WashU Political Science

🌻 SPRING DEPARTMENT NEWSLETTER IS HERE 🎓️

Relive the triumph of our Spring 2026 semester (with some shout outs to the entire 25/26 academic year) in our brand new department newsletter!

Faculty Success
Student Success
Department Success

Read the entire thing here: https://buff.ly/8TWonPL

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Assistant Professor Lucia Motolinia has received the Legislative Studies Emerging Scholar Award from the Legislative Studies Section of the American Political Science Association (APSA).

In a letter announcing the award, the award committee chair, Gail McElroy of Trinity College Dublin, said Motolinia was chosen "unanimously" by the committee and that the committee was "very impressed by [Motolinia's] productivity and the high quality of [her] work in the field of legislative studies."

Read more on our website: https://buff.ly/K9JOM7X

James Gibson, the Sidney W. Souers Professor of Government, has received the 2026 Warren E. Miller Prize from the American Political Science Association (APSA).

The award, granted from the Elections, Public Opinion, and Voting Behavior (EPOVB) section, is given every 2-3 years for "an outstanding career of intellectual accomplishment and service to the profession in the EPOVB field."

The award is named for celebrated political scientist, Warren E. Miller, a professor at University of Michigan, University of California - Berkeley, and Arizona State University, where he created the Warren E. Miller Junior Faculty Endowment to enable junior faculty to learn and establish connections that help in their career progression.

Read more about the award and Gibson's work on our website: https://buff.ly/MrjtlWt

Associate Professor of Political Science, and Director of Graduate Studies, Taylor Carlson, has received the 2026 Elections, Public Opinion, and Voting Behavior (EPOVB) Emerging Scholar award. The award is granted by the EPOVB section of the American Political Science Association. The Emerging Scholar award is presented to top scholars in the field who are within ten years of their PhD.

Learn more about the award and Carlson's work on our website: https://buff.ly/QHSM7ab

Starting off the week with some great news!

Last Friday marked the final day of the 2026 WUSTEPS program! Our 2026 cohort worked extremely hard over the last two weeks learning all about research techniques, the world of graduate school and academia, and the behind the scenes of political science PhD programs. Their final day culminated in research topic presentations and a delicious lunch with the polisci team.

Congratulations to our entire 2026 cohort! Also, thank you to all the faculty members and current PhD students -- Jaclyn Kaslovsky, Lucia Motolinia, Abbie Eastman, Carly Wayne, Taylor Carlson, Michael Strawbridge, Michael Olson, Christopher Lucas, Keith Schnakenberg, Carlo Horz, Shiran Victora Shen, Christy Qui, Ophelia Vedder, and Stephanie Shady -- who offered their insights and expertise throughout this year's program. Wishing the cohort the best of luck for the rest of the summer and into the next academic year!

To learn more about WUSTEPS, our Political Science PhD Prep Program, including how to donate to keep the program running, visit the WUSTEPS website: www.polisci.washu.edu/wusteps.

Political Science faculty, and Director of Undergraduate Studies, Dan Butler, is featured in a new article in The Source from WashU Arts & Sciences.

Butler discussed his research from a working paper, titled, “The Party’s Disappointed Dropouts: Presidential Nominations and Participation in Future Primary Elections". The paper provides evidence that primary donors and voters who dislike the winning presidential primary candidate are less likely to donate and participate in future party primaries. Butler says by opting out of the primaries, people give power to the leaders of the parties to pursue agendas that are not responsive to moderate voters' preferences.

“Our research shows that people are selecting out of the primary process, which means there is little opposition to the president within the party,” Butler said. “This self-selection out of the primary process has empowered Trump. The more moderate Republicans are not showing up to vote for the Thomas Massies and John Cornyns of the party.”

Read the full article in The Source today!: https://buff.ly/EjM7GBP

Assistant Professor Victoria Shen has received the Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award from the Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU).

The Ralph E. Powe awards are competitive research awards that provide seed money for junior faculty members to conduct research in one of five disciplines: Engineering and Applied Science, Life Sciences, Mathematics/Computer Sciences, Physical Sciences, or Policy, Management, or Education.

Read more about the award on our website: https://buff.ly/w19tgrN

politicalsciencenow.com

Professor Jacob Montgomery and his research were recently featured in an article exploring Google's shift to AI-powered search results.

The article, from Straight Arrow News, interviewed Montgomery and highlighted an article he co-authored with WashU grad student, Haofei Xu, and WashU professor of computer science & engineering, Umar Iqbal, titled, "Measuring Google AI Overviews: Activation, Source Quality, Claim Fidelity, and Publisher Impact."

"The feature could make a Google Search easier for users who no longer have to visit third-party websites for answers. But Montgomery said the convenience has come at the expense of digital content producers...'To the extent that people are being dissuaded from clicking through to those sources and instead are being presented summaries, those publishers and other websites are losing revenue from their ads,' Montgomery told Straight Arrow."

Read the full article from Straight Arrow News which includes a link to Montgomery's paper: https://buff.ly/KJCngxK