Shiladitya Kumar

I am a PhD candidate in Political Science at the University of Houston. My research interests lie in Comparative Politics, Political Economy, and Political Methodology. I hold a BSc (Honours) and MA in Economics from the University of Calcutta and Jadavpur University, respectively. Later, I received an MPhil in Development Studies and Economics from the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR), Mumbai. Currently, I am working as a Graduate Research and Teaching Assistant at the Hobby School of  Public Affairs, University of Houston.

I apply both formal and causal inferential techniques to study questions on how political institutions affect electoral outcomes and behavior. I employ machine learning tools, such as text analysis, data mining, and large language models, to create original datasets on electoral outcomes, party manifestos, and leading national/regional newspapers in both the Indian State and General elections, in support of my research agenda. I have also taught an undergraduate course on American Politics and have substantive experience in assisting both undergraduate and graduate courses on Comparative Politics and Research Methods.

My dissertation concerns how candidates' personal wealth interacts within an electoral system (specifically, FPTP) to produce political outcomes with meaningful second-order implications in the context of Indian State Elections. My other research projects include studies on the causes of affective polarization in the United States, how voters use reputation as an instrument of accountability in selecting candidates under repeated elections, and disentangling issue-specificity and media coverage of political manifestos in Indian General Elections. 

I am a recipient of the Virginia Gray Graduate Student Research Award (from the Political Organizations and Parties section of the American Political Science Association 2024) and the Jylee Nogee Scholarship (from the University of Houston). 

I am on the 2025–26 academic job market and am always happy to connect.