Participants

Trevor Brown is a PhD candidate in the Department of Government at Cornell University.

I study American politics, with focuses on political economy, American political development (APD), historical institutionalism, labor politics, and racial, spacial, and economic inequality.

Kiara Hernandez is a PhD candidate in Government at Harvard University and a James M. and Cathleen D. Stone PhD Scholar in Inequality and Wealth Concentration at the Harvard Kennedy School. Broadly, her academic research explores the intersection of ethnorace, class, wealth inequality, and intergroup conflict in the contemporary U.S., with a focus on collective action in low-wage workplaces. Kiara graduated with a B.A. in International Relations and German from the University of Pennsylvania in 2018. Before graduate school, she spent two years as a predoctoral research specialist in the Emerging Scholars in Political Science program at Princeton University, where she contributed to research on public opinion, voter turnout, and racialized campaign messaging in American elections.

My research is at the intersection of inequality, race and ethnic politics, and political behavior, with a regional focus on the U.S. In my dissertation, I explore the decline of unionization and demand for other redistributive fiscal and social policies over the past half-century. While acknowledging the importance of macro-level changes in the American economy and meso-level institutional factors, I primarily focus on within-firm micropolitics between workers and between workers and management to understand how and under what conditions social difference (i.e. ethnorace) becomes a cleavage and compounds economic precarity by thwarting collective action. Using survey, administrative, and geographic mobility data, I combine insights from political psychology on intergroup bias and contact with workplace-level structural factors to understand variation in the success/failure of class-based organizing. Other ongoing projects include understanding peer effects on partisan sorting in the absence of strong ties; partisan sorting across firms amongst low-wage service sector workers; and the effects of status threat on anti-democratic behavior. 

I am a PhD Candidate in the Department of Political Science at the University of Washington (UW). My research interests include international political economy, political conflict and violence, and quantitative methodology. My dissertation studies how business interests shape politicians’ preferences in foreign economic policymaking, with a focus on the U.S.-China trade relationship. At UW, I am a fellow at the Political Economy Forum and the organizer of the Political Document Analysis Working Group (P-DAWG) and was the 2023 Data Science for Social Good Fellow at the eScience Institute.

Outside of academia, I serve on the Board of Directors and was the former Executive Director of Hong Kong Democracy Council (HKDC), a non-partisan, non-profit organization based in Washington, DC. I testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on the rule of law in Hong Kong and worked on policy issues including humanitarian pathways and human rights-based sanctions.

I am broadly interested in international political economy, political conflict and violence, and quantitative methodology. My dissertation research examines how business interests in the U.S. shape its politicians’ preferences on free trade with China. I am also interested in topics at the intersection of geopolitics and global capitalism, such as industrial policies and restrictions on export and investment.

Methodologically, I am interested in statistical methods and techniques from causal inference and Natural Language Processing (NLP). In my collaborative work, I study protest violence and rebel conflicts using survey experiments, quantitative text analysis, and network analysis. Most recently, my interests lie in using transformer-based models to efficiently extract information from text to construct fine-grained (e.g., firm-level) datasets.

Kathleen Nganga is a Political Science Candidate (ABD) at Johns Hopkins University. Her research focuses on understanding conflicts between states and their local governments, addressing the political economy of decision making during the conflict, and gaining potential predictive insight on who “wins” (i.e., who gets their preferred outcomes). Specifically, her research delves into state preemption politics, with a particular focus on unraveling the democratic ramifications of such interactions. Prior to their doctoral pursuits, they obtained an MSc in Sociology from Oxford, where their research examined the socioeconomic and racial formation patterns of late 19th-century labor organizations in the United States.

Nganga’s academic journey commenced with a BA in Political Science from Northwestern University, laying the foundation for her scholarly pursuits. Before embarking on her graduate studies, she served as a Junior Research Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, contributing to the Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program. Nganga’s interdisciplinary background and research experience underscores their commitment to exploring multifaceted dimensions of political phenomena, aiming to provide insights that advance scholarly discourse in the field of American Political Development.

Kathleen's research interests lie at the intersection of federalism, political economy, and affective politics. Specifically, she explores the intricate dynamics of the relationship between states and local governments within the framework of federalism, recognizing the pivotal role of local governance in democracy especially granting that most U.S. residents experience the highest levels of political efficacy at the local level. She is also interested in the political economy of decision making, race-class subjugation, and affective politics particularly relating to disillusionment and stoicism.

Her diverse research background encompasses studies on women's political participation in Africa south of the Sahara, British archival work on colonial governance in Kenya, analyses of political violence in Central and South America, examinations of labor organization in the United States, and investigations into political polarization in Canada and the United States. Kathleen's interdisciplinary approach underscores her commitment to understanding multifaceted dimensions of political phenomena.

Pamela Nwakanma is a postdoctoral fellow at the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University and an incoming Assistant Professor at the University of California, Irvine. She earned her PhD in Political Science and African and African American Studies from Harvard University in 2022. She studies international development and politics in Africa and Afro-diasporic communities in the Americas. Previously, she was a Leading Edge Fellow with the American Council of Learned Societies, where she coordinated research strategies for People Powered.

Her work has been published in journals such as Perspectives on Politics and Politics, Groups, and Identities, as well as edited volumes such as the Palgrave Handbook of African Women's Studies and Routledge's African Scholars and Intellectuals in the North American Academy: Reflections of Exile and Migration. Her interdisciplinary research thus far has won multiple awards from the American Political Science Association, the Society for the Study of Social Problems, the African Studies Association, and the Lagos Studies Association. Her work has also been featured in public media outlets such as Break the Boxes, Collateral Benefits, and Voyages Africana.

She is currently working on a book project examining the relationship between women’s economic mobility and political stagnancy in Africa’s largest economy.

Research interest: Political Economy; Development; Africana Studies; Comparative Politics; Identity;

Gender; Entrepreneurship; Political Behavior.

Aakaash is a fourth-year PhD student in economics at Harvard, working on political persuasion, campaigns, and news media. He has methodological interests in text analysis and machine learning. Outside of research, he enjoys playing world music and jazz fusion. 

I research the "supply side" of persuasion: how politicians and organizations craft appeals to influence people and the nature of competition in ideological marketplaces. My recent work has examined the effects of the media on people's issue priorities and the extent to which this has changed the axes of political divisions in the United States. My previous work has examined the effects of exposure to immigrants on natives' attitudes and behavior toward immigrant groups, the strategic use of rationales to facilitate political dissent, the effects of opinion television shows on viewers' beliefs and behavior, and politically-motivated adverse selection in the context of the Affordable Care Act.

Eric is a Ph.D. student in Political Science (American Politics and Quantitative Research Methods, focus) at Yale University. His research focuses on the political economy of climate change, systematic racism, and the urban-rural divide. Prior to Yale, he worked on diversity, equity, and inclusion and solving startup scaling challenges at a startup in NYC. He earned his BA (Cum Laude) in Political Science (Departmental Honors) and Sustainable Development from Columbia University, where he earned the Charles Beard Prize for his thesis on the politics of climate mitigation.

He is also a Social Data Scientist on the experiments team at the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, running field and survey experiments on climate change. He spends his spare time trail running, hiking with his dog, and scuba diving and acting in community theater with his spouse.

My research agenda focuses on two topics core to CAPE’s work: the impact of the climate crisis on American Politics and the evolution of the urban-rural political divide. My interest in both topics is personal as well as academic: my family hails from farm country in New England and coal country in West Virginia, and I’ve personally witnessed the transformation of both region’s political economies over my lifetime. 

Current solo-authored work (published or in progress) investigates the political economic roots of public opinion barriers to the climate crisis, include examining racial bias in zoning, geographic drivers of local climate politics, and the political drivers of consumer demand for climate-friendly products. Future research will continue this public opinion research while focusing more on the effect of the climate crisis on the political economy of climate vulnerable areas. 

Current co-authored work examines place-based identity in urban areas, organized interests in the modern Democratic party, the political economy of extreme weather, and the role of economic changes in media ecosystems on the climate information system.

I am a Senior Researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne, Germany, and Visiting Fellow at the European Institute of the LSE. I obtained my PhD from the European Institute at the London School of Economics and Political Science in 2022, with Bob Hancké, Jonathan Hopkin, and David Soskice acting as my supervisors. Prior to that, I studied in Germany (BA) and London (MSc). During my undergraduate studies, I spent time in Pretoria, South Africa working as an intern for the German Development Ministry, and in Lima, Peru, where I spent a semester as visiting student.

My research interests lie at the intersection of the international and comparative political economy with a particular focus on asset ownership, housing regimes, and the politics of generational conflict. My doctoral dissertation on the political economy of the German financial system is inspired by the theoretical tradition of the Varieties of Capitalism. These days, at the MPIfG, I contribute to the ongoing development of the growth models literature, with a specific view at exploring the politics of growth and growth strategies. I am currently developing a novel research agenda on the political economy of generational conflict, and I hope to focus thoroughly on the important case of the US. 

I grew up in Bethel, Alaska, and majored in political science and economics at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. After receiving my PhD in political science from UC Berkeley in 2021, I returned to Bethel to teach at the Kuskokwim Campus of the University of Alaska Fairbanks. This led me to my current position in the political science department at the University of Alaska Anchorage. 

I am interested in a wide range of historical and contemporary topics relating to the state and democracy. My primary methods of investigation are game theory and qualitative historical analysis. Currently, my main area of focus is a book project on the relationship between ideas about democracy and the development of the administrative state. In this project, I investigate the origins of expert agencies in the late 19th century as part of a broader reaction to the democratic expansion of the 1860s, as well as the mid-20th century transformation that incorporated myriad opportunities for public participation in administrative rulemaking; I then relate the results of this development to contemporary politics, with environmental policy in Western Alaska as a case study. Right now, climate change presents a stark threat to Alaska Native subsistence traditions, and despite concerted pressure, state and federal policymakers have been largely unresponsive to public demands for measures to protect subsistence. I am also interested in housing policy and ascriptive identification. My experience in Alaska has recently led me to think more about the nature of American identity, and ways in which Native Americans and Alaska Natives are excluded from the common usage of “American.”

I am a PhD candidate at Stanford's department of Political Science. Prior to grad school, I worked a year in actuarial consulting in Seattle. I graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in 2014 with dual degrees in political science and economics/statistics. I'm originally from Hawaii, and in my spare time, enjoy exploring the west, rock climbing, thrifting, and hanging out with my polydactyl cat, Natalie. 

I study elections in the United States. I am interested in the topics of campaign finance, local politics, representation, and their intersections. My dissertation comprises of three papers on campaign finance in the US: the first is about Seattle's campaign finance voucher program and campaign finance participation, the second is about ActBlue adoption by congressional candidates and ideology, and the final paper examines when national donors are most likely to participate in municipal campaign finance. In future work, I hope to explore the relationship in between municipal campaign contributions and city policies.