News & Events

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  Graduate Students Taking Part in Selective Institute

  PhD students Naomi Nubin and Samantha Chapa were recently selected for a highly competitive summer fellowship through the American Political Science Association's Institute for Civically Engaged Research (ICER). Nubin's research focuses on welfare policy in the US, and she plans to use this fellowship to promote accessibility and to bridge the gap between research and advocacy. Chapa's research interests include race, ethnicity, immigration, and politics. Through this opportunity, she hopes to create research that improves the lives of diverse groups, such as migrants.

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  Professors Simas and Badas Win Best Article Award

  Associate Professor Elizabeth Simas and Assistant Professor Alex Badas have been awarded Best Law and Courts Journal Article for their joint publication, "The Supreme Court as an Electoral Issue: Evidence from Three Studies," which appeared in "Political Science Research and Methods (2021): 1-19."

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  Professor Kistner Wins Best Dissertation Award

  Assistant Professor Michael Kistner has been awarded the Christopher Z. Mooney Best Dissertation Prize for his dissertation, "Fundraising for the Caucus: Money, Party Politics, and Policymaking in American Legislatures," in the category of best PhD dissertation in American state politics and policy in 2021.

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  POLS Professors Win Major UH Awards

  Ryan Kennedy has received the Excellence in Scholarship and Research Award at the level of Associate Professor at the University of Houston. Associate Dean and Professor Susan Scarrow has been awarded the CLASS Distinguished Faculty Award. Associate Professor Elizabeth Simas won the CLASS Ross Lence Teaching Excellence Award.

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  Two Ph.D. Students Win APSA Diversity Fellowship

  Ph.D. students Lucia Lopez-Hisijos and Robert Alvarez have been selected as American Political Science Diversity Fellows. This is a major honor for Ph.D. students from our discipline's main organization. Lopez-Hisijos works on Public Policy and Public Law and is interested in using the fellowship to discover the causes of legislative gridlock. Alvarez works on Political Communications, and is interested in studying how media narratives inform political participation and trust.
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  Political Science Graduate Program Enters National Top 50

  The University of Houston College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences (CLASS) Department of Political Science celebrated an exciting milestone last week, breaking into the top 50 of U.S. News and World Report’s 2021 rankings of the best graduate programs in the discipline. The publication's prestigious and influential rankings, which rely on peer institutions' survey data, reflect the growing impact of the research and scholarship from the department's graduate students and faculty.