Models, Experiments, and Data Workshop

Welcome to the website of the Models, Experiments, and Data workshop (MEAD) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. This workshop invites outside speakers, faculty members, and graduate students to present their work and receive feedback. If you’re interested in presenting at MEAD in the 2024-2025 academic school year, please contact the graduate student coordinator. If you would like to be added to the MEAD email list, please contact the graduate student coordinator.

Unless otherwise noted, our meetings are held in person (422 North Hall) on Fridays from 1:30 to 2:45pm.

Our workshop will be actively discussing the presentations and general methods research on the MEAD Slack workspace! If you submit a request to be added to the MEAD listserv, you will be invited to the MEAD Slack as well.

2024-2025 SCHEDULE

Faculty Directors

Adeline Lo (aylo@wisc.edu)

Jonathan Renshon (renshon@wisc.edu)


Graduate Student Coordinators

Yehzee Ryoo (yehzee.ryoo@wisc.edu)


MEAD Calendar

What Styles of Presentations Do We Have?

(1) Practice Job Talks: 30-40 minutes presentation, followed by Q&A for 15 min, followed by feedback.

(2) Presentations:

“The Classic”: Similar to invited talks, presenters circulate a working paper and present a more detailed 30-40 minute talk after which there is audience Q&A. Discussants may be requested with enough advance notice.

“The In-Progress”: Designed to support in progress work – such as prospectuses or exploratory phases of projects, these do not require circulating work ahead of time, but are 20-30 minute presentations prefaced with specific requests on the types of feedback that would be most helpful to move the work forward. Q&A to follow.

“The EPW style”: This is primarily meant to support feedback for experimental designs. Presenters circulate a ~5 pg write up prior to the meeting, which attendees are expected to read and prepare comments for the author(s). No formal presentation expected. EPW-style sessions can host two presenters.

(3) Invited Speakers: 30-40 minutes presentation, followed by discussant comments, followed by Q&A.


FALL 2024

September 13: Introductions + Valeria Umanets, Yulia Khalikova, Marcy Shieh, and Alisher Juzgenbayev

September 20: Marty Davidson (Political Science, UW-Madison)

(Thursday 12pm) September 26: Yiqing Xu (Political Science, Stanford

September 27:  Priyadarshi Amar (Political Science, UW-Madison)

(Wednesday) October 2: Tian Zheng (Statistics, Columbia)

(Wednesday) October 2: Brandon Stewart (Sociology, Princeton

(Thursday) October 3: Sven-Oliver Proksch (Political Science, University of Cologne

October 4: Ethan vanderWilden, Saloni Boghale (Political Science, UW-Madison)

October 11: Matthew Blackwell (Government, Harvard

(Thursday) October 17: Nicholas Kuipers (Politics, Princeton

October 18: EPW Fall Pilot Grant Recap 

October 25 

November 1: Job talk

November 8: Job talk

November 22: Job talk

November 29: Thanksgiving 

(Thursday) December 5: Amanda Robinson (Political Science, Ohio State University)

December 6: MEAD end of semester poster-session + party

Spring 2025

January 24: Cory McCartan

January 31: Ethan VanderWilden

February 7: Sameer Deshpande

February 11: Tyler Pratt

February 14

February 21: Austin Wright

February 27: Vicky Fouka

March 7

March 14: EPW pilot grant competition

March 21, 28: Spring break

April 4

April 11: Jasper Tjaden

April 17: John Alquist

April 24: Yang Yang Zhou

May 2: Florian Foos 

We are part of a rich network of workshops and colloquia: American Politics Workshop (APW),  International Relations Colloquium (IRC), Comparative Politics Colloquium (CPC), Political Theory Workshop (PTW), Political Economy Colloquium (PEC), Experimental Politics Workshop (EPW), European Politics Workshop,  Institute for Research on Poverty (IRP), and Latin American Colloquium (LAC).