Curricula Vitae in Political Science

Name	Personal Focus	Summary
Samuel Bagg Assistant Professor	democratic theorizing in a realistic picture of the dynamic of social inequality and political power	Samuel Bagg is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science, where he teaches courses in political theory. Before coming to UofSC, he taught at the University of Oxford, McGill University, and Duke University, where he received his PhD in 2017.
Dr. Katherine Barbieri Associate Professor	International Trade & War, International Trade Statistics, Economics and Conflict Zones	Professor Barbieri's research focuses on the relationship between trade and war. She is particularly interested in trade and economic activities in war and conflict zones; trade between enemies; globalization and violence; and measures of illegal and legal trade ties. She is the co-host of the Correlates of War (COW) Project's International Trade Data set. The data set includes national and dyadic trade figures for the period 1870-2009.
Dr. Anuradha Chakravarty Associate Professor	Justice and post-conflict transitions, Human Rights Law and Politics, Comparitive Studies of Genocide	Dr. Chakravarty's dissertation entitled "Surrendering Consent: The Politics of Transitional Justice in post-genocide Rwanda" shows how legal processes with the goal of dispensing reconciliatory justice lead people to concede to state elites the "right to rule" despite believing that current state elites lack the moral authority to govern. Thus citizens do not enforce limits on the state, enabling elites in power to deprive them of political rights and still survive on citizen support.
Elizabeth C Connors Assistant Professor	studies how people’s social surroundings influence their political values, opinions, and behaviors	Elizabeth studies how people’s social surroundings influence their political values, opinions, and behaviors. Using a variety of methods—including survey experiments, lab experiments, and various types of observational analyses—she speaks to core and timely questions relating to political behavior, political communication, and political psychology in American politics. Elizabeth’s research has been funded by the Time-Sharing Experiments for the Social Sciences and she has received various awards
Professor Robert Cox Professor	European Political Institutions, Political Economy, Comparative Public Policy, Modern Political Thought, Welfare States	Dr. Cox' research examines public policy issues in advanced industrialized societies. Many of his publications have examined the politics of welfare reform in European countries. His recent research focuses on the role of the European Union in promoting sustainability programs among its member states.
Dr. David Darmofal Professor		He has research interests in political behavior, American political development, and political methodology. Much of his research examines how political geography and spatial interactions shape the behavior of political actors. His methodological research interests include spatial analysis, survival analysis, and time series analysis.
Dr. Cody Alan Drolc Assistant Professor		Cody Drolc is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of South Carolina. His research and teaching interests are at the intersection of public administration, public policy, and American politics. Professor Drolc’s research focuses on the broader network of government oversight that includes inspectors general and the Government Accountability Office and their role in enhancing accountability and administrative performance.
Chelsea Leigh Estancona Assistant Professor	political economy of conflict and criminality	Dr. Estancona is an Assistant Professor in Political Science at the University of South Carolina. Her research focuses on the political economy of conflict and criminality. She assesses how volatility in the international market impacts rebels' and criminals' behavior toward civilians and the corresponding state response to changes in violent groups' economic capacity.
Tobias Heinrich Associate Professor		Tobias Heinrich will receive his PhD from Rice University this May. After graduating from the University of Regensburg, he joined Rice to study international relations, foreign policy, and political methodology. His dissertation, "Strategic Choices in Foreign Aid," employs models of political economy to understand broad patterns of foreign aid flows as well as their consequences on recipient countries' policy choices.
John Hsieh Professor	Rational Choice Theory, Constitutional Choice, Electoral Systems	John Fuh-sheng Hsieh received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Rochester in 1982. Currently, he is Professor at the Department of Political Science, University of South Carolina. His teaching and research interests include rational choice theory, constitutional choice, electoral systems, electoral behavior, political parties, democratization, foreign policy, and East Asian politics.
Howard (Hao) Liu Assistant Professor		Howard Liu is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of South Carolina. His research has been published at Journal of Politics, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Journal of Global Security Studies, and Political Science Research and Methods.
Dr. Kelan Lu Associate Professor	Comparative/International Political Economy, Chinese Politics, Research Methodology	Professor Lu’s research interests focus on comparative/international political economy, particularly the role played by domestic politics in the dynamics of bilateral foreign direct investment (FDI). She is also interested in applications of dynamic panel data modeling.
Kristin Lunz Trujillo Assistant Professor
Dr. Chase Bradford Meyer Instructor	how voters perceive the ideology and particular positions of different candidates, how their ideology and partisanship impact their roles once elected to Congress	Chase Meyer is an Instructor in the Department of Political Science at the University of South Carolina. Professor Meyer’s research and teaching interests focuses primarily on American Politics, particularly in the areas of Congress, elections, and political parties. Much of his work examines how voters perceive the ideology and particular positions of different candidates for office and political parties as well as how their ideology and partisanship impact their roles once elected to Congress.
Joshua Meyer-Gutbrod Instructor	explores inconsistencies in both policy and rhetoric, examining bipartisan cooperation between federal and state agents, partisan rhetoric at different levels of government	Joshua Meyer-Gutbrod is teaching faculty at the University of South Carolina, Department of Political Science. Josh’s research explores the limits of the growing animosity between Democratic and Republican politicians associated with partisan polarization by examining bipartisan cooperation between federal and state agents. Much of his work examines partisan rhetoric at different levels of government, with a focus on the President, members of Congress, and state legislators.
Dr. Kirk Andrew Randazzo Department Chair/Professor	Hierarchical relationships and strategic behavior within the federal judiciary, Measurement issues in judicial politics, especially measures of precedent, constraint, and attitudes, The Federal judiciary's influence on, and interpretation of, US foreign policy	Professor Randazzo's research and teaching interests span the fields of American Politics, Comparative Politics, and Methodology - with a particular focus on law and judicial politics. His work focuses on legal constraints to judicial decision making, strategic behavior among judges, and aspects of judicial independence within fledgling democracies.
Dr. Jessica Ann Schoenherr Assistant Professor	identify and document the nature of attorneys' influence over US Supreme Court justices and the law, role that attorney gender plays at the U.S. Supreme Court	Jessica Schoenherr is an Assistant Professor in the department, which she joined shortly after receiving her Ph.D. from Michigan State University in 2020. Her teaching focuses on American judicial institutions, including courses on constitutional law and judicial politics and process.
Dr. Todd Cameron Shaw Associate Professor	African American Politics, Black political ideology, Urban politics and housing policy	He researches and teaches broadly in the areas of African American politics, urban politics and public policy, as well as citizen activism and social movements.
Douglas Thompson Associate Professor		Doug Thompson researches and teaches ancient, modern, and contemporary political thought, with a special focus on Renaissance and early-modern political ideas. His current research project reinterprets Michel de Montaigne’s Essais in light of his political activity as a high-level negotiator during the Wars of Religion in late sixteenth-century France.
Chun-han (Navida) Wang Instructor		Navida Chun-han Wang is teaching faculty. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2022. Her teaching focuses on International Relations, including courses on global politics and human rights.
Dr. Matthew Charles Wilson Associate Professor	autocratic institutions, democratization	Professor Wilson received his PhD from the Pennsylvania State University in 2015 and joined the USC faculty in 2019. He is also a Research Fellow at the Varieties of Democracy Institute in Gothenburg, Sweden, where he is part of a team of researchers exploring patterns in democratization over time. His research interests concern the interactions of autocratic leaders and political institutions, particularly with regard to regime change and conflict outcomes.
Neal Woods Professor		Professor Woods’ research interests lie in the areas of public policy, public administration, federalism and intergovernmental relations, and state politics. Substantively, much of his research focuses on environmental/energy policy and regulation. He has published numerous articles on these and related topics in political science, public administration, and public policy journals.