Affiliated Faculty

Stephanie Canizales

Assistant Professor of Sociology; Director of the Berkeley Interdisciplinary Migration Initiative
Department of Sociology
Berkeley Interdisciplinary Migration Initiative

Stephanie L. Canizales, PhD, is a researcher, author, and professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and Faculty Director of the Berkeley Interdisciplinary Migration Initiative. Stephanie specializes in the study of international migration and immigrant integration, with particular interest in the experiences of Latin American migrants in the United States. Over the last decade, Stephanie has focused her research on the migration and coming-of-age of unaccompanied children...

Robert Van Houweling

Associate Professor of Political Science
Charles and Louise Travers Department of Political Science

Professor Van Houweling studies political behavior and legislative institutions in the United States. Both aspects of his research are driven by an interest in better understanding the representational linkages between electorates and officeholders. He received his B.A. in political science from the University of Michigan in 1993 and his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 2003. He worked as a Legislative Assistant to Senator Thomas A. Daschle of South Dakota from 1993 to 1995. He has published articles in a variety of political science journals, including the American Political Science...

Laura Stoker

Professor Emerita of Political Science
Charles and Louise Travers Department of Political Science

Laura Stoker is Professor of the Graduate School in the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research focuses on the development and change of political attitudes and behavior with a focus on family influences and generational change. She also writes on topics at the intersection of research design and statistics, including the optimal design of multi-level studies, problems of aggregation, and the estimation of cohort effects. She has regularly taught undergraduate and graduate courses on political psychology and research methods. Her publications...

Marika Laundau-Wells

Assistant Professor
Charles and Louise Travers Department of Political Science

My research is broadly concerned with the effects of cognitive processes - including perception, attention, concept formation, and memory - on political behavior writ large. My primary research project investigates the ways in which the psychological and neural underpinnings of threat perception influence policy preferences, with a particular focus on national security decision-making.

I hold an AB from Harvard in Government, an MSc from LSE in Global Politics, and a PhD from MIT in Political Science. Prior to arriving at Berkeley, I was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the...

Paul Pierson

John Gross Professor of Political Science
Charles and Louise Travers Department of Political Science

Paul Pierson is the John Gross Professor of Political Science at the University of California at Berkeley. Pierson’s teaching and research includes the fields of American politics and public policy, comparative political economy, and social theory. His most recent books are Off-Center: The Republican Revolution and the Erosion of American Democracy (with Jacob Hacker), Politics in Time: History, Institutions and Social Analysis, The Transformation of American Politics: Activist Government and the Rise of Conservatism (co-edited with Theda Skocpol), and Winner...

Amy E. Lerman

Professor of Public Policy and Political Science
Charles and Louise Travers Department of Political Science
Goldman School of Public Policy
Possibility Lab

Professor Amy E. Lerman is a political scientist who studies issues of race, public opinion, and political behavior, especially as they relate to punishment and social inequality in America. She is the author of two books on the American criminal justice system—The Modern Prison Paradox and Arresting Citizenship (awarded a best book award from the Urban Politics Section of the American Political Science Association). Her most recent book, Good Enough for Government Work, which was awarded both the Woodrow Wilson Award and the Gladys Kammerer Award from the American Political Science...

Terri Bimes

Associate Teaching Professor of Political Science
Charles and Louise Travers Department of Political Science

Terri Bimes is an Associate Teaching Professor in the Charles and Louise Travers Department of Political Science, teaching courses on the presidency and the senior honor thesis writing seminar. Her past publications include articles on populism and presidential elections. She also directs the John Gardner Public Service Fellowship Program.

Cecilia Mo

Associate Professor of Political Science
Charles and Louise Travers Department of Political Science

Cecilia Hyunjung Mo is an associate professor of Political Science at University of California, Berkeley. She is also an associate professor of public policy (by courtesy) at UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy. She specializes in behavioral political economy, comparative political behavior, the political economy of development, and social policy research. She focuses on significant contemporary challenges to development and moral issues of today like cultivating democratic citizenship, understanding and addressing the negative consequences of rising inequality, combatting modern...

Nicholas Vargas

Associate Professor of Chicanx/Latinx Studies
Department of Ethnic Studies

I am an Associate Professor of Chicanx/Latinx Studies in the Department Ethnic Studies. I am fortunate to co-lead the Latinxs and Democracy Cluster at UCB and serve as Faculty Co-Director of the UCB Latino Social Science Pipeline Initiative (LSSPI), both of which aim to advance Latinx social science scholarship and strengthen academic pipelines.

My research is situated primarily in the social sciences with foci on...

Sarah Anzia

Associate Professor of Political Science & Public Policy
Sarah Anzia studies American politics with a focus on state and local government, elections, interest groups, political parties, and public policy. Her book, Timing and Turnout: How Off-Cycle Elections Favor Organized Groups, examines how the timing of elections can be manipulated to affect both voter turnout and the composition of the electorate, which, in turn, affects election outcomes and public policy. She also studies the role of government employees and public-sector unions in elections and policymaking in the U.S. In addition, she has written about the politics of public pensions,...