-Shlomai Research Award from Israel Institute
Charles and Gayle Mazursky Student Support Fund Award, Center for Jewish Studies
Research award, Minerva Center for Human Rights at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Jordan Prize (African Studies Program)
Robert F. and Jane E. Holtz Center for Science and Technology Studies