MPSA Council

Christina Wolbrecht is professor of political science, director of the Rooney Center for the Study of American Democracy, and C. Robert and Margaret Hanley Family Director of the Notre Dame Washington Program. Her most recent book, A Century of Votes for Women: American Elections Since Suffrage (with J. Kevin Corder, Cambridge 2020), examines how women voted across the first 100 years since the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment. Wolbrecht also is the co-author of Counting Women's Ballots: Female Voters from Suffrage Through the New Deal (Cambridge 2016) and the author of The Politics of Women’s Rights: Parties, Positions, and Change (Princeton 2000), both of which were recognized with political science book awards. Wolbrecht has authored or co-authored articles on such topics as women as political role models, the representation of women, and partisan position-taking on education policy. She is co-editor, with Susan Franceschet, of the journal Politics & Gender, and a founding executive board member of WomenAlsoKnowStuff, an initiative to advance women experts in political science.

Kyle L. Saunders is Professor of Political Science and Co-Director of the Institute for Research in the Social Sciences at Colorado State University. Professor Saunders' studies and interests include American politics, with particular emphases on political parties, political behavior, public opinion, elections, public policy, and research methodology; as such he has written on myriad topics including polarization, misinformation and conspiracism, public interest in politics, sustainability and many other important issues that affect public policy. Saunders has authored or co-authored over 35 peer-reviewed research articles and book chapters, work that can be found in some of the most highly visible journal outlets in the discipline of political science, including the American Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Politics, Political Behavior, the British Journal of Political Science, and Comparative Political Studies.

Melanie Manion is the Vor Broker Family Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Duke University. Her research focuses on contemporary authoritarianism, with empirical work on bureaucracy, corruption, information, and representation in China. Her most recent book, Information for Autocrats (Cambridge University Press, 2015), studies representation in Chinese local congresses, analyzing data from an original survey of some 5,000 local congressmen and women and their constituents. Previous publications include Retirement of Revolutionaries in China (Princeton University Press, 1993), Corruption by Design (Harvard University Press, 2004), and the co-edited Contemporary Chinese Politics: New Sources, Methods, and Field Strategies (Cambridge University Press, 2010). Her articles appear in journals including American Political Science Review, Comparative Political Studies, and China Quarterly. She is an award-winning teacher.

Meegan Isenhour, CAE joined MPSA in 2013 and has been serving in the role of Executive Director since 2022. She is responsible for the day-to-day operations of the MPSA including staff management and coordination, human resource management, policy and procedure development and implementation, project management, and governance committees.

A graduate of Indiana University, Meegan is a Certified Association Executive® with more than twenty years of non-profit association management experience.

In her spare time, Meegan enjoys reading, hiking, traveling, and spending time with her husband, daughter, and dogs.

Kathleen Dolan is Distinguished Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee and Co-Editor in Chief of American Journal of Political Science. She received her Ph.D from the University of Maryland. Her research focuses on gender politics, public opinion, elections, and voting behavior, with a specific focus on how the public evaluates women candidates. Dolan is the author of two books: When Does Gender Matter? Women Candidates and Gender Stereotypes in American Elections (Oxford University Press, 2014) and Voting for Women: How the Public Evaluates Women Candidates (Westview Press, 2004). Her work has also appeared in numerous peer-reviewed journals. She has served as co-editor of the journal Politics & Gender and as a member of the board of the American National Election Studies.

Jennifer L. Lawless is the Leone Reaves and George W. Spicer Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia, where she’s also the Department Chair. Lawless’ research focuses on political ambition, campaigns and elections, and media and politics. She is the author or co-author of seven books, including Women on the Run: Gender, Media, and Political Campaigns in a Polarized Era (with Danny Hayes) and It Still Takes a Candidate: Why Women Don't Run for Office (with Richard L. Fox). Her research, which has been supported by the National Science Foundation, has appeared in numerous academic journals, and is regularly cited in the popular press. She has served as editor of Politics & Gender and as a member of the board of the American National Election Studies. She graduated from Union College with a B.A. in political science, and Stanford University with an M.A. and Ph.D. in political science.

Gisela Sin is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Illinois.

Professor Sin studies political institutions with an emphasis on the strategic elements of separation of powers. Her research demonstrates the value of taking a broader view when studying the division of decision-making authority: checks and balances create expectations between institutions that can be fully understood only by identifying their strategic interactions.

Her first research program focused on how constitutional requirements for interbranch negotiations influence U.S. House members’ choices about how to organize their chamber, and who, in the House, has the authority to make policy decisions. In a second line of work, Professor Sin studies how legislators strategically adjust their behavior when the executive wields the power to veto (parts of) legislation, at the state level in the U.S., and in other systems with dispersed and divided authority.

Elizabeth (Liz) Suhay is Associate Professor and Graduate Program Director in the Department of Government, School of Public Affairs, American University. Her research focuses on U.S. public opinion, political psychology, and political communication, with substantive focus on beliefs about socioeconomic inequality, the politicization of science, and political polarization. Her work has appeared in The American Journal of Political Science, The Journal of Politics, Public Opinion Quarterly, and Political Behavior, among other peer-reviewed outlets, and has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Academy of Sciences, and the Russell Sage Foundation. She is co-editor of three edited volumes — The Politics of Truth in Polarized America (Oxford), The Oxford Handbook of Electoral Persuasion, and “The Politics of Science” in The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. She is currently completing a book manuscript on how beliefs about the causes of socioeconomic inequality intersect with political opinion called Debating the American Dream: How Explanations for Inequality Polarize U.S. Politics. She earned her PhD from the University of Michigan.

Bernard L. Fraga is associate professor of political science at Emory University. He studies American elections, focusing on racial/ethnic politics, voter turnout, and the impact of election laws on voters and politicians. His award-winning book The Turnout Gap: Race, Ethnicity, and Political Inequality in a Diversifying America (Cambridge University Press, 2018) provides a comprehensive analysis of race and voter turnout, examining White, Black, Latinx, and Asian American turnout and voting patterns from the 1800s to the present. Fraga’s research has also been published in journals including the American Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Politics, Electoral Studies, Political Research Quarterly, Politics, Groups, and Identities, and the Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics. Findings from his work on race and elections have been featured in national and international media outlets, and Fraga is the recipient of awards including the APSA Section on Race, Ethnicity, and Politics Best Book Award, the MPSA Lucius Barker Award, and the MPSA Latina/o Caucus Early Career Award. He earned his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 2013, and was an assistant and then associate professor at Indiana University from 2013-2021.

Lisa García Bedolla is Berkeley's Vice Provost for Graduate Studies and Dean of the Graduate Division, and a Professor in the Graduate School of Education. She uses the tools of social science to reveal the causes of political inequalities in the United States, considering differences across the lines of ethnorace, gender, class, geography, et cetera. She has used a variety of social science methods – participant observation, in-depth interviewing, survey research, field experiments, and geographic information systems (GIS) – to shed light on this question.

She has published six books and dozens of research articles, earning five national book awards and numerous other awards. She has consulted for presidential campaigns and statewide ballot efforts and has partnered with over a dozen community organizations working to empower low-income communities of color. Through those partnerships, she has developed a set of best practices for engaging and mobilizing voters in these communities, becoming one of the nation’s foremost experts on political engagement within communities of color.

Professor García Bedolla earned her PhD in political science from Yale University and her BA in Latin American Studies and Comparative Literature from UC Berkeley.

Her research has appeared in journals including the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Politics, International Organization, and World Politics. Her book, Dictators at War and Peace, explores the domestic politics of international conflict in dictatorships, and was published in 2014 in the Cornell Studies in Security Affairs Series at Cornell University Press. Weeks is the 2018 recipient of the International Studies Association Karl Deutsch Award, recognizing the scholar under 40 who has made the most significant contribution to the study of international relations. Professor Weeks received her B.A. in political science from The Ohio State University in 2001, a Master’s degree in international history from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in 2003, and a PhD in political science from Stanford University in 2009. Prior to joining the Wisconsin faculty, Professor Weeks was an Assistant Professor of Government at Cornell University.

Fred Boehmke received his PhD from the California Institute of Technology in 2000 and is currently Professor of Political Science at the University of Iowa where he also directs the Social Science Research Center. His research focuses on the diffusion of public policies across the American states, the consequences of direct democracy on state politics, and quantitative political methodologies and has appeared in numerous journals including the American Political Science Review, The American Journal of Political Science, political Analysis and State Politics and Policy Quarterly. He is the author of The Indirect Effect of Direct Legislation: How Institutions Shape Interest Group Systems.

David Darmofal is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of South Carolina. He has research interests in political behavior, American political development, and political methodology. Much of his research examines how political geography and spatial interactions shape the behavior of political actors. His methodological research interests include spatial analysis, survival analysis, and time series analysis. He is the author of Spatial Analysis for the Social Sciences (published by Cambridge University Press) and co-author, with Ryan Strickler, of Demography, Politics, and Partisan Polarization in the United States, 1828–2016 (published by Springer). His research has also been published in the American Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Politics, Political Geography, Political Research Quarterly, Political Behavior, Political Psychology, State Politics and Policy Quarterly, and the Journal of Peace Research.

Matthew Lebo is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science at Western University. Prior to that, he was Professor and Chair of Political Science at Stony Brook University and the Founder and Director of the Center for Behavioral Political Economy there. His research focusses on national level politics in the United States - political parties in Congress, the presidency, and elections. He also writes about time series analysis, public opinion, and British politics. He is the coauthor with Gregory Koger of Strategic Party Government: Why Winning Trumps Ideology (University of Chicago Press, 2017) and over 30 articles in outlets that include the American Journal of Political Science, the British Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Politics, and Political Analysis. He was the 2020 winner of the Society for Political Methodology's Excellence in Mentoring award and the 2013 Dean's Award for Excellence in Service to Graduate Education. He has held positions as a Visiting Professor at the University of Toronto and Nuffield College. He earned a PhD from the University of North Texas and a post-doctoral fellowship from Harvard University.

Laurel Elder is a Professor of Political Science at Hartwick College in New York where she teaches courses in American politics. She received her PhD from The Ohio State University and her BA from Colgate University. Her research, which has received national attention, explores the relationship of parenthood and politics; public perceptions of candidate spouses; women's continued underrepresentation in U.S. elective offices; and abortion attitudes in a post-Roe America. She has authored or co-authored three books and dozens of peer reviewed articles and book chapters on these topics. In her work in and out of the classroom, her overarching goal is to help promote informed and engaged citizenship.

Rocío Titiunik is Professor of Politics at Princeton University, where she is also an associated faculty with the Department of Operations Research and Financial Engineering, the Center for Statistics and Machine Learning, the Program in Latin American Studies, the Center for the Study of Democratic Politics, and the Research Program in Political Economy. She specializes in quantitative methodology for the social and behavioral sciences, with emphasis on quasi-experimental methods for causal inference and program evaluation. Her research interests lie at the intersection of political economy, political science, statistics, and data science, particularly on the development and application of quantitative methods to the study of political institutions. Her recent methodological research includes the development of statistical methods for regression discontinuity (RD) designs. Her recent substantive research centers on democratic accountability and the role of party systems in developing democracies. She received the Emerging Scholar Award from the Society for Political Methodology in 2016, which honors a young researcher who is making notable contributions to the field of political methodology, and was elected as fellow of the Society for Political Methodology in 2020. She is currently associate editor for Science Advances and a member of the Board of Reviewing Editors for Science.

Lawrence Ezrow is a Professor of Government at the University of Essex. He also served as the Chair for the Department of Government from 2016-2019, and as Section Chair for the “Representation and Electoral Systems” Section of the American Political Science Association from 2015-2017. His research interests include elections, political representation, parties’ election strategies, policy diffusion, and European Politics. He has published articles in the American Journal of Political Science, American Political Science Review, British Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, European Journal of Political Research, International Studies Quarterly, Journal of Politics, Journal of Public Policy, Party Politics, Political Science Research and Methods, Research and Politics, West European Politics, and World Politics.

AWARD-WINNING SCHOLAR. AUTHOR. ADVOCATE. FOUNDER. FILMMAKER.
I am a professor (tenure-track) at Northwestern University. Previously, I held appointments at Duke University, the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University and Princeton University.
My research sits at the intersections of race, gender, public institutions and political behavior. My newest book, Closed for Democracy, is on how public school closures undermine the citizenship of Black Americans (Cambridge University Press). Research from this book was recently published in the American Political Science Review and Perspectives on Politics.

My newest research is focused on the punishment of Black women and girls and its political consequences. An article based on this work was named the “Best Paper on Intersectionality” from the American Political Science Association (APSA), and awarded the Rodney Higgins “Best Faculty Paper” from the National Conference of Black Political Scientists (NCOBPS).

My first book, How Girls Achieve (2019) highlights how the biased educational experiences of Black girls in the U.S. and Africa limit their ability to achieve democratic equity. It received the 2020 Prose Award in Education Practice and Social Science by the American Publishers Association; the 2020 Critics’ Choice Book Award from the American Educational Studies Association, and the 2021 Jackie Kirk Outstanding Book Award from the Comparative International Education Society.

In addition to research, I advocate for Black girls. I am the founder of Herstory: the TWII Foundation Girls Scholarship. I have an award winning film titled, HerStory, based on this work. Recently, I was named one of Forbes Magazine “30 Under 30” in education, awarded the Andrew Carnegie Fellowship, aka “the Brainy Award,” and named a recipient of the Marilyn Gittell Award for Scholarship and Activism.

Follow me on twitter @sally_nuamah

Cameron G. Thies is dean of James Madison College and MSU Foundation Professor. Thies is a scholar of international relations who has published broadly in foreign policy analysis, conflict processes, international political economy, and international relations theory. He is currently a co-investigator on a Department of Defense Minerva Research Initiative project entitled “Chinese Economic Power and the Effects of U.S. Economic Interdependence.” He has previously served as Editor of Political Science Research & Methods and Foreign Policy Analysis, and now serves as the Deputy Lead Editor of the Journal of Politics. He was named the Distinguished Scholar of Foreign Policy Analysis (2016), the Quincy Wright Distinguished Scholar (2017), and the Ole R. Holsti Distinguished Scholar (2020) of the International Studies Association. Thies also served as the President of the International Studies Association (2019-2020).

C. Danielle Vinson is a Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Furman University. After completing her PhD in political science at Duke University, she joined the faculty at Furman in 1995 and served as the Chair of the Political Science Department from 2009-2015. Her teaching and research interests focus on institutions in American government with a particular emphasis on Congress and the media. She teaches courses on Congress, the Presidency, Media and Politics, Humor and Politics, and American Government and regularly directs the Department’s Washington internship program. She also teaches a course on Native American Politics. She is the author of the books Local Media Coverage of Congress and Its Members and Congress and the Media: Beyond Institutional Power. She has written articles and chapters on Congress and the media, political parties and the media, religion and politics in the media, and communication and spending in political campaigns. She won the University’s Meritorious Advising Award in 2001 and a teaching award from the South Carolina Independent Colleges and Universities. As a native South Carolinian, she is often called upon by local, national, and even international press, especially during presidential primaries, to make sense of South Carolina politics (not quite as impossible as it sounds). She has served as Furman's Faculty Athletics Representative since 2019.