Valerie Martinez-Ebers

Valerie Martinez-Ebers is a University Distinguished Research Professor and former Director of the Latina/o and Mexican American Studies Program at the University of North Texas. Some of her former APSA service includes: Vice-President, Executive Council, President of the Latino Caucus (twice), Co-Chair of the REP Section and Co-Editor of the American Political Science Review. She has published widely on topics associated with the politics of race and ethnicity, including articles in the top political science journals. Her six books include: Politicas: Latina Public Officials in Texas; Latino Lives in America: Making it Home; Latinos in the New Millennium: An Almanac of Opinion, Behavior and Policy Preferences; Human Relations Commissions: Relieving Racial Tensions in the American City; The American Professor Pundit: Academics in the World of US Political Media; and forthcoming,  Race, Politics and the Prosperity Gospel: Victims of Victory. She also edited Perspectives on Race, Ethnicity and Religion: Identity Politics in America and was a co-principal investigator for the 2006 Latino National Survey, funded by Ford, Carnegie, Russell Sage, Hewlett, Joyce, and National Science Foundations. Her current research examines the political and social impact of Urban Indian Centers on Native Americans who were federally relocated to urban areas.

Statement of Views:

Political science stands at a critical moment. The discipline’s relevance to democratic life has never been greater, yet the gap between scholarly knowledge and public understanding remains a central challenge. As political scientists, we have both intellectual responsibility and a civic obligation to ensure that our work informs the broader public and strengthens democratic institutions. Our work should not only explain politics, it should help citizens navigate it.

The APSA must lead in advancing a more visible, engaged, and impactful discipline. This includes promoting research that speaks to pressing public concerns, supporting scholars who communicate their findings beyond academic audiences, and fostering partnerships with other organizations and individuals who are also working towards the public good.

At the same time, APSA must continue to expand opportunities within the profession. A discipline that reflects diverse experiences and perspectives is better equipped to understand and address the complexities of political life.

Finally, APSA must affirm and defend the principles that sustain scholarly inquiry, including academic freedom and open exchange. By strengthening public engagement, supporting our members, and reinforcing our core values, APSA can ensure that political science remains essential to a vibrant and resilient democracy.

Lisa Baldez

Lisa Baldez is Professor of Government at Dartmouth College. She studies the ways in which conceptions of masculinity and femininity shape politics in Latin America, the United States, and the transnational arena. Baldez is the author of Defying Convention: US Resistance to the UN Treaty on Women’s Rights (Cambridge University Press, 2014). From 2015-2018, Professor Baldez served as the Cheheyl Professor and Director of the Dartmouth Center for the Advancement of Learning and in 2019 she won the Midwest Women’s Caucus for Political Science Outstanding Professional Achievement Award. She has served on the APSA Council, the editorial board of APSR, and numerous APSA committees. She is a founding editor, with Karen Beckwith, of Politics & Gender, and, with Karen Beckwith and Christina Wolbrecht, of Cambridge Studies in Gender and Politics. She is currently working on a research project aimed at understanding how governments use formal dress codes to shape national identity. She holds a Ph.D. in political science from the University of California, San Diego, and a A.B. from Princeton University.

Statement of Views:

APSA has been central to every aspect of my career in political science and I’m honored to be nominated as Vice President. I would welcome the opportunity to serve my fellow political scientists and the association by addressing some of the pressing issues we face now and the new ones that will inevitably arise. Right now I’m struggling the most with these three: artificial intelligence, challenges to the mission of universities, and political division. First, we know that AI is reshaping the way we teach, conduct research, and engage in civic life on a continuous basis but how should we respond? How can APSA support us in learning how to use AI effectively and ethically as a tool to create knowledge, promote learning, and prepare our students for life beyond college? Second, the past year has been tough on universities. What role can political science play in meeting the challenges that campuses at every level face? What are the most effective strategies to address threats to our core values, cuts to funding, and public criticism? Third, how can we use what we know from our research to repair division and bridge divides? What are the best ways to highlight what people share in common in a context of conflict and ideological animosity?

Scott Desposato

Scott Desposato is Professor of Political Science and Simón Bolívar Chair of Latin American Studies at the University of California, San Diego. He received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2001. Professor Desposato conducts research and teaches courses in comparative politics, political institutions, and research methodology. He has published extensively on Latin American democracy, including work on institutions, political parties, LGBTQ civil rights, and gender and racial bias in voting. His research also examines the legacies of protest in authoritarian regimes, the democratic peace, and discrimination in policing.

Professor Desposato has also written extensively on research ethics. He co-chaired the American Political Science Association Human Subjects Research Ad Hoc Committee, which developed principles for political science research involving human subjects. These principles were adopted by APSA and are now incorporated into the association’s Ethics Guide.

Statement of Views:

I am honored to be nominated to serve as an APSA Vice President. I previously served on APSA Council and on several APSA committees.

APSA plays a critical role in the profession, fostering networking and community building, supporting research and teaching, and leading the way in professional and ethical best practices. Academia is facing political, fiscal, and demographic challenges and APSA’s strong leadership is needed now more than ever. 

My top priorities for APSA in this challenging environment include aggressively defending academic freedom and the research enterprise, promoting intellectual and methodological diversity within the discipline, supporting graduate students facing an increasingly challenging job market, and keeping APSA membership and conferences affordable and accessible to all members.

Terri Givens

Terri Givens is a Professor of Political Science at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. She was the Provost’s Advisor on the Strategy to Address Anti-Black Racism at McGill University from 2021-2024, where she supported the hiring of and support for Black faculty, staff and students. Terri has held leadership positions as Vice Provost at the University of Texas at Austin, Provost of Menlo College, and taught in political science at University of Washington, University of Texas at Austin, and McGill University. She has worked with a variety of organizations at the international level, including the German Marshall Fund, the US State Department, Transatlantic Inclusion Leaders, and the Helsinki Commission. Her research focuses on the far right, immigration politics and the global politics of race.

Statement of Views:

I started my first volunteer position at APSA in 2003, when I joined the Committee on the Status of Blacks in the Profession. Since that time, I have held a variety of positions, including the Ad Hoc Committee on Governance, which wrestled with updating the organization’s by-laws and actually created the position that I’m nominated for – perhaps my own Dick Cheney moment. I was also a member of the APSA Council during the tumultuous Los Angeles meeting, and I learned a great deal about how members see the association. I hope to help members understand that WE are the organization. It is led by us and a devoted staff that are committed to our success as individuals and as an organization. Mistakes have been made, and organizations that incorporate a diverse group of scholars will continue to be challenged by the crazy world that we are dealing with. We must remain open to listening, taking into account the needs of scholars at ALL levels of the discipline (we aren’t all at RI institutions), in the US and abroad. I look forward to encouraging more colleagues to become involved in the association in the coming years.

Candis Watts Smith

Candis Watts Smith is Professor of Political Science at Duke University, where she also received her B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. Her research expertise highlights the role that race and inequality play in shaping the American political landscape. She is the author or co-author of dozens of articles and several books, including Stay Woke (NYU Press, 2019), Racial Stasis (University of Chicago Press, 2020) and Black Evidence: A History and a Warning (W.W. Norton, 2026). She is a faculty in residence on Duke’s East Campus, serves as the faculty director of the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program, and is a co-host of the Democracy Works podcast. Smith has served APSA in several capacities, including as a member of the APSA Executive Council (2023-2026), Best Book Award Committee Chair for REP, Chair for Section 32 (Race, Ethnicity, and Politics), the co-president of the REP section, as a member of the APSA Committee on the Status of Blacks, and twice as a panel member for the NSF Dissertation Improvement Grant for Political Science. She has served on the editorial boards of several journals, as well as serving as an Associate Editor at Politics, Groups, and Identities and at Public Opinion Quarterly. 

Statement of Views

It is an honor to be nominated to serve as Treasurer for the Association. I have had the fortune of being involved with APSA for two decades, attending my first conference as a participant of the Ralph Bunche Summer Institute. Supporting RBSI is just one of the many ways APSA enhances excellence in our discipline. I share its commitment to investing in scholars concerned with our toughest challenges. Through deepened engagement with APSA, it has become clear to me how important APSA’s role is in supporting scholars, scholarship, academic freedom, and free inquiry. I have gained a better understanding of how APSA’s leaders advocate for political science, inform scholars of the ramifications of our ever-evolving political landscape on their scholarship, and collaborate to bring resources to scholars at every stage of the (academic) career path. The health of APSA’s finances is critical to the Association’s mission. Still more, ensuring the transparency of these resources fosters trust between the association’s leaders and its members. I am committed to a leadership style characterized by transparency, collaboration, and innovation to shore up gaps and enhance the best qualities of an organization. 

Sarah Brooks

Sarah Brooks is a scholar of comparative and international political economy whose research has examined how states manage economic risk through social policy, natural resource governance, and sovereign debt. Her book Social Protection and the Market in Latin America (Cambridge University Press) analyzes the political conditions shaping market-oriented pension reform in developing democracies. In international political economy, she studies sovereign risk and global capital flows, including the domestic foundations of capital account liberalizations.

Her recent work challenges conventional “resource curse” theories, showing that the economic impact of natural resources depends on human capital and domestic policy. She is currently studying the global and domestic politics of critical minerals and their role in the green energy transition. Her work has been published widely in political science journals, including International Organization and American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics and Comparative Political Studies. She was a Fulbright Scholar and received funding from the Gerda Henkel Stiftung, among other foundations.

Statement of Views:

I am honored to be nominated to serve on the APSA Council at a critical moment for our profession. The current challenges to higher education mean that it is all the more important for us to make rigorous, independent scholarship possible, and accessible for our profession, our students, and the public. As a faculty member at a major public research university, I see these pressures up close, and I believe that APSA has an important role to play in defending academic freedom and the inclusive vision of the discipline that we strive to build. If elected, I will be committed to strengthening opportunities for mentoring and professional development for graduate students and young scholars. Drawing on my own research engagement across Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America, moreover, I will work also to expand the visibility and participation of Global South scholars in APSA’s annual meeting and the broader intellectual life of the association. A political science discipline that can speak to world politics must reflect the full diversity of the world’s scholars, and I hope to support that.

Helen R. Chang

Helen R. Chang is an Assistant Professor of Political Science in the Behavioral and Social Sciences Department at Eugenio María de Hostos Community College of The City University of New York (CUNY). Her research interests include municipal election reforms, the structure of local electoral management bodies, and teaching and learning in political science, and her work has been published in Political Research Quarterly and the Journal of Political Science Education. Dr. Chang teaches introductory courses in American Government, Comparative Politics, and International Relations. She holds a B.A. in International Relations and French and an M.A in Sociology from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in Political Science from the CUNY Graduate Center. Some of her recent service to the profession includes co-chairing APSA’s Committee on the Status of Community Colleges in the Profession (2023-2025), being a member of the 2024 TLC at APSA Program Committee and the 2025 APSA Community College Awards Committee, and currently serving as a member of the Journal of Political Science Education’s Editorial Board and the APSA Educate Teaching Library Editorial Advisory Board.

Statement of Views:

I am grateful to be nominated to serve on APSA Council. As faculty at a two-year institution, which is teaching focused but that also has a research requirement, I have benefited from the mentorship and professional development opportunities that I have found at APSA’s Teaching and Learning Conferences and through APSA’s Committee on the Status of Community Colleges in the Profession and the Political Science Education organized section. I am committed to building on APSA’s efforts to welcome and support teaching faculty and scholars at community colleges and our increasing number of dual enrollment partners in the secondary education space. These efforts include programming that is oriented towards teaching faculty like open education resources as well as offering various accessible options for engagement with APSA and the discipline through virtual workshops and symposiums. I also hope to increase the visibility of political science educators at two-year colleges and help inform APSA and its membership about the expertise and importance of community college faculty, who are now often a student’s first point of contact in the discipline and who are well-placed to strengthen the transfer pipeline and to collaborate with colleagues at four-year institutions on curricular innovations and research-based pedagogies.  

Nandini Deo

Nandini Deo is an Associate Professor of International Politics at Georgetown University in Qatar and a Professor of Political Science at Lehigh University. Over nearly two decades in the discipline, she has been a consistent contributor to the APSA community, with a particular focus on supporting the Religion & Politics and Women, Gender, & Politics sections. She currently serves as the Chair of the Religion and Politics Section, where she works to foster scholarly exchange and community among its members and is on the Executive Board for the South Asian Politics Section. Her previous service includes co-organizing the division program for the Annual Meeting and serving as a member of the Executive Board for the Women and Politics Section. Deo has participated in several book award committees, including the Hubert Morken Award and the Victoria Schuck Award committees. Her research on secularism, gender, and civil society in South Asia—most recently published in Corporate Social Responsibility and Civil Society in India (2024)—is deeply informed by the collaborative networks she has built within the Association. A former Fulbright-Nehru Senior Scholar and recipient of the Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching, she views her participation in APSA as an extension of her commitment to mentoring early-career scholars and supporting the internationalization of the discipline.

Statement of Views:

I am honored to be considered for the APSA Council. My research on civil society has consistently shown me that the health of political institutions depends on the health of the associational communities within them. I view APSA not just as a professional body, but as a vital community for mentorship and intellectual growth. My priority on the Council would be to enhance the Association’s support for mid-career and international faculty, particularly those navigating the complexities of teaching and researching in diverse political environments. APSA must lead the way in articulating the public value of political science, and I look forward to contributing my perspective as an educator and researcher to help our Association thrive in a rapidly changing academic landscape.

Kennan Ferguson

Kennan Ferguson is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee and currently a Distinguished Fulbright Scholar at the Institute of Political Studies at Univerzita Karlova/Charles University in Prague, Czechia.  He has served as the Chair of APSA’s Foundations of Political Theory section, Director of the Center for 21^st Century Studies, Chair of the University of Wisconsin Press Editorial Board, and on multiple APSA prize and awards committees.  His most recent books include Cookbook Politics (Pennsylvania), All in the Family: On Community and Incommensurability (Duke), and the edited collection The Big No (Minnesota).  He has coedited the journal Theory & Event, the eight-volume Encyclopedia of Political Thought (Blackwell), and the series Modernity and Political Thought (Bloomsbury). Ferguson has been the Academic Lead for the Illinois Advanced Judicial Academy and has planned multiple conferences.  He earned his PhD from the University of Hawai’i and his BA from Amherst College.

Statement of views:

As political scientists, we know the complexities that arise within institutions with multiple sources of authority.  Organizations such as the APSA experience this no less than multinational corporations or nation states.  The APSA Council forms one vital authoritative node, sharing power and responsibilities with the Executive Committee, Governance Committees, Sections (and their representatives), and the Executive Director and permanent staff.  My overriding concern, if elected, would be to represent the multiplicity of interests of the APSA membership. I would work closely with the people who make the organization function every day and with those striving to increase the reach, scope, and diversity of those it represents, while concurrently addressing specific critical issues facing our colleges, universities, and departments.

Samantha Majic

Samantha Majic is Professor of Political Science at John Jay College-CUNY, a doctoral faculty member in the Political Science and Criminal Justice programs at the CUNY Graduate Center, and co-director of APSA’s Institute for Civically Engaged Research. Within the broader subfields of American and gender politics, her qualitative-interpretive research examines topics such as sex work, celebrity politics, popular culture, online platforms, and physical fitness to consider broader questions related to social movements, civic engagement, norms, and public policy. She is the author of Sex Work Politics: From Protest to Service Provision (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014) and Lights, Camera, Feminism? Celebrities and Anti-Trafficking Politics (University of California Press, 2023). With Carisa Showden, she also co-edited Negotiating Sex Work: Unintended Consequences of Policy and Activism (University of Minnesota Press, 2014) and co-authored Youth Who Trade Sex in the US: Agency, Intersectionality, and Vulnerability (Temple University Press, 2018). Her research has been published in a wide range of political science, gender studies, and interdisciplinary journals, and her scholarship has been supported by the American Association of University Women and the Woodhull Freedom Foundation. Dr. Majic serves on the editorial boards for Perspectives on Politics, Sexuality Research and Social Policy, and Critical Policy Studies.

Statement of Views:

With democracy and the academy under attack, we must act collectively to confront the challenges facing our discipline and world. To this end, my contribution to the Council will center on three priorities, the first of which is meeting people where they are. Drawing on my years as a practitioner of civically engaged research, I believe scholars require support and encouragement to work directly with communities to understand and resolve their most pressing concerns—a task made crucial by growing distrust in scholarly expertise. Second, I am committed to furthering methodological diversity. Since the problems we study will only become more complex, it is essential for us to think creatively about how we gather and analyze data, broadly defined, and about how we communicate our findings in an increasingly fragmented media-scape replete with misinformation. Third, I am dedicated to tackling labor challenges. Teaching at an under-funded urban public institution, I am intimately familiar with the employment and resource disparities that plague many colleges and universities. Serving on the Council, I will urge APSA to focus on these inequalities so we are all better positioned to face the urgent matters of our time.

Natalie Masuoka

Natalie Masuoka is Professor of Political Science and Asian American Studies at UCLA. Her research expertise crosses the fields of Race, Ethnicity and Politics, Political Behavior and Public Opinion. She has authored three books on these topics: The Politics of Belonging: Race, Public Opinion and Immigration (2013), Multiracial Identity and Racial Politics in the United States (2017), and Women Voters: Race, Gender and Dynamism in American Elections (2024). In her role as Faculty Director of the Asian American and Pacific Islander Policy Initiative at UCLA, she has sought to promote community engaged research that is a product of collaborations between academics, policy-makers, practitioners and community advocacy organizations. Masuoka currently serves as Associate Editor at Public Opinion Quarterly and has previously served as an Associate editor at Politics, Groups and Identities. She has served on a number of committees for the American Political Science Association, Western Political Science Association, Midwest Political Science Association and Northeastern Political Science Association. For APSA, these positions include serving as a Symposium Co-Chair for the APSA Centennial Center Teaching and Learning, a committee member for the APSA Presidential Task Force on Examining Issues and Mechanisms of Systemic Inequalities in the Discipline, Committee on the Status of Asian Pacific Americans in the Profession and the Departmental Services Committee.

Statement of Views:

It is an honor to be nominated to serve on the APSA Council. I see APSA as an important institutionalized space that enables scholars to promote their research, engage in collaborations within and across subfields in political science and develop pedagogies for teaching political science in the classroom. APSA’s purpose is to promote a healthy exchange of ideas and supporting the need for a wide range of perspectives in both scholarship and inside the classroom. As a scholar of racial and ethnic politics (REP), my own research career was made possible because of the infrastructure offered by APSA to support the development of subfields like REP, which just recently celebrated its 30^th anniversary as an APSA organized section. I would be proud to serve on a Council that will continue APSA’s inclusive practices towards promoting new and innovative ideas in the profession.

Patrick McKinlay

Patrick McKinlay is Professor of Political Science at Morningside University, in Sioux City, Iowa, where he has served on the faculty since completing his Ph.D. in Government and International Studies at the University of Notre Dame. A native Midwesterner with lifelong connections around the globe, McKinlay has described Morningside as “the perfect place to do what I love to do.” His research has focused on grassroots forms of democratic practice, as well as on pedagogical interventions that stimulate engaged citizenship. His time at Morningside has been characterized by passionate teaching and service to his institution, community, and profession. An early adopter of service-learning pedagogy, he encouraged campus colleagues to identify their own disciplinary connections with the broader community, helping them to craft these relationships in his role as VISTA supervisor. In addition to his faculty appointment, he has served as Department Chair, Associate Dean, and member of the University’s Board of Directors. He has coordinated university-wide strategic planning, served on committees drafting the university Higher Learning Commission Reports, and served in wide range of other shared governance roles and responsibilities. Within the community, McKinlay has spearheaded multiple civic engagement initiatives connecting Morningside students with the broader Siouxland community, sponsored many student presentations at regional conferences, and led student study abroad programs in Italy, Germany, China, and Japan. He is interested in cross-national as well as cross-community deliberative practice, fostering understanding and collaboration across social, cultural, and economic divides, and his early research on democratic theory was published in the Journal of Politics.

Statement of Views:

It is an honor to be nominated to serve on APSA council. I am a proud product of diverse institutions – from large regional publics to private AAU research-intensives, and I have enjoyed my career at a small, private liberal arts institution. A constant for me since my days as an undergraduate has been the opportunity, insight, development, and fellowship APSA has provided. I currently work in a two-person program and could easily feel isolated within the discipline, but APSA has been an essential part of my development and fulfillment as a political scientist. I am grateful to APSA for providing intellectual and pedagogical nourishment over my career. I have benefited in manifold ways from the diverse engagement opportunities through the annual meeting, TLC, our outstanding journals, and the diverse resources APSA provides to all its members (APSA Educate, PS, Political Science Today, and many others). I have also grown personally and professionally through participation in section activities, especially Political Science Education and Civic Engagement. I have always felt welcome at APSA and will do everything I can to ensure that remains true for all of our peers across the discipline, wherever they may be based. I welcome the opportunity to give back to an Association that has meant so much to me, preserving and amplifying the particular and valuable voice of thousands of our colleagues in institutional settings like my own. I will support APSA initiatives to strengthen opportunities for engagement within the sections, especially for colleagues from smaller institutions with limited departmental resources for professional development, research support, and pedagogical innovation.  At the same time, I believe APSA can support graduate students and new faculty to identify rewarding career opportunities in the diverse kinds of institutions we serve, especially small liberal arts institutions, community colleges, regional universities, as well as major research institutions.

Daniel Tichenor

Daniel Tichenor is the Philip H. Knight Chair of Political Science and Director of the Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics at the University of Oregon. His research and teaching focus on international migration, citizenship, social movements, executive power, and politics and history. Tichenor has authored or edited nine books. They include Dividing Lines: The Politics of Immigration Control (Princeton University Press), which won several awards including APSA’s Gladys Kammerer Award for the best book on U.S. national policy. His most recent works are Rivalry and Reform: Presidents, Social Movements, and the Transformation of American Politics (University of Chicago Press), coauthored with Sidney Milkis, and Democracy’s Child: Young People and the Politics of Control, Leverage, and Agency (Oxford University Press), coauthored with Alison Gash. He also has written numerous articles, including several which received the Jack Walker Prize, the Mary Parker Follette Award, the Polity Prize, and Charles Redd Award. Tichenor has been a Fellow in Governmental Studies at the Brookings Institution, Princeton’s Center for the Study of Democratic Politics, the Eagleton Institute, and the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library. He has received grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, and he was named to the inaugural class of Andrew Carnegie Fellows in 2015. In addition, Tichenor has testified and provided expert briefings to Congress on immigration and refugee policy, and provided commentary and essays for National Public Radio, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Conversation and The New Republic.

Statement of Views:

I am grateful to be nominated to serve on the APSA Council, and I am eager to give back to an association that has provided vibrant intellectual community, mentorship, and opportunities for professional growth. With constitutional democracy, higher education, and evidence-based research all under attack, it is hard to imagine a more consequential time for our discipline, association, and profession. Amid these challenges, I hope to support APSA staff in navigating a variety of challenges to maintain its financial well-being and the strength of its programs, meetings, and initiatives. In turn, I am interested in the role APSA can play in defending academic freedom, inclusion, and shared governance at universities and colleges, in protecting brave teaching and problem-driven scholarship, and in championing international and immigrant students, as well as political science colleagues across borders. Finally, having served on a variety of APSA committees and in leadership roles for several organized sections, I believe that our association and discipline flourish through diversity in the profession and through methodological and theoretical pluralism.