Leadership/Staff

Mary Watson

Purchasing and Administrative Coordinator
Institute of Governmental Studies

Originally from Western Pennsylvania, Mary Watson graduated from Cal Poly Humboldt with a BA in English and a single subject teaching credential in 2014. She worked as the Administrative Coordinator for the University Senate of Cal Poly Humboldt, and, most recently, as an Administrative Associate in the School of Medicine at Stanford University. In her leisure time Mary enjoys going to concerts and attending board game nights with her partner, as well as reading, watching films, and creating art.

Eric Schickler

IGS Co-Director, Jeffrey & Ashley McDermott Professor of Political Science
Charles and Louis Travers Department of Political Science

Eric Schickler is Jeffrey & Ashley McDermott Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of three books which have won the Richard F. Fenno, Jr. Prize for the best book on legislative politics: Disjointed Pluralism: Institutional Innovation and the Development of the U.S. Congress (2001), Filibuster: Obstruction and Lawmaking in the United States Senate (2006, with Gregory Wawro), and Investigating the President: Congressional Checks on Presidential Power (2016, with Douglas Kriner; also winner of the Richard E....

Mark DiCamillo

Berkeley IGS Poll Director
Berkeley IGS Poll
Institute of Governmental Studies

Mark DiCamillo is director of the Berkeley IGS Poll, a non-partisan survey of California public opinion on matters of politics, public policy and public affairs conducted by the Institute of Governmental Studies (IGS) at UC Berkeley. Working under IGS co-directors Eric Schickler and Cristina Mora, he is responsible for overseeing the design and execution of each poll, as well as preparing reports and press releases summarizing its findings to the news media. DiCamillo has been actively involved in...

Dawn Geddes

Administrative Manager
Institute of Governmental Studies

Dawn Geddes is the Administrative Manager at the Institute of Governmental Studies. After studying English literature with a focus on Britain between the world wars, Dawn designed and managed wardrobe for theater and television, worked as a fiction editor, and produced and managed prominent e-commerce websites. She joined UC Berkeley in 2007 and IGS in 2019.

Ezra Bristow

Event and Communications Coordinator
Institute of Governmental Studies
Ezra received a BA in Studio Arts at Trinity College and studied Visual Arts and Communication Studies at the University of the West Indies in Trinidad and Tobago. In 2015, Ezra pivoted from visual arts to performing arts when he became one of the principal dancers and volunteer social media & marketing manager for SambaFunk! Carnaval Explosion, an Oakland-based nonprofit arts organization. Over the last five years, Ezra has supported live and virtual performances, fundraising campaigns, and events with companies and organizations like the National Institute for Mental Illness, LiveNation...

Institute of Governmental Studies Directors

G. Christina Mora and Eric Schickler serve as the co-directors for the Institute of Governmental Studies. They have come together as co-direcotrs because they value an interdisciplinary approach and envision IGS as a welcoming space for all who are interested in politics and governance issues defined broadly.

They also value collaboration and will work to make IGS a place that fosters community as it encourages deep conversations across disciplines. Whether you are in Political Science, Sociology, History, Ethnic Studies, Economics, Public Health or another field...

G. Cristina Mora

IGS Co-Director, Associate Professor of Sociology
Department of Sociology

Associate Professor Cristina Mora (Sociology) completed her B.A. in Sociology at UC Berkeley in 2003 and earned her PhD in Sociology from Princeton University in 2009. Before returning to Cal, she was a Provost Postdoctoral Scholar in Sociology at the University of Chicago. Professor Mora’s research focuses mainly on questions of racial and ethnic categorization, organizations, and immigration. Her book, Making Hispanics, was published in 2014 by the University of Chicago Press and provides a socio-historical account of the rise of the “Hispanic/Latino” panethnic category in the...