Student Leaders

Congratulations to Beatriz Gil '19 (economics and political science) and Jamal Holtz '20 (political science), who will be serving in 2018-19 as the Students' Association president and vice president.

Outstanding Teacher

At the 2018 Commencement ceremony, Professor David Primo received the Edward Peck Curtis Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. He previously received the Goergen Award and the Students' Association Undergraduate Professor of the Year Award.

Peace through Entrepreneurship

Bienfait Mugenza '21 (political science) and Philemon Rono '21 (mechanical engineering) have won a $10,000 grant from Davis Projects for Peace. They will run "Peace through Entrepreneurship," a one-week workshop to be held in Kigali, Rwanda, in Summer 2018.

Carnegie Fellow

Daniel Gillion, Rochester PhD '09 and now a professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania, has been named a 2018 Andrew Carnegie Fellow. His project is titled "The Loud Minority: Why Protests Matter in American Democracy."

Federal Prosecutor

Robert Khuzami '79, Deputy U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York, is leading the criminal investigation of Michael Cohen, attorney for President Trump. In 2004 Khuzami addressed the Republican National Convention to support President George W. Bush, and he helped prosecute the person who bombed the World Trade Center in 1993.

State Politics

Professor Mary Kroeger receives the State Politics & Policy Quarterly 2018 Best Paper Award. The award honors the author of the best paper on state politics presented at any professional meeting or conference in 2017. Professor Kroeger wins the prize for her paper "Bill Changes in State Legislatures."

Student Employee of the Year

Luke Meyerson '18 is named the University of Rochester Student Employee of the Year for 2018 for his work conceiving and developing an alumni-student database for Political Science and International Relations.

Critical Language Scholarship

John Cole '19, International Relations major, is winner of a 2018 U.S. State Department Critical Language Scholarship. He will be traveling to Xi'an, China, to study Mandarin.

Alumni Network

Hundreds of Rochester alumni (who majored in Political Science or International Relations) have joined the new alumni network. It is open now for current students and alumni who want to connect and learn about career paths.

Acemoglu and Robinson

Daron Acemoglu (MIT) and James Robinson (Chicago) win the 2017 William H. Riker Prize, awarded by the Rochester Department of Political Science in recognition of a body of work that advances the scientific study of politics.

MacArthur "Genius" Grant

Derek Peterson '93, who majored in Political Science and History at Rochester, has just been named a MacArthur Fellow. Now a professor at the University of Michigan, Peterson is recognized for his work on African colonialism and nationalism.

Josh Shapiro

Josh Shapiro '95, now Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, speaks at Meliora Weekend 2017. His talk is titled "Holding the Middle Ground in U.S. Politics."

Scholar-Athletes

Wesley Clayton '18 and Luke Meyerson '18 both received Garnish Scholar-Athlete Awards in September 2017. Recognizing athletic and academic achievement, the awards are presented annually to the outstanding student-athletes in the senior class. Clayton and Meyerson major in Political Science. Clayton runs track, and Meyerson plays baseball.

Agency Choice

Professor Lawrence Rothenberg and Matthew Sweeten, PhD candidate, win the 2017 Founder’s Best Paper Award for the best paper on executive politics. The award is presented by the Presidents and Executive Politics Section of the American Political Science Association. It is for the paper "Analyzing Agency Choice with Text Analysis: The Case of the NLRB."

Game Theory

Professor John Duggan has been elected to the Council of the Game Theory Society, an international organization dedicated to learning, research, and applications in the field of game theory.

In the Field

Rochester political scientists pioneer a new website that connects scholars traveling and doing research across the globe.

Executive Action

Professor Lawrence Rothenberg (with co-author Fang-Yi Chiou) publishes The Enigma of Presidential Power: Parties, Policies and Strategic Uses of Unilateral Power, a 2017 book that examines how presidents consider constraints from Congress and the courts in pursuing executive actions.

Political Economy

Michael Gibilisco, PhD '17, wins the 2017 University of Rochester award for the best dissertation in the social sciences. His dissertation is titled "Three Essays on Political Economy."

Rival Claims

Professor Bethany Lacina's 2017 book, Rival Claims: Ethnic Violence and Territorial Autonomy under Indian Federalism, examines civil conflict in India, claims for regional autonomy, and the response of the central government.

Institutions on the Edge

Professor Gretchen Helmke's 2017 book, Institutions on the Edge: The Origins and Consequences of Inter-Branch Crises in Latin America, examines the sources of institutional instability in the developing world.

Fisher at Play

Carla Fisher--Rochester alum and director of product innovation, kids and family, at Netflix — has been elected to the Board of Trustees of the Strong National Museum of Play. Fisher has worked previously at Sesame Workshop and PBS Kids Interactive.

U.S. News ranks Rochester #4 in the nation in political methodology, #14 in international relations, and #17 overall in political science.

Bright Line Watch, a project led by Professor Gretchen Helmke and colleagues from Dartmouth and Yale, is periodically assessing the health of American democracy.

Josh Shapiro '95 is Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Formerly chairman of the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners and a member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, Shapiro once served as president of the University of Rochester SA Government.

Explore 60 years of congressional scholarship on the new website dedicated to the life and work of Richard Fenno. The site includes information on each of his books, unpublished papers, lectures, and photos.

The Laurin Taylor Frisina '06 Ventura Award has been established by the family and friends of Laurin Taylor Frisina and in her memory. It honors "the graduating senior who, as a Political Science research assistant or in other research activities, best represents creativity and collaboration in pursuit of knowledge."

Created to support students pursuing a summer experience in politics or policy, the Richard and Nancy Fenno Summer Fellowships are awarded annually.

Jeanette Moy '02, who majored in Political Science at Rochester, is now the chief strategy officer and vice president for strategic planning at the Brooklyn Public Library, fifth largest public library in the U.S.

Controlling for size, "PS: Political Science & Politics" ranks Rochester Political Science first in the country in the productivity of its PhD alumni.