Department of Political Science News
- April 20, 2008 - Odegard Award Winners Announced
- Tari Ellis, Tim Fisken, and Toby Reiner are this year's Odegard Award winners. The Odegard Award is given annually to the third-year student(s) who exhibited exemplary performance in coursework and preliminary field examinations. Congratulations to Tari, Tim, and Toby!
- April 11, 2008 - Students awarded with Travers Scholarships in Ethics and Politics
The department is pleased to announce that the recipients of the 2008-2009 Travers Scholarships in Ethics and Politics are Jamal Khan and Daisy Sanchez. The scholarships are intended to give recognition and encouragement to outstanding undergraduate students who plan to serve their country or community in an elected or non-elected government capacity sometime in the future. By integrating the study of ethics and political science, the Department of Political Science hopes to train future leaders who will be sensitive to the ethical dilemmas implicit in a public career. In keeping with a desire to integrate education in practical as well as theoretical matters, the scholarship stipend is divided between giving support during the academic year and giving support during a summer internship.
Jamal Khan is a junior majoring in Political Science, Economics, and Rhetoric with interests in International Relations and American Politics. He will be interning with MAPLight.org, a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization that traces connections between campaign contributions and votes on specific legislation. Jamal hopes to join a nonprofit organization, state agency, or legislative office after graduation.
Daisy Sanchez is a junior Political Science major with an interest in American Politics. This summer she will be interning in Washington, D.C. for the American Youth Policy Forum. Her plans after graduation are to attend law school.
- April 3, 2008 - Graduate Students Awarded with National Science Foundation Fellowships
- Our department is proud to announce that three of the nine National Science Foundation fellowships awarded nationwide in Political Science this year went to our students! Benjamin Allen, Emily Curran, and Mark Rosenberg have received three-year fellowships from the NSF. Congratulations and best wishes to Ben, Emily and Mark!
- January 10, 2008 - Faculty members highlighted as Presidential Election experts
- Vinod Aggarwal, Henry Brady, Bruce Cain, David Karol, and Steven Weber have been recognized by the campus as experts on campaign issues such as 'campaigning and politics' and 'international relations'. For the complete list of campus experts, please see the UC Berkeley NewsCenter.
- January 1, 2008 - New faculty hire joins the department
- Kinch Hoekstra comes to the department as part of a joint appointment with the Jurisprudence and Social Policy program of the Law School. After beginning his undergraduate career at Deep Springs College in the high desert of eastern California, Hoekstra received a B.A. with highest honors in Philosophy and English from Brown in 1987. He subsequently received his D.Phil in Philosophy from Oxford in 1998. He has been a Lecturer in Philosophy at Oxford since then and in 2005 became Senior Tutor at Balliol College (U.S. equivalent to Dean of Academic Affairs). He has also held visiting positions at Deep Springs, UCLA, and Princeton. Hoekstra is a political theorist widely recognized for his innovative and masterful scholarship on Hobbes. His major work Thomas Hobbes and the Creation of Order is expected to be published by Oxford University Press this year. Kinch's expertise in Ancient Political Philosophy and his accomplished teaching skills will make a major impact on our Political Theory subfield.
- August 31, 2007 - Eric Schickler receives APSA Richard J. Fenno Prize
- Congratulations to Eric Schickler, who (along with his co-author Gregory Wawro of Columbia University) has received the American Political Science Association Legislative Studies Section's Richard J. Fenno Prize for Filibuster: Obstruction and Lawmaking in the U.S. Senate. The Fenno Prize is awarded annually for the best book in legislative studies published during the prior year.
- August 31, 2007 - Henry Brady wins Converse Award at APSA
- 'Voice and Equality' (published in 1995) co-authored by Henry E. Brady won the Converse Award given by the Elections, Public Opinion, and Voting Behavior section of the American Political Science Association at the fall 2007 annual meetings. The Converse Award is given for 'the outstanding book in the field of public opinion and voting behavior published five or more years ago.'
- August 1, 2007 - Jack Citrin on 'Conversations With History'
- Professor Jack Citrin was recently inteviewed on Harry Kreisler's 'Conversations With History'. More information about the show can be found on their website: http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/conversations. [Video Link]
- July 1, 2007 - New faculty hires join the department
- Leonardo Arriola received a B.A. magna cum laude in International Relations and History from Claremont McKenna College in 1996, an M.P.A. in International Relations from Princeton in 1999, and recently received his PhD from Stanford in Political Science. Arriola's scholarship focuses on Africa. His dissertation, "Between Coordination and Cooptation: The Opposition's Dilemma in African States" considers the question of when the opposition coalesces to challenge an incumbent government in African Presidential elections. He was the recipient of several prestigious fellowships as a graduate student, and received the award for Best Paper Delivered by a Graduate Student at the Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association in 2004. Leo will fill a vital gap in the department in the area of African Politics.
Peter Lorentzen received a BA from Dartmouth College in Asian Studies in 1993. He then lived and worked in China and Hong Kong for five years, the last two as manager of a research bureau in Shanghai. He holds MA degrees in both Economics and Political Science from Stanford and is about to complete his PhD at Stanford's Graduate School of Business. His areas of expertise are Models in Politics and Asian Studies. His dissertation papers study political economy and economic growth in developing countries and state response to popular protest in China. He has done consulting work for the World Bank and has presented at eight conferences in the past three years. The department welcomes Peter's arrival, both as a boon to our China studies program and as a valuable addition to the nascent Models and Politics subfield.
Sean Gailmard received a B.S. with High Distinction in Public Policy from Indiana University, Bloomington in 1996 and an M.P.A. from the same institution in 1997. He went on to obtain an M.S. in Social Science in 1999 and a Ph.D in Social Science in 2002 from Cal Tech. He began his professional career at the University of Chicago's Harris School of Public Policy Studies and was most recently an Assistant Professor at Northwestern University. He has been published in several top journals in both Political Science and Economics. He is another addition to our Models and Politics subfield, and his substantive interests span a range of areas within the subfields of American Politics and Public Policy. A very popular teacher at Northwestern, Sean will make immediate contributions to our teaching and research programs.
Sarah Song will join the department this year as part of a joint appointment with the Jurisprudence and Social Policy program of Boalt Hall School of Law. Song received a B.A. magna cum laude in Social Studies from Harvard University in 1996. She then completed an M.Phil in Politics from Oxford University in 1998 and received her Ph.D in Political Science from Yale in 2003. Since completing her dissertation she has been an Assistant Professor of Political Science at MIT. She has a major book coming out this year from Cambridge University Press titled Justice, Gender, and the Politics of Multicultaralism. Her current intellectual projects focus on issues of immigration politics and the concept of citizenship. Sarah's arrival will burnish the ranks of the department's Political Theory subfield, which has been hurt by faculty losses in recent years. Students and faculty enthusiastically anticipate her arrival. - June 6, 2007 - Two Awards presented to Political Science Undergraduate Student
- 'The Mather Good Citizen Award and the Individual Student Civic Engagement Award were presented to Amit Singh Gill, an undergrad majoring in political science. The former award has been presented since 1983 to a graduating senior who exemplifies qualities of leadership, service, and good citizenship; the latter award recognizes Gill's ongoing service to the Suitcase Clinic, which offers multiple services to the city of Berkeley's homeless and low-income populations. The clinic itself was recognized at the ceremony with the Student Group Public Service Award and Community Impact Award.'
[via the Berkeleyan]