Schedule
Thursday, March 7
Individual meetings with faculty throughout the day. Please check your personal schedule for meeting times and locations.
4:15pm | Welcome and overview of the Ph.D. program, 422 North Hall
Rikhil Bhavnani, Jon Pevehouse, Erin Moskowitz
5:00-6:00pm | Intellectual Life in the Department and at the University, 422 North Hall
Jessica Weeks, Dan Kapust, Steven Brooke, Barry Burden
6:15pm | Dinner with faculty, Pyle Center Alumni Lounge
Friday, March 8
Individual meetings with faculty throughout the day. Please check your personal schedule for meeting times and locations.
8:30-9:30am | Coffee, juice, and food available, Grad Lounge (first floor North Hall)
9:00-9:30am | Drop by for informal conversation on the experience of international students at UW, 211 North Hall
9:30-10:30am | Roundtable on Methods Training, 422 North Hall
Adeline Lo, Eleanor Powell
11:50am-12:50pm | Lunch with faculty, Grad Lounge (first floor North Hall).
Food will be served starting at 11:50am in the Grad Lounge. Once you get your food, we will be splitting up into fields for lunch. American Politics students will be eating in room 122 (first floor), International Relations students will be eating in room 211 (second floor), and Comparative Politics students will be eating in room 315 (third floor).
Political Theory students will be eating lunch at the Political Theory Workshop (422 North Hall) from 12-1:15pm.
1:00-1:30pm | Drop by for informal conversation on the experience of women at UW and in academia, 211 North 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
6:00pm | Dinner with current graduate students, Memorial Union
Other Activities of Interest
Thursday, March 7
9:30-10:45am | PS 919 – Bayesian Statistics for the Social Sciences, Professor Alex Tahk, 422 North Hall
12:00-1:15pm | Comparative Politics Colloquium, 422 North Hall
1:20-3:15pm | PS 940 – Domestic Politics of International Relations, Professor Jessica Weeks, 422 North Hall
1:20-3:15pm | PS 821 – Mass Political Behavior, Professor Barry Burden, L151 Education
Friday, March 8
12:00-1:15pm | Political Theory Workshop, 422 North Hall
1:30-2:45pm | MEAD – Models, Experiments, and Data Workshop, 422 North Hall
3:00-4:15pm | Current Challenges to Election Administration Panel Discussion, UW Law School, Room 2260
Campus Maps & Tours
Recent Student & Faculty Collaboration
Summer 2022 Grad Chagai Weiss and Professor Jonathan Renshon's article published in The American Journal of Political Science
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).
Ph.D. 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.
Ph.D. Candidate Tim Tennyson publishes paper with Professor Michelle Schwarze in the European Journal of Political Theory
Tennyson co-authored "An honest man?: Rousseau’s critique of Locke’s character education" with Michelle Schwarze in the European Journal of Political Theory.
Summer 2023 grad Lotem Bassan-Nygate's paper with Professors Adeline Lo and Jonathan Renshon forthcoming in the Journal of Experimental Political Science
Bassan-Nygate co-authored “A Practical Guide to Dealing with Attrition in Experiments" with Adeline Lo and Jonathan Renshon.
Recent Publications from our Graduate Students
This is an accordion element with a series of buttons that open and close related content panels.
2023 & 2024
Adeline Lo, Devin Judge-Lord, Kyler Hudson, and Kenneth R. Mayer. “Mapping Literature with Networks: An Application to Redistricting.” Political Analysis. 2023.
Chagai Weiss and Anna Getmansky. “War Time Military Service Can Affect Partisan Preferences.” Comparative Political Studies. 2023.
Chagai Weiss and Anna Getmansky. “Interstate Conflict Can Reduce Support for Incumbents: Evidence from the Israeli Electorate and the Yom Kippur War.” Journal of Conflict Resolution. 2023.
Dillon Laaker. “Economic Shocks and the Development of Immigration Attitudes.” British Journal of Political Science. 2023.
Hohyun Yoon and Andrew McWard. “Preventing Coups and Seeking Allies: The Demand and Supply of Alliances for Coup-Proofing Regimes.” Journal of Conflict Resolution. 2023.
Marika Olijar and Junda Li. “Persuasion or polarization? LGBTQ+ attitudes among young social media users in Kazakhstan.” Central Asian Survey (2023): 1-22. 2023.
Natalie Jones-Kerwin, Peterson, D.A. “Group Consciousness and the Politics of American Indians.” Political Behavior. 2023.
Ned Littlefield. “Examining the Crime-Conflict Distinction: Victimization and Political System Support in Colombia.” Journal of Politics in Latin America. 1-29. w/ Maria Camila Angulo Amaya. 2023.
Ned Littlefield and Douglas Block. “Identity, Conflict and Discourse: Understanding Military Contestation in Brazil.” Journal of Latin American Studies. 2023.
Ned Littlefield. “After racial democracy? The state’s rhetorical reconstruction of national identity in Brazil (1990-2019).” Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies. 2023.
Ned Littlefield, Omar O. Dumdum, and Oliver Lang. “Why do populists flip-flop on soldiers? The drug war’s civil-military commitment problem.” In Handbook on Democracy and Security. Eds. Nicholas A. Seltzer and Steven Lloyd Wilson. Cheltenham, United Kingdom: Edward Elgar Publishing Limited. 211-230. 2023.
Timothy Tennyson and Michelle Schwarze. “An honest man?: Rousseau’s critique of Locke’s character education.” European Journal of Political Theory. 2023.
Valeria Umanets. “Proportional representation and party fragmentation in electoral autocracies.” Democratization: 1-21. 2024.
Valeria Umanets, Marat Iliyasov, Aleksandra Garmazhapova, and Yasin Hakim. “Repurposing Tradition to Justify the War in Ukraine.” PONARS Eurasia Policy Memo No.878. 2024.
Xinzhi Zhao. “Monopoly and the Dysfunction of the Social Mechanism of Equal Respect: a new reading of Adam Smith’s critique of monopoly.” Adam Smith Review. 2024.
2022
Aili Mari Tripp and Thomas S. Worth. “War, Peace, and Security.” The Routledge Global History of Feminism. Eds. Bonnie G. Smith and Nova Robinson. 2022.
Anton Shirikov. “The Oligarch Vanishes: Defensive Ownership, Property Rights, and Political Connections.” Quarterly Journal of Political Science. (With John Earle, Scott Gehlbach, and Solomiya Shpak.) 2022.
Anton Shirikov. “Russia: Muddling Through Populism and the Pandemic.” 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. 2022.
Chagai M. Weiss, Alexandra Siegel, and David Romney “How Threats of Exclusion Mobilize Palestinian Political Participation.” The American Journal of Political Science. 2022.
Chagai Weiss, Eugene Finkel, Yon Lupu, Dan Miodownik, and Neal Tsur. “Atypical Violence and Conflict Dynamics: Evidence from Jerusalem.” Political Science Research and Methods. 2022.
Chagai Weiss, Kyle Peyton, and Paige Vaughn. “Beliefs about Minority Representation in Policing and Support for Diversification.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2022.
Chagai Weiss, Ryan Brutger, Joshua Kertzer, Jonathan Renshon, and Dustin Tingley. “Abstraction and Detail in Experimental Design. American Journal of Political Science. 2022.
Hyo Won Lee, Yena Kim, and Whasun Jho. “Domestic Politics and Requests for UNESCO’s International Assistance Program.” International Interactions. 2022.
Jérémie Langlois. “When Reorganizing Coercion Backfires: Explaining the Mechanisms of Revolt in Sudan and Algeria.” Democratization, 29:7, 1310-1331. 2022.
Katherine Jensen and Lisa M. Sousa Dias. “Varied Racialization and Legal Inclusion: Haitian, Syrian, and Venezuelan Forced Migrants in Brazil.” American Behavioral Scientist. 2022.
Lotem Bassan-Nygate & Gadi Heimann. “Dealing with Guilt and Shame in International Politics.” International Relations. 2022.
Marta Lorimer & Ethan vanderWilden. “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. 2022.
Ned Littlefield and Joe Peterangelo. “Hitting Home: Milwaukee’s homeownership inequities and how we compare to peer cities.” Wisconsin Policy Forum. 2022.
Peter Erikson, Marko Kljajic, and Nadav Shelef. “Domestic military deployments in response to COVID-19.” Armed Forces & Society. 2022.
Philip D. Bunn. “Silicon Valley Stoics?: Life-Hacking, Transhumanism, and Stoic Therapy.” Political Science Reviewer. 2022.
Rikhil R. Bhavnani and Saloni Bhogale. “India in 2021: At the Crossroads.” Asian Survey 62(1): 161–172. 2022.
Ryan Brutger, Joshua D. Kertzer, Jonathan Renshon, Dustin Tingley and Chagai M. Weiss. “Abstraction and Detail in Experimental Design.” The American Journal of Political Science. 2022.
Saloni Bhogale & Pavithra Suryanarayan. “India: The Good, the Bad, and the Deadly Consequences of India’s Pandemic Response.” In Populists and the Pandemic: How Populists Around the World Respond to COVID-19, eds. N. Ringe and L. Renno. London: Routledge. 2022.
Sujin Cha, Yehzee Ryoo, and Sung Eun Kim. “Losing Hearts and Minds? Unpacking the Effects of Chinese Soft Power Initiatives in Africa.” Asian Survey: 1-30. 2022.
Timothy T. Tennyson. “Cicero’s Romulus and the Crafting of Historical Exempla.” History of Political Thought, Vol. 43, No.1. 2022.
Xinzhi Zhao, “Ideological Context and the Study of Political Theory.” Hobbes Studies, Vol. 35, Issue 1. 2022.
2021
Alexander Kustov, Dillon Laaker, and Cassidy Reller. “The Stability of Immigration Attitudes: Evidence and Implications.” Journal of Politics. 83 (4): 1478-1494. 2021.
Anton Shirikov. “Who Gets Ahead in Authoritarian Parliaments? The Case of the Russian State Duma.” The Journal of Legislative Studies. 2021.
Barry C. Burden and Rochelle Snyder. “Explaining Uncontested Seats in Congress and State Legislatures.” American Politics Research. 2021.
Chagai M. Weiss.“Diversity in Israeli Healthcare Institutions Reduces Prejudice towards Arabs.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118.14. 2021.
Frederick R. Chen. “Extended Dependence: Trade, Alliances, and Peace.” Journal of Politics. 83(1): 246–259. 2021.
Haftel, Yoram Z., Soo Yeon Kim, & Lotem Bassan-Nygate. “High-Income Developing Countries, FDI Outflows and the International Investment Agreement Regime.” World Trade Review, 1-17. 2021.
Jiaqi Lu. “The Politics of Coal in the United States.” Book chapter, Political Determinants of Energy and Climate Policy, Routledge Press, with Gregory Nemet. 2021.
Jiaqi Lu. “Investigation of a coupling coordination degree model between low-carbon development and air quality in China.” Advances in Climate Change Research, (with T. Liu and Q. Song, and Y. Qi). 2021.
Juan Qian. “Historical Ethnic Conflicts and the Rise of Islamophobia in Modern China.” Ethnopolitics. 2021.
Kate M. Carter. “Internet Access and Control in Uganda.” In Examining Internet and Technology around the World, ed. Laura M. Steckman (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO). 2021.
Levi Bankston & Barry C. Burden. “Voter mobilization efforts can depress turnout.” Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties. 2021.
Lotem Bassan-Nygate & Chagai M. Weiss. “Party Competition and Cooperation Shape Affective Polarization: Evidence from Natural and Survey Experiments in Israel.” Comparative Political Studies. 2021.
Lotem Bassan-Nygate. “My Heart is in the West: Formation of Western Identity in Israel around the Korean War.” Politika, 30: 40-61. 2021.
Omar O. Dumdum & Levi Bankston. “The Interplay of Actors in Political Communication: The State of the Subfield.” Political Communication. 2021.
Philip D. Bunn. “Transcendent Rebellion: The Influence of Simone Weil on Albert Camus’ Esthetics.” Perspectives on Political Science. 2021.
Rochlitz, Evgeniia Mitrokhina, & Nizovkina, I. “Bureaucratic discrimination in electoral authoritarian regimes: Experimental evidence from Russia.” European Journal of Political Economy. 2021.
Veronica Fenocchio Azzi and Ned Littlefield. “Continuidade ou mudança? As relações civis-militares após a Intervenção Federal no Rio de Janeiro.” Revista Eletrônica de Ciência Política 12(1): 29-48. 2021.
Xinzhi Zhao. “A Ciceronian Defense of Democratic Participation.” Política & Sociedade, vol. 20, no. 47, pp. 103–129. 2021.
Where our Grads are Now (since 2012-2013)
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, 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, Macalaster, 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 Yale, Stanford, Brown, Northwestern, University of Pennsylvania, and University of Gothenburg. Many 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.
- 2022-2023
- 2021-2022
- 2020-2021
- 2019-2020
- 2018-2019
- 2017-2018
- 2016-2017
- 2015-2016
- 2014-2015
- 2013-2014
- 2012-2013
| Name | Subfield | Position | Institution |
| Yumi Park | International Relations | Assistant Professor | Copenhagen Business School |
| Andrew McWard | International Relations | Assistant Professor | Denison University |
| Philip Bunn | Political Theory | Post-Doc | Clemson University |
| Marcy Shieh | American Politics | Post-Doc
Assistant Professor |
University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Miami University |
| Lotem Bassan-Nygate | International Relations | Post-Doc
Assistant Professor |
Princeton University
Harvard University |
| Kirstin Anderson | Political Theory | Assistant Professor | Hope College |
| Jiaqi Lu | Comparative Politics | Post-Doc
Senior Academic Researcher |
Georgetown
Boston University |
| Juan Qian | Comparative Politics | Instructor | Chicago University |
| Levi Bankston | American Politics | Private Sector |
| Name | Subfield | Position | Institution |
| Frederick Chen | International Relations | Assistant Professor
Assistant Professor |
Nanyang Technological University
The Ohio State University |
| Anton Shirikov | Comparative Politics | Post-Doc
Assistant Professor |
Columbia University
University of Kansas |
| Caileigh Glenn | International Relations | Post-Doc
Post-Doc |
MIT
Duke University |
| Chagai Weiss | Comparative Politics | Post-Doc | Stanford University |
| David Greenwood-Sanchez | Comparative Politics | Post-Doc
Assistant Professor |
University of Iowa
University of Iowa |
| Name | Subfield | Position | Institution |
| Anne Jamison | International Relations | Post-Doc
Post-Doc Assistant Professor |
Princeton University
Stellenbosch University Copenhagen Business School |
| Camila Angulo | Comparative Politics | Assistant Professor | CIDE |
| Devin Judge-Lord | American Politics | Post-Doc
Assistant Professor |
Harvard University
University of Michigan |
| Dmitrii Kofanov | Comparative Politics | Post-Doc
Post-Doc |
University of Barcelona
University of Pittsburgh |
| 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
Assistant Professor |
University of Zurich
NYU Abu Dhabi |
| Micah Dillard | International Relations | Data Analyst
Data Scientist |
Achievement First
Morning Consult |
| Michael DeCrescenzo | American Politics | Quantitative Researcher | DRW |
| Ben Power | International Relations | Associate | Oliver Wyman |
| Delgerjargal Uvsh | Comparative Politics | Post-Doc
Post-Doc Post-Doc Assistant Professor |
New York University
University of Southern California University of Houston The University of Texas at Austin |
| 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
Assistant Professor |
University of Barcelona
Tulane University |
| 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 Assistant Professor |
University of Rochester
University of Pittsburgh George Mason University |
| Rachel Jacobs | Comparative Politics | Assistant Professor | Dickinson College |
| Susanne Mueller-Redwood | International Relations | Visiting Faculty
Assistant Professor |
Mount Holyoke College
Montana State University |
| Camilla Rueterswaerd | Comparative Politics | Post-Doc
Research Fellow |
Freie Universitat Berlin
University of Sussex |
| Rachel Schwartz | Comparative Politics | Post-Doc
Assistant Professor Assistant Professor |
Tulane University
Otterbein University University of Oklahoma |
| 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 – Consulting |
| Name | Subfield | Position | Institution |
| Zachary Barnett-Howell | International Relations | Post-Doc | Yale University |
| Hannah Chapman | Comparative Politics | Assistant Professor
Assistant Professor |
Miami University
University of Oklahoma |
| 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
The Chicago Council on Global Affairs DynamicAlly, LLC The Chicago Council on Global Affairs YWCA Metropolitan Chicago YWCA Metropolitan Chicago |
| Kathleen Klaus | Comparative Politics | Post-Doc
Visiting Assistant Professor Assistant Professor Associate Senior Lecturer |
Northwestern University
Wesleyan University University of San Francisco Uppsala University |
| Christopher Krewson | American Politics | Assistant Professor
Assistant Professor |
Claremont University
Brigham Young University |
| Ning Leng | Comparative Politics | Post-Doc
Assistant Professor |
Harvard University
Georgetown University |
| 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 Director of Cyber Analytics |
Insight Data Science
Jungle Scout Mastercard Mastercard |
| Matt Scharf | Comparative Politics | African Regional Operations Advisor
Senior Advisor, Public & Government Affairs (Guyana) Deputy Public & Govt Affairs Manager (Guyana) |
ExxonMobile
ExxonMobile ExxonMobile |
| Name | Subfield | Position | Institution |
| Sirus Bouchat | Comparative Politics | Assistant Professor | Northwestern University |
| Thomas Bunting | Political Theory | Assistant Professor | Shawnee State University |
| Kyle Marquardt | Comparative Politics | Post-Doc
Assistant Professor Associate Professor |
University of Gothenburg
Higher School of Economics University of Bergen |
| Ryan Powers | International Relations | Post-Doc
Assistant Professor |
Yale University
University of Georgia |
| Charles Taylor | Comparative Politics | Research Consultant
Research Consultant Instructor and Course Director |
American Friends Service Committee
Navanti Group Foreign Service Institute |
| Samantha Vortherms | Comparative Politics | Post-Doc
Assistant Professor |
Stanford University
UC-Irvine |
| Brianne Wolf | Political Theory | Assistant Professor
Assistant Professor |
Ashland University
Michigan State University |
| Name | Subfield | Position | Institution |
| Ethan Alexander-Davey | Political Theory | Post-Doc
Assistant Professor |
University of Richmond
Campbell University |
| Sanja Badanjak | Comparative Politics | Post-Doc | University of Edinburgh |
| Jessica Clayton | International Relations | Institutional Planner | UW-Whitewater |
| Simon Haeder | American Politics | Assistant Professor
Assistant Professor Associate Professor |
West Virginia University
Penn State University Texas A&M University |
| Bradley Jones | American Politics | Senior Researcher
User Experience Researcher |
Pew Research Center
Meta |
| Dalton Lin | International Relations | Post-Doc
Assistant Professor |
Academia Sinica-Taiwan
Georgia Institute of Technology |
| 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 Assistant Professor |
University of Gothenburg
University of Nevado-Reno Brandeis University |
| 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
Spark Policy Institute Grants Writer (Grants, Innovation and Program Development) Senior Project Manager, Measurement and Evaluation Director, Data Management, Measurement and Outcomes |
| Taylor Price | Comparative Politics | Private Sector/Government |
| Name | Subfield | Position | Institution |
| Barry Driscoll | Comparative Politics | Associate 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
Assistant Professor |
Texas A&M
Yale University |
| Bill Egar | American Politics | Social Science Analyst
Data Scientist Social Science Analyst Senior Director, Data Science |
US Government Accountability Office
The Lab @ DC Congressional Research Service Morning Consult |
| 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
UC San Diego UC San Diego |
| Inken von Borzykowski | International Relations | Assistant Professor
Associate Professor |
Florida State University
University College London |
| Guangxin Fan | Political Theory | Visiting assistant professor | Hong Kong Baptist University |
| Mert Kartal | International Relations | Assistant Professor
Associate Professor |
University of Wisconsin-Steven Point
St. Lawrence University |
| Rebecca LeMoine | Political Theory | Assistant Professor | Florida Atlantic University |
| Roseanne McManus | International Relations | Assistant Professor
Associate Professor |
Baruch College
Penn State |
| 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
Assistant Professor |
Trinity Christian College
University of Houston-Clear Lake |
| 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
RootProject Judge Research |
| Yujin Kim | American Politics | Private sector/Government |
| Name | Subfield | Position | Institution |
| Meina Cai | Comparative Politics | Associate Professor | University of Connecticut |
| Jason Engle | American Politics | Consultant-Data and Statistics
Dean for Organizational Learning |
Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction
Columbia Basin College |
| 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
Assistant Professor |
Carson-Newman University
UW-Stevens Point |
| Mark Ratkovic | American Politics | Assistant Professor | Princeton University |
| Kerry Ratigan | Comparative Politics | Assistant Professor | Amherst 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.
Madison Rankings & Accolades
#1 Best Place to Live in the U.S. (Livability, 2022)
#1 Best Place to Live in the U.S. (Livability, 2021)
One of the Best Small Cities in America (National Geographic, 2018)
#1 Best State Capitals to Live In (smartasset.com, 2021)
#1 Nicest Cities in America (Cheatsheet.com, 2018)
#4 Greenest Cities in the U.S. (zippia.com, 2020)
#2 Most Walkable Cities (Expedia.com, 2018)
#2 Best Cities for Bikes (peopleforbikes.org, 2020)
#2 Best Cities for Farmers’ Markets (Better Homes & Gardens, 2019)
#1 Best Places in the U.S. for Raising Children (diversitydatakids.com, 2020)
#1 Cities with Best Work-Life Balance (smartasset.com, 2020)
#2 Best Places for Outdoor Enthusiasts to Live and Work (smartasset.com, 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, Political Theory Workshop, and the Diversity, Equity, Justice and Power (DEJP) Lecture Series.
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 department also hosts the Political Science Graduate Workshop (PSGW), which focuses on personal and professional development for graduate students in the department. The PSGW’s mission is to “foster communication and information-sharing among the grad students and faculty members of the political science department and to promote professional development opportunities for the grad students.” The topics covered in PSGW range from topics in graduate life (health and balance, financial life) to discipline professional development (publishing, communications). This workshop convenes several times per semester each academic year.
The following are a few examples of recent presentations by speakers at our workshops:
- Marty Davidson (UW-Madison), “Keeping Up with the Joneses: When Should Civilians Call the Police?”
- Scott Clifford (Texas A&M), “Varieties of Values: Moral Values are Uniquely Divisive”
- Barry Burden (UW-Madison), “Guardians at the Gates: Poll Worker Retention in a Challenging Election Environment”
- Mark Dincecco (University of Michigan), “The Columbian Exchange and Conflict in Asia”
- Jennifer Gandhi (Yale University), “Fixing the Past: The Effects of Human Rights Trials on Political Attitudes in Argentina”
- Daniel Corstange (Columbia University), “Source Cues, Foreign Vaccines, and the Halo Effect”
- Debak Das (University of Denver), “Proliferating the Means of Nuclear Delivery: The Non-proliferation Regime and India’s Nuclear Force Development”
- David Leblang (University of Virginia), “The Political Economy of Cryptocurrencies: Theory and Global Evidence”
- Robert Schub (Rutgers University), “Racial Inequality in War”
- Molly Offer-Westort (University of Chicago), “Battling the Coronavirus ‘Infodemic’ Among Social Media Users in Kenya and Nigeria”
- Cigdem Sirin (University of Texas at El Paso), “Outgroup Empathy and Opposition to Restrictive Voting Laws”
- Adriana Alfaro Altamirano (Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México), “The Varieties of Judicial Empathy”
- Neil Roberts (Williams College), “Policing’s Unfreedom”
- Sharon Krause (Brown University), “Montesquieu, Arendt, and the Constitutio Libertatis: Relational Power, Plural Freedom”
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.
This is an accordion element with a series of buttons that open and close related content panels.
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
This is an accordion element with a series of buttons that open and close related content panels.
2023 & 2024
Humane Studies Fellowship from the Institute for Humane Studies (IHS)
UW-Madison Campus Teaching Award: Capstone Teaching Award
Center for Arabic Study Abroad (CASA II) Fellowship, U.S. Department of Education
Ronald Rapoport Summer Research Collaborative Program
George Washington Statesmanship Fellow
APSA Small Grant Proposal for Research in Religion and Politics
APSA Diversity and Inclusion Advancing Research Grant for Indigenous Politics
Travel, Research, and Engagement Grant from the Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS)
Mildred Potter Hovland Prize
- Xinzhi Zhao, “Monopoly and the Dysfunction of the Social Mechanism of Equal Respect,” published in the Adam Smith Review
Leon Epstein Prize
- Dillon Laaker, “Economic Shocks and the Development of Immigration Attitudes,” published in the British Journal of Political Science
APSA Centennial Center Summer Research Grant
ASEEES Dissertation Improvement Grant
Visiting fellowship at Harvard’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies
Carnegie/Harriman Research Grant
Foreign Language and Area Studies fellowship (FLAS)
UW-Madison Department of Political Science Best Dissertation Prize
- Lotem Bassan, International Relations
- Marcy Shieh, American Politics
- Juan Qian, Comparative Politics
- Philip Bunn, Political Theory
URS Exceptional Mentorship Award for 2022-2023
UW-Madison Department of Political Science 2023 TA Awards
Crawford Young Research Award
APSA’s 2023-2024 Spring Diversity Fellowship
Frank Cass 2023 Award for Best Article by a Young Scholar published in Democratization in 2022 (“When reorganizing coercion backfires: explaining the mechanisms of revolt in Sudan and Algeria”)
Review of Politics Award (MPSA) for her paper: “Machiavelli’s Ecstatic Politics: An Invitation to an Inquiry”
Best Graduate Student Paper for the MPSA Latina/o Caucus Best Graduate Student Paper for “The Construction of Latino Identity in Presidential Elections”
2022
Summer Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship (FLAS)
UW-Madison University Housing Honored Instructor Award
University of Wisconsin-Madison Capstone Teaching Award
UW-Madison Middle East Studies Program Award for Excellence in Graduate Research
Mildred Potter Hovland Journal Article Prize
APSA Dissertation Improvement Grant
UW-Madison Department of Political Science Best Dissertation Prize
- Pete Erickson, International Relations
- Anton Shirikov, Comparative Politics
- Chagai Weiss, Comparative Politics
Sabbatical Award, Institute for Humane Studies
Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship (FLAS)
College of Letters & Science Teaching Mentor
Fellow, ASPA’s Institute for Civically Engaged Research (ICER)
National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship (GRF)
Crawford Young Research Award
UW-Madison Department of Political Science 2022 TA Awards
George L. Mosse Graduate Exchange Fellowship
Bourse and Bazaar Foundation Visiting Fellowship
Humane Studies Fellowship
Mary Washburn Willetts Award
U.S. Department of State, Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad
IRIS Fieldwork Award
Scott Kloeck-Jenson Fellowship
Ronald Rapoport Summer Research Collaborative Program
2021
Critical Language Scholarship (CLS), U.S. Department of State
Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship (FLAS)
APSA Dissertation Improvement Grant
APSA Summer Centennial Grant
L&S Teaching Fellows 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 Awards
Humane Studies Fellowship
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
Ronald Rapoport Summer Research Collaborative Program
2020
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
UW-Madison Latin American, Caribbean & Iberian Studies (LACIS)
Brazil Initiative’s Joaquim Nabuco Award for Graduate Students
