Academic Advisory Board
Andrea Benjamin, University of Oklahoma
Andrea Benjamin is Associate Professor in the Clara Luper Department of African and African American Studies at the University of Oklahoma and the Director of the Oklahoma Scholar-Leadership Enrichment Program (OSLEP). Her research interests include race and politics, local elections and voting behavior, and public opinion.
Mark D. Brewer, University of Maine
Mark D. Brewer is Professor and Chair of Political Science at the University of Maine. His research interests focus generally on political behavior, with specific research areas including partisanship and electoral behavior at both the mass and elite levels, the linkages between public opinion and public policy, and the interactions that exist between religion and politics in the United States.
Tom Brunell, University of Texas at Dallas
Thomas L. Brunell is a professor of political science at the University of Texas at Dallas. He has over 25 years of experience teaching at the university level. His teaching and research interests include representation, elections, redistricting and the census.
Daniel Butler, Washington University in St. Louis
Daniel Butler is a Professor of Political Science at Washington University in St. Louis. His surveys state and local politicians to learn about representation. He is author of Representing the Advantaged (2014, Cambridge University Press).
Alexandra Filindra, University of Illinois Chicago
Dr. Alexandra Filindra is a Professor of Political Science and Psychology at the University of Illinois Chicago, a UIC Rising Star Scholar, and a Public Voices Fellow. Her work focuses on identity content, the role of ingroup and outgroup attitudes in political judgments, and how the macrosocial and historical context influences identities, attitudes, and behavior.
Elisabeth Gerber, University of Michigan
Elisabeth R. Gerber is the Jack L. Walker Jr. Collegiate Professor of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. She has faculty appointments in UM’s Ford School of Public Policy, Department of Political Science, Institute for Social Research, and Center for Academic Innovation. Gerber’s research and teaching focuses on urban, regional and metropolitan policy, especially in the areas of sustainability, transportation, and water policy; climate adaptation; and community, workforce, and economic development.
Paul Gronke, Reed College
Paul Gronke is a Professor of Political Science at Reed College who studies American politics, specializing in convenience and early voting, election administration, public opinion, and elections. Additionally, Paul serves as Director of the Elections & Voting Information Center (EVIC), an election science research center that he founded two decades ago whose researchers are co-located at Reed College and Portland State University (PSU).
Pete Hatemi, Pennsylvania State University
Pete Hatemi is Distinguished Professor of Political Science, Microbiology and Biochemistry at Penn State University. He conducts research in human behavior, public policy, health care, terrorism, and national defense in the academic, government, private, and public sectors.
Brianne Heidbreder, Kansas State University
Bio coming soon
Matthew Howell, Eastern Kentucky University
Matthew Howell is a professor of Public Administration at Eastern Kentucky University. His research areas are state and local government, community development, bureaucracy, and policy analysis. He received his PhD from the Martin School at the University of Kentucky in 2012.
Nicholas Irwin, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Dr. Nicholas B. Irwin is the SJ Hall Faculty Fellow and an associate professor of economics and real estate at UNLV, where he also serves as the Research Director at the Lied Center for Real Estate. He is an applied microeconomist by training with an emphasis in real estate, urban, and environmental economics with a research agenda that seeks to understand how individual and household choices affect economic outcomes along two distinct veins.
Justin Kirkland, University of Viriginia
Justin Kirkland is a Professor in the Department of Politics and Professor (by courtesy) at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia. His research focuses on legislative behavior, state politics, and representation.
Arvind Krishnamurthy, Ohio State University
Bio coming soon
Paul Lewis, Arizona State University
Paul G. Lewis is Associate Professor in the School of Politics and Global Studies at Arizona State University, Tempe. Lewis studies urban policy and local governments in the United States, with a focus on land use, housing policy, and metropolitan development, as well as local policies toward immigrants.
Chanda Meek, University of Alaska Fairbanks
Chanda Meek is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Her research focuses on environmental politics, Indigenous-State relations, and policy implementation across spatial scales.
Michael Overton, University of Idaho
Michael Overton is Associate Professor of Public Administration, Associate Director of the Institute for Interdisciplinary Data Sciences at the University of Idaho, and CLEAR Fellow with the CLEAR Initiative. Dr. Overton primarily researches the integration of data science and public administration through data science literacy and Administrative Informatics.
Shanna Pearson-Merkowitz, University of Maryland
Shanna Pearson-Merkowitz is Saul L. Stern Professor of Civic Engagement in the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland. Her research and teaching focus on land use and housing policy, policy analysis, state policy and politics, and political polarization.
Andrew Pendola, Auburn University
Dr. Andrew Pendola is an Associate Professor Educational Leadership in the Department of Educational Foundations, Leadership, and Technology at Auburn University. His research focuses on the intersection of educator labor markets, school policy, finance, and equity. Specifically, Dr. Pendola examines large scale patterns of recruitment and retention to address issues surrounding effective placement, workplace satisfaction, and educator shortages.
Dave Peterson, Iowa State University
David A.M. Peterson is the Lucken Professor of Political Science at Iowa State University. His work focuses on elections and public opinion in America, with a particular focus on voter decision making in campaigns, macro-level patterns in public opinion, and the sources of public opinion.
Kathy Quick, University of Minnesota
Kathy Quick is the Gross Family Chair of the Humphrey School of Public Affairs and Academic Co-Director of the Center for Integrative Leadership, both at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Quick’s focus is bringing together people with diverse perspectives to work on high-stakes, complex, and often contentious public policy problems.
McKenzie Rees, Brigham Young University
McKenzie Rees joined BYU Marriott in 2021. Her research focuses on the situational factors that encourage employees to engage in behavior that is inconsistent with their own—and the organization's—values, as well as strategies that organizations and leaders can implement to mitigate such behavior. In recent years, she has focused specifically on the situational factors that women uniquely face in the workplace and looked at solutions that can be implemented to increase women’s feelings of belonging in the workplace.
Paru Shah, Rutgers University
Bio coming soon
Min Su, Louisiana State University
Min Su is an Associate Professor of Public Administration at Louisiana State University. Her teaching and research focus on public budgeting, state and local finance, and public administration. She has a particular interest in exploring the financial and political motivations that influence local law enforcement behaviors.
David Switzer, University of Missouri
Dr. Switzer is an Associate Professor at the University of Missouri. His work stands at the intersection of political science and public management, with an emphasis on water policy in the United States. His research investigates how political and administrative variables shape the implementation and development of environmental policy at the local level.
Dan Thompson, University of California, Los Angeles
Bio coming soon
Jessica Trounstine, Vanderbilt University
Bio coming soon
Amber Wichowsky, University of Wisconsin - Madison
Amber Wichowsky is a Visiting Associate Professor in the La Follette School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research focuses on contemporary issues in American politics, including political behavior and public opinion. Her current research explores the possibilities of deliberative democracy for increasing civic engagement and facilitating problem-solving around environmental challenges.
Shaniqua Williams, West Virginia University
Bio coming soon
Jonathan Winburn, University of Mississippi
Jonathan Winburn is a Professor in the Department of Political Science and Director of the Social Science Research Lab at the University of Mississippi. His research focuses on state politics and policy, political geography, redistricting, and representation.
Baobao Zhang, Syracuse University
Bio coming soon