APSA congratulates the following APSA Diversity and Inclusion Program Alumni for their recent accomplishments and updates. The list of accomplishments and updates includes news on academic program admittances; dissertation defenses; academic, administrative and non-academic job appointments; publications; promotions and other professional updates. To learn more about APSA Diversity and Inclusion Programs visit us online at https://www.apsanet.org/DIVERSITY/Diversity-and-Inclusion-Programs.

Tony Affigne (MFP 1988-89), professor of political science and Black studies at Providence College, was named to the Rhode Island commission which coordinates state policy concerning long-term care for older adults and individuals with chronic disabilities and illnesses. Appointed to the Long-Term Care Coordinating Council by Lieutenant Governor Sabina Matos, Affigne chairs the Council’s subcommittee on housing access and affordability.

Youssef Aziz (RBSI 2021), an undergraduate student at Cornell University, will be attending NYU School of Law in the fall to pursue a JD.

Michelle Bueno Vasquez (MFP 2020-21), PhD candidate at Northwestern University, was awarded Northwestern’s Council of Race and Ethnic Studies Graduate Fellowship and won the competitive Center for American Women and Politics Grant (alongside co-author Andrene Wright, MFP 2018-19).

Stephanie Chan (MFP 2017-18), PhD Candidate at Princeton University, will be graduating from their PhD program in late May. In the fall, they will be starting as an assistant professor at Lafayette College.

Chinbo Chong (MFP 2010-11), postdoctoral fellow at Indiana University, will start a tenure track job in the Political Science and Asian American Studies Program at Northeastern University in 2023.

Jared Clemons (MFP 2017-2018) defended his dissertation and earned his PhD from Duke University’s Political Science Department in June 2022. His dissertation is entitled “Solidarity or Allyship? Analyzing the Political-Economic Contingencies of White Antiracism Under Neoliberal Capitalism," and asks, "under what conditions do white individuals engage in antiracist behavior?"

Olivia Cook (MFP 2017-18), executive director for the Center for Economic and Social Justice at Miles College, was appointed in August 2021 to serve as the inaugural executive director for the Center for Economic and Social Justice at Miles College.

Jordie Davies (RBSI 2014, MFP 2015-16, ARG Early Career Scholars 2021), postdoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins University, graduated with her PhD in political science from the University of Chicago in 2021. She has joined the P3 Lab at the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University and will join the Political Science Department at UC Irvine as an assistant professor in Fall 2023.

Alexandria Davis (DFP 2021-22), PhD student at UCLA, was awarded the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.

Nicole Filler (ARG Early Career Scholars 2021), accepted a new position as program coordinator/research associate at the Institute for Asian American Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Boston to lead a research program on experiences of racism against Asian Americans in Massachusetts historically and today. Additionally, their co-authored book, Contesting the Last Frontier: Race, Gender, Ethnicity, and Asian American Political Representation, was published in June 2022 by Oxford University Press.

Amara Galileo (DFP 2021-22), PhD Candidate at the University of Delaware, accepted a position as intern and research assistant to the CEO with Afrobarometer, a pan-African, non-partisan survey research network.

Angelica Garcia Macias (DFP 2021-22), PhD student at the University of California-Irvine, presented at their first APSA conference in fall 2021. From that feedback, they are now working on their first qualifying exam. Additionally, they are attending the Institute for Qualitative and Multi-Method Research (IQMR). They are interested in learning ethnography skills aside from surveying skills to give stories and nuances in understanding Mexican American political behavior in both traditional and non-traditional forms.

Aura Gonzales (DFP 2021-22), PhD student at Cornell University, finished the first year of their PhD program, received a Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship, and is attending the Institute for Qualitative and Multi-Method Research this summer.

Rikio Inouye (MFP 2020-21), PhD Candidate at Princeton University, passed his comprehensive exams, earning a master’s degree and continuing toward the dissertation stage of his PhD program. He has also become a graduate fellow at Princeton’s Center for International Security Studies.

Chandler James (MFP 2018-19), PhD Candidate at the University of Chicago, published "Does President Trump’s Outrageous Behavior Work?: Results from Two Randomized-Controlled Trials" in Presidential Studies Quarterly. They were awarded a CAS Graduate Student Research Grant and presented at the American Politics Workshop at the University of Chicago last December.

Eugene Johnson (MFP 2018-19), Louisiana State University and A&M College, will be joining the Nelson Mandela College of Government & Social Sciences at Southern University—Baton Rouge as a tenure track professor in political science in fall 2022.

Kendra King Momon (RBSI 1993, MFP 1994-95), was reappointed associate provost of faculty development at Oglethorpe University and has been accepted into the 2022-2023 Consortium of Independent Colleges Senior Leadership Academy.

Kaia Kirk (DFP 2021-22), completed their second year in the political science PhD program at Syracuse University and received their master’s degree in political science in May 2022. They also received Syracuse University’s STEM Graduate Fellowship for the 2022-2024 academic school years.

Vivien Leung (MFP 2017-18, ARG Early Career Scholars 2021), assistant professor at Bucknell University, published a piece in Perspectives on Politics entitled: "COVID-19 and Asian Americans: How Elite Messaging and Social Exclusion Shape Partisan Attitudes" with their co-authors, Nathan Kar Ming Chan and Jae Yeon Kim.

Alesha Lewis (RBSI 2020), will be attending the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign this fall as a PhD student and plans to study political psychology, REP, voting behavior and participation.

Tehama Lopez Bunyasi (RBSI 2000), associate professor at George Mason University, was awarded the NSF ADVANCE Catalyst grant alongside their co-PIs to study their university’s recruitment, retention, and promotion practices throughout the STEM colleges.

Uahikea Maile (ARG Indigenous Politics Grant 2021), assistant professor at the University of Toronto, accepted a director position at the University of Toronto for the newly established Indigenous Politics Collaboratory. They also published a new article "On Being Late: Cruising Mauna Kea and Unsettling Technoscientific Conquest in Hawai’i" in a special issue of American Indian Culture and Research Journal.

Pamela Nwakanma (MFP 2017-18) successfully defended their dissertation on "Women, Power, and Networks: The Gendered Politics of Economic Empowerment,” which won the Harvard Government Department’s best dissertation on gender and politics, and graduated from Harvard University. They also published a paper titled "From Black Lives Matter to EndSARS: Women’s Socio-political Power and the Transnational Movement for Black Lives" in Perspectives on Politics. The article was selected as the winner of the Global Division Student Paper competition through the Society for the Study of Social Problems (SSSP) and will be presented at SSSP’s annual conference in August 2022.

Maricruz A. Osorio (MFP 2017-18, FLS 2020), PhD candidate at UC Riverside, accepted a position at Bentley University.

Jennifer Pahre (ARG Indigenous Politics Grant 2021), associate teaching professor and director of undergraduate studies at the University of Illinois College of Law, had their book The Law Lab Book: Case Studies for Legal Learning published by Cognella Academic Press.

Tanika Raychaudhuri (MFP 2016-17), assistant professor of political science at the University of Houston, won the 2021 Best Paper Award from the APSA Section on Race, Ethnicity, and Politics for "Group-based Belief Systems about the Racial Order: Racial Stereotypes and Asian American Partisan Identification" (co-authored with Chinbo Chong). They have the following publication forthcoming: Raychaudhuri, Tanika, Tali Mendelberg, and Anne McDonough. "The Political Effects of Opioid Addiction Frames" in the Journal of Politics.

Matthew Self (Mentoring Program 2021-22), in collaboration with his APSA mentor Matthew Crosston, published “The Media Fog of War: Propaganda in the Ukraine-Russia Conflict” in Modern Diplomacy.

Jasmine C. Smith (RBSI 2016, MFP 2018-2019) defended her dissertation and earned her PhD from Duke University in June 2022. Her dissertation is entitled “Electability Politics: How and Why Black Democrats Vote in Primary Elections” and asks “How do Black Americans make vote choice decisions in primary elections?”

Sherri Wallace (RBSI 1989, MFP 1989-90), professor at the University of Louisville, will serve as the conference program co-chair for the118th APSA Annual Meeting in Montreal, Quebec. They were also promoted to interim associate dean of diversity, engagement, culture & climate in the arts and sciences at the University of Louisville. ▪