Current Board Members

Texas A&M University

Dr. Scott Clifford is an expert on public opinion, political psychology, and survey and experimental methods. His research focuses on topics such as what causes someone to view politics in moral terms, how moral values affect public opinion, and how politicians appeal to or manipulate the public’s moral views. He has published more than 37 peer-reviewed journal articles, including publications at the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, and the Journal of Politics. He currently serves as the co-editor-in-chief at the Journal of Experimental Political Science. Dr. Clifford teaches courses on political psychology, morality and politics, and research methods.

Syracuse University

Shana Kushner Gadarian is Merle Goldberg Fabian Professor of Excellence in Citizenship and Critical Thinking and Department Chair in the Department of Political Science at the Maxwell School, Syracuse University. She received a Ph.D. in politics from Princeton University. She was a 2021 Carnegie Fellow and was previously Robert Wood Johnson Scholar in Health Policy Research.

Her book Anxious Politics: Democratic Citizenship in a Threatening World, (co-authored with Bethany Albertson) won the 2016 Robert E Lane Award for best book in political psychology and the 2021 Doris Graber Award for best book in political communication in the last decade from the American Political Science Association. Her 2022 book on the coronavirus pandemic titled, Pandemic Politics: The Deadly Toll of Polarization in the Age of COVID,  (joint with Sara Wallace Goodman and Thomas Pepinsky) was named a best book of 2023 by Foreign Policy Magazine.

Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Norwegian Research Council, Russell Sage Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, and Campbell Public Affairs Institute, among others.  Her work has been published in outlets such as the American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, Political Analysis, Political Psychology, Political Communication, Political Behavior, Perspectives on Politics, and Politics, Groups, and Identities.

University of Southern California

Jane Junn is the USC Associates Chair in Social Sciences and a Professor of Political Science and Gender Studies at the University of Southern California. She is the author of books and articles on political participation and public opinion in the United States. Together with Natalie Masuoka, Jane published Women Voters: Race, Gender, and Dynamism in American Elections, a Cambridge University Press Element in 2024. Her 2013 book, The Politics of Belonging: Race, Immigration, and Public Opinion, also co-authored with Natalie Masuoka, was published by the University of Chicago Press and is the winner of the 2014 Ralph Bunche best book award from the American Political Science Association.

Her first book, Education and Democratic Citizenship in America (with Norman Nie and Ken Stehlik-Barry, University of Chicago Press, 1996), won the Woodrow Wilson Foundation award from the American Political Science Association for the best book published in political science. Jane is also the author of Civic Education: What Makes Students Learn (with Richard G. Niemi, Yale University Press, 1998); New Race Politics: Understanding Minority and Immigrant Politics (edited with Kerry L. Haynie, Cambridge University Press, 2008); and Asian American Political Participation: Emerging Constituents and their Political Identities (with Janelle Wong, Karthick Ramakrishnan and Taeku Lee, Russell Sage Foundation, 2011).

Her research articles on political behavior, public opinion, racial and ethnic politics, the politics of immigration, gender and politics, and political identity have appeared in journals including Perspectives on Politics; The DuBois Review; Politics & Gender; American Politics Research; the American Behavioral Scientist; Political Research Quarterly; the Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics; Political Behavior; and Politics, Groups, and Identities.

Jane was President of the Western Political Science Association, Vice President of the American Political Science Association, a
Fulbright Senior Scholar, and the recipient of an Outstanding Teacher Award from Columbia University Teachers College. She was a member of the Social Science Research Council National Research Commission on Elections and Voting and a member of the National Academy of Science Committee on the U.S. Naturalization Test Redesign. She was the director of the USC – Los Angeles Times Poll during the 2010 California election.

University of Michigan

Yanna Krupnikov is Professor of Communication and Media. Her most recent research considers differences in attention to the news and differences in political expression (both on and off social media platforms), with a focus on the relationship between political polarization and attention to political news. She is also interested in journalist decision-making, and, in particular, coverage of polarization and democracy.

She is the co-author of books Partisan Hostility and American Democracy: Explaining Political Divisions and When They Matter (2024, University of Chicago Press), he Other Divide: Polarization and Disengagement in American Politics (2022, Cambridge University Press) and Independent Politics: How American Disdain for Partisanship Leads to Political Inaction (2016, Cambridge University Press). Her research has also been published in a variety of journals.

University of Texas at Austin

Prof. Eric L. McDaniel is a professor in the Department of Government and the co-director of the prelab at the University of Texas at Austin. He is a graduate of Wilberforce University, the oldest private historically Black college or university, and took his PhD. from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. His research examines how the intersection of race and religion influence the American political landscape. His first book, Politics in the Pews: The Political Mobilization of Black Churches, provides an explanation for why some Black churches choose to engage the political world while others do not. His most recent book, The Everyday Crusade: Christian Nationalism in American Politics, co-authored with Irfan Nooruddin and Allyson Shortle, explores the ramifications of Americans believing that their nation is God’s chosen nation. Focusing specifically on how this belief influences how Americans come to understand themselves and the nation’s place in the world, they demonstrate the pervasive power of American religious nationalism. He has published articles in the Political Research Quarterly, Political Psychology, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, and Journal of Racial and Ethnic Politics. Prof. McDaniel has also written several book chapters and opinion pieces related race, religion and American politics. Prof. McDaniel has been awarded two grants from the National Science Foundation and from 2008-2010 served as Health Policy Scholar for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation at the University of California, Berkeley.

University of Pennsylvania

Diana Mutz publishes research on public opinion, political psychology and mass political behavior, with a particular emphasis on political communication. At Penn she holds the Samuel A. Stouffer Chair in Political Science and Communication, and also serves as Director of the Institute for the Study of Citizens and Politics.

Mutz has received many awards including the Lifetime Career Achievement Award in Political Communication from the American Political Science Association. In 2021, she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. In 2011, she was inducted as a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2008. Mutz has also received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation as well as the Carnegie Endowment.

Mutz has published articles in a variety of academic journals including American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Public Opinion Quarterly, Journal of Politics and Journal of Communication. She is also the author of Impersonal Influence: How Perceptions of Mass Collectives Affect Political Attitudes (Cambridge University Press, 1998), a book awarded the Robert Lane Prize for the Best Book in Political Psychology by the American Political Science Association, and the 2004 Doris Graber Prize for Most Influential Book on Political Communication published in the last ten years. In 2006, she published Hearing the Other Side: Deliberative Versus Participatory Democracy (Cambridge University Press, 2006) which was awarded the 2007 Goldsmith Prize by Harvard University, the Robert Lane Prize for the Best Book in Political Psychology by the American Political Science Association, and the American Association for Public Opinion Research Book Award in 2019. Mutz’s latest book, Winners and Losers: The Psychology of Foreign Trade (Princeton University Press) won the Best Book Award from the American Political Science Association.

Jackson State University

Byron D’Andra Orey is Professor of Political Science and former Department Chair at Jackson State University. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of New Orleans and holds degrees from Mississippi Valley State University, the University of Mississippi, and SUNY Stony Brook.

Professor Orey’s research focuses on race and bio-politics, examining the psychology of Black trauma, emotions, implicit bias, and voting rights. His work has appeared in the Journal of Politics (forthcoming), American Politics Research, State Politics and Policy Quarterly, and Social Science Quarterly, among others. He has secured approximately $2.5 million in research grants and fellowships.

He previously served as a W.K. Kellogg Fellow and served as President of the Southern Political Science Association in 2023. He has been a member of the Collaborative Multiracial Post-Election Survey (CMPS) General Board since 2022 and has served on the editorial Board for the State Politics and Policy Quarterly, Social Science Quarterly and the Journal of Race and Policy. His expert commentary has appeared in Al Jazeera, MSNBC, CNN, and PBS NewsHour.