2025 Prospective Student Visit Days
March 13th & March 14th

2025 Prospective Student Visit Days

Recent Student & Faculty Collaboration

Ph.D. Candidate Ethan vanderWilden and Professor Nadav Shelef's paper published in the American Journal of Political Science

vanderWilden co-authored “Re-evaluating the impact of collective victimhood on conflict attitudes: Results from a natural experiment, a survey experiment, and panel study using Israel’s Holocaust Memorial Day".

Ph.D. Student Natalie Jones-Kerwin and Professor Yoshiko Herrera: 2024 Reilly-Baldwin Wisconsin Idea Endowment Grant

Natalie Jones-Kerwin and Yoshiko Herrera were awarded the 2024 Reilly-Baldwin Wisconsin Idea Endowment Grant for their project “Engaging Wisconsin’s Native Americans in Social Science Research”.

Recent Publications from our Graduate Students

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2024 & 2025

Howard Schweber and Rebecca Anderson. “Incitement on the Internet: Rethinking First Amendment Standards in Cyberspace,” in Eric T. Kasper and JoAnne Sweeney eds., Free Speech and Incitement in the Twenty-First Century  (SUNY Press 2025).

Junda Li and D. Woods. “Dangerous depths of bifurcation: the rise of ‘inter-national security narcissists’ and undersea cable (dis) connections.” Asian Security, 1–23. 2024.

Hohyun Yoon. “Getting Angry, Winning Crises: Anger Expressions and Coercive Credibility in International Crises”, American Journal of Political Science. Forthcoming. 2024.

Nadav Shelef and Ethan vanderWilden. “Re-evaluating the impact of collective victimhood on conflict attitudes: Results from a natural experiment, a survey experiment, and panel study using Israel’s Holocaust Memorial Day.” American Journal of Political Science 1–19. 2024.

Natalie L. Smith and Susan Webb Yackee. “A New Measure of U.S. Public Agency Policy Discretion.” Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory. 2024.

Pinell, Phillip. “Might Makes Rights: A Ciceronian Critique of Pettit’s Theory of Liberty,” POLIS: The Journal for Greek and Roman Political Thought, Forthcoming.

Phillip Pinell. “Does Artificial Intelligence Speak Our Language?: A Gadamerian Assessment of Generative Language Models,” Political Research Quarterly, 0(0). 2024.

Phillip Pinell. “How a People Becomes a People: Memory and Identity in Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia.” American Political Thought. Forthcoming. 2024.

Phillip Pinell. “Tocqueville and Democratic Historical Consciousness,” The European Legacy. Forthcoming. 2024.

Phillip Pinell. “Nostalgia for Empire? José Ortega y Gasset, Memory, and ‘The Spanish Problem’”, The Political Science Reviewer, 48(2). 2024.

Phillip Pinell. “Thinking and Political Considerations: Gnômê in the Stoic Political Philosophy of Epictetus,” The Political Science Reviewer 47, no. 3 (2023), 1-26. 2024.

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.

2023

Adeline LoDevin 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. “After racial democracy? The state’s rhetorical construction of national identity in Brazil.” Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies. 2023.

Ned Littlefield and Douglas Block. “Identity, Conflict & Discourse: Understanding Military Contestation in Brazil.” Journal of Latin American 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.

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 DesignAmerican 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 2014-2015)

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 Yale, Harvard, the Ohio State, University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, Cornell, Northwestern, University of Iowa, University of Pittsburgh, Boston College, Texas A+M, and Georgetown, among others. Our students also do well in obtaining positions at selective liberal arts colleges, such as Middlebury, Denison, Amherst, Grinnell, Wesleyan, Macalester, 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 London School of Economics, Harvard, Georgetown, University of Pennsylvania, Princeton, Yale, Stanford, Brown, Northwestern, and Columbia. 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.

Name Subfield Position Institution
Rochelle Snyder American Politics Assistant Professor Coe College
Valeria Umanets Comparative Politics Post-Doc University of Pittsburgh

Tulane University

Thomas Worth Comparative Politics Visiting Assistant Professor St. Olaf College
Hohyun Yoon International Relations Post-Doc

Assistant Professor

University of
PennsylvaniaWashington State
University
Kennia Coronado American Politics Post-Doc

Assistant Professor

Post-Doc, Texas Women’s
UniversityCornell University
Joorahm Kim Political Theory Assistant Professor International University of
Japan
Xinzhi Zhao Political Theory Lecturer University of Maryland-College Park
Dillon Laaker International Relations Post-Doc London School of Economics

Cornell University

Noah Stengl Political Theory Lecturer University of Wisconsin-Madison
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

Assistant Professor

Clemson University

Covenant College

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

Assistant Professor

Chicago University

Boston College

Levi Bankston American Politics Research Manager Analyst Institute
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

Assistant Professor

MIT

Duke University

Middlebury College

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

Assistant Professor

CIDE

Indiana University Northwest

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

Assistant Teaching Professor

University of Wisconsin-Green Bay

University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth

Sujeong Shim International Relations Post-Doc

Assistant Professor

University of Zurich

NYU Abu Dhabi

Micah Dillard International Relations Data Scientist 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

Visiting Research Fellow

Assistant Professor

Coastal Carolina University

University of Notre Dame

Catholic University of America

Katie Robiadek Political Theory Assistant Professor

Assistant Professor

Hood College

Xavier University

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

Assistant Professor

Freie Universitat Berlin

University of Sussex

Uppsala University

Rachel Schwartz Comparative Politics Post-Doc

Assistant Professor

Assistant Professor

Tulane University

Otterbein University

University of Oklahoma

Dan Walters American Politics Assistant Professor

Associate Professor

Penn State

Texas A&M University

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 Senior Data Scientist Samsara
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 Vice President of Policy, Research, and Evaluation 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

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 Director of Cyber Analytics Mastercard
Matt Scharf Comparative Politics Deputy Public & Govt Affairs Manager (Guyana) 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 Instructor and Course Director 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 Research Director YouGov
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 Senior Manager, Research Review and Support The Pew Charitable Trusts
Lynn Fredrikkson Comparative Politics Advocacy Director for Africa Amnesty International USA
Leah Larson-Rabin Comparative Politics Private Sector/Government – Consulting
Shahirah Mahmood Comparative Politics Director of Data and Evaluation National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development
Taylor Price Comparative Politics Lecturer Grinnell College
Name Subfield Position Institution
Barry Driscoll Comparative Politics Associate Professor Grinnell College
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 Senior Director, Data Science Morning Consult

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)

Best Mid-Size Town
(Midwest Living, 2023)

#1 Best State Capitals to Live In (smartasset.com, 2021)

#8 Greenest City in the US
(EcoCation, 2024)

World’s Best Cities: Wellness
(National Geographic, 2024)

#2 Most Walkable Cities (Expedia.com, 2018)

#2 Best Cities for Bikes (peopleforbikes.org, 2020)

#6 Best Places to Live in the US for Quality of Life
(U.S. News & World Report, 2024-25)

#1 Cities with Best Work-Life Balance (smartasset.com, 2020)

#2 Best Cities for Farmers’ Markets (Better Homes & Gardens, 2019)

#1 Best Places in the U.S. for Raising Children (diversitydatakids.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 this year:

  • Justin Grimmer (Stanford University), “How to Measure the Burdens of Voting”
  • Christina Wohlbrecht (Notre Dame), “Do Voting Rights Matter? State Legislative Consequences of Women’s Suffrage”
  • Barry Burden and Matthew Kim (UW-Madison), “Primary Polarization Due to Differential Voter Criteria”
  • Sven-Oliver Proksch (University of Cologne), “Rise of the Radical Right and Government Formation: A Survey Experiment of Voters’ Coalition Preferences”
  • Nicholas Kuipers (Princeton University), “Frustrated Expectations, Time Horizons, and Trust in Elections”
  • Amanda Lea Robinson (Ohio State University), “Gender, Deliberation, and Natural Resource Governance: Experimental Evidence from Malawi”
  • Jonathan Renshon (UW-Madison), “Identity and the Social Construction of Reputation in World Politics”
  • Richard Clark (Notre Dame), “Risk and Responsibility: Climate Vulnerability and IMF Conditionality”
  • Don Casler (UIUC), “Lucid Leaders: Declining Powers and Threat Credibility”
  • Matthew Blackwell (Harvard), “Assumption Smuggling in Intermediate Outcome Tests of Causal Mechanisms”
  • Yiqing Xu (Stanford), “Factorial Difference-in-Differences”
  • Arash Davari (University of Minnesota), “The Existence of Non-Existence: Insurgent Politics in Revolutionary Iran”
  • Chiara Cordelli (University of Chicago), “What is the Wrong of Capitalism?”
  • Davide Panagia (UCLA), “Politics, Media, and Aesthetic Judgment: Nineteenth-Century Photography and the Invention of Automated Intellects”

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):

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.

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.

Recent Graduate Student Awards

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2024 & 2025

UW-Madison Campus Teaching Award: Advanced Achievement in Teaching Award

APSA 2024 Advancing Research Grant for Indigenous Politics

2025 Department of Political Science Teaching Fellows Award

APSA Religion and Politics grant for her project “Sacred Votes: How Evangelical Churches Influence Electoral Outcomes in Brazil”

Mildred Potter Hovland Journal Article Prize for his Political Research Quarterly article: “Does Artificial Intelligence Speak Our Language? A Gadamerian Assessment of Generative Language Models.”

UW-Madison Department of Political Science Best Dissertation Prize

2024 Merze Tate Award for the best doctoral dissertation in the field of international relations, law, and politics

APSA Experimental Research Section prize for the best dissertation defended in 2023

2024 National Institute of Social Science Dissertation grant

Reilly-Baldwin Wisconsin Idea Endowment Grant for their project “Engaging Wisconsin’s Native Americans in Social Science Research”

Emerging Scholar Award by the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation

MPSA Sophonisba Breckinridge Award (best paper on women and politics for her paper “Symbolic Representation in New Democracies”)

2024-2025 Minerva-USIP Peace and Security Fellow (U.S. Institute of Peace)

Law and Science Dissertation Grant

UW-Madison Department of Political Science 2024 TA Awards

2024-25 APSA Diversity Fellow

College of Letters & Science Teaching Mentors Program

UW-Madison Campus Teaching Award: Capstone Teaching Award

Foreign Language and Area Studies fellowship (FLAS)

2023

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

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

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

Bouchet Society Inductee

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

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)